The Very WORST Examples of Military Weapons.

Jeff If it fell out, it could detonate on impact with the ground. I have hear all sorts of idiotic stories about PIATS. Running with them ETC. Stories that are spread by those that have never had to use the bloody ugly things... Most of us tried to leave it in the back of our transport hoping that it would be forgotten...

If you could get close enough to a tank, and were laying down with support for the Weapon? Then you could take out a tank. It would be the last thing you did in this life,The Panzer Grenadiers or the other tanks would get you first.

But you would need a great deal of luck to hit the bloody tank.

But!! if it was that once in a life time bit of luck, and you hit it. It was a gonner!
The effect is a small hole about an inch in diameter, or perhaps a bit larger in the tank side.

It certainly did not look all that harmful! But when the bolt formed by the front of the projectile burned a hole through...The explosive charge followed through and spread the occupants around the inside of the tank rather like JAM.

I have read tales of it being used against infantry. WHY? it was designed to punch a hole on impact and would do no harm to infantry unless it hit one of the soldiers

A fire in a tank hit in action give very little chance of getting out. Sadly when the tank was opened up the crew would still be sat in their seats. OR their burned white bones would still be sat there... Sadly again. The fire would be of such heat and intensity, that if you touched the white bones they would disintegrate into white powder.

The recoil could push you back 6 feet and when the projectile hit anything, the fin would come flying back at the firers ROLL SIDEWAYS!

I have not destroyed too many fanciful ideas gained from books?
Sapper

 

Hey, Jeff, if you really think the Liberator was that bad, do you want to sell it to me? I've been looking for one. Doc

I don't own one. Read about it. It was a more or less useless "weapon". Probably more dangerous if your threw it at someone instead of pulling the trigger.

 

The Liberators were originally intended to be used in Operation Braddock as part of an 'attack pack' to be airdropped to resistance fighters. I wrote a little article about the operation here:
Black Propaganda - Operation Braddock


Sapper, what did you think of the Boys Anti-tank rifle?

 

Horrible reputation. Olod fashioned even in 1944... Would not be seen dead with one.
Cheers Sapper

 

Horrible reputation. Olod fashioned even in 1944... Would not be seen dead with one.
Cheers Sapper

I thought you'd say something like that. Nasty recoil and bloody heavy too as my old grandad used to say.

 

As well as being too heavy, the bomb was only placed in the tray, and could easily fall out while carrying it.

Although that's also true of the panzerschreck and the bazooka. The only infantry Rocket AT weapon that you could run about with would be the panzerfaust, I think.

 

The Defiant was never mistaken for a Hurricane, btw, it was well known long before Dunkirk.

 

The Ross always gets an undeservedly bad reoputation, for obvious reasons. BUT - the problem was simple. The Ross was a "straight-pull" bolt...which requires very precise machining for reliable working - and of course no dirt or mud LOL. Now, the establishment of the Ross production line in Canada was paralleled by the first production of Canadian-manufactured .303 ammunition - on new tooling and to very precise measurements.

When the CEF arrived in Europe it brought a quantity of its own Canadian-made ammunition with it...but only around two and a half months supply, NOT factoring in training. Once the Canadian-made .303 was exhausted, the CEF began using BRITISH-MADE .303...

...which was made on older machinery to nothing like the manufacturing tolerances in Canada. The Lee-Enfield bolt and breech could take the unevenly headspaced BRITISH .303 rounds...BUT the far more-closely machined Ross couldn't....not with the random factor of dirt and mud AS WELL.

In order to facilitate the eventual changeover from Ross to SMLE the British government actually BOUGHT the produced Ross Rifles from Canada...thus subsidizing the creation of the Lee Enfield production line. And mothballed the Ross' A considerable number were cleaned and issued to second-line security and civil service staff in Ireland in the War of Independence - Coast Guards, bank staff etc. - but were as useless on BRITISH .303 as they had been a couple of years earlier. The IRA frequently raided these establishments as well as Police barracks for arms....and threw away Ross Rifles when they got their hands on Lee Enfields!!!

The clock rolls forward 20 years....and during WWII the British government supplied it's remaining "2nd-user" Ross rifles to the Irish Government to arm its home guards in Eire...having issued Long Lees, and P14 and P17s to the BRITISH Home Guard! ....however, supplied AGAIN with BRITISH-made .303 ammunition, these "Irish" Ross' rifles showed the SAME disastrous jamming rate as they had with British ammo in WWI!!!

Suprisingly though, between the wars the Ross had an enviable reputation as a target-shooting and competition rifle when fitted with a scope:mellow:

 

A terrible excuse of a military weapon is ther Japanese Nambu pistol. Because the recoil spring was exposed it would jam all of the time and it would go off unexpectedly while in the holster.

 

As stated in post number 8 of this thread.

 

hm.
The worst in my books is the Dog Bomb...
ha, woof, woof, bang! =[
But the Russians brought themselves a WHOLE lotta bad... [does that make sence??]

 

MP44 vorsatz Pz, the "There's no one here but us chickens" gun


http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=146989&sid=57ae7a77870810628a2e572fcfd1c203 http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=146988&sid=57ae7a77870810628a2e572fcfd1c203

What happened to the bullets!
http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=146996&sid=57ae7a77870810628a2e572fcfd1c203

 

OK Here we go.The worst weapons we possessed were the STEN and the PIAT. Both were disasters The sten could not hit a barn door, and the Piat? As well as being too heavy, the bomb was only placed in the tray, and could easily fall out while carrying it. If you hit anything with the Piat? it would be by sheer good luck.
If there is any question? I have used both in action....Dreadful !

I can also tell you that being out in front, on "Point" with a Piat on your own is the lonely place on earth.
Sapper

Sapper,

Regarding the Sten and its accuracy.The Germans loved to possess captured Stens as trophies and they were readily available to them from air drop containers where French Resistance Reseaux had been penitrated by the SD.The weapon's characteristics could work in the favour of those who knew of its deficiencies. I saw it recorded that a member of the SAS,when captured behind the lines in France was aware of the Stens that the Germans were brandishing.When the Germans opened up on the captured group,he escaped taking advantage of the knowledge of the weapon.Luck was with him on that day.Others were not so lucky.

As you know the Sten was easy to manufacture and cost little (1 pound in the 1940s).Reading the account of the Polish Home Army,they manufactured their own version of the Sten for the Warsaw Uprising in substantial amounts.Their engagement was one of a 61 day ordeal with help only from the west and that was a long haul, chiefly from the Italian bases supported to a lesser degree from airfields in England.

The Sten may have not been the complete weapon but its specification was good enough to deter the Germans in the house to house battle for Warsaw.

Regarding the Boyes anti tank rifle, it was a product of our armaments industry design which lagged behind the requirements for an effective anti tank weapon against what tanks the Germans were designing and manufacturing.Possibily influenced by post 1935 British intelligence reports that the Germans only possessed "cardboard tanks".We found out the truth later when it hurt and much to our cost.

 

Without wishing to open a hornets nest I watched a documentary about Op Market Garden and the experts (A weapons chap/historian and a WW2 Vet) tested an original Sten against a Original MP40 and after all the tests of stoppages, hitting power, accuracy etc there was very little to split the two.

The programmes was Battlefield Detectives I believe and they were researching possibly failings in the operation. The conclusion was there was nothing wrong with the Sten Gun.

Cheers
Andy

 

Given the bravery and performance of the British Paras at Arnhem I would conclude that the Sten didnt hamper the performance of the soldiers and if it was inadequate they certainly found a way around it.

 

Most vets I have spoken to have pretty much agreed with Sapper, they said it was at its best used at close quarters clearing trenches, fox holes, houses etc.

 

Don't know why the Canadian shovel was rubbished so badly at the start of the thread,shove it in the fork of a tree and use it as a toilet seat.

Just don't use it pointy end up.

Cheers Rob

 

How about the "improved" torpedoes that the US Navy used at the start of Americas war. Those things ran deep, and almost never exploded if they did hit the target ship. They were supposed to explode under the keel. Instead they just ran way under the ship, and kept on going. Like I say, whenever they did actually hit the ship, they just broke up, never exploding.

Of course the US Navy brass was more concerned with covering the whole thing up instead of concentrate on fixing them. That was the sad part. Eventually they had to address the problem, when it could no longer be covered up. Now those were some useless weapons. They saved a lot of Japanese lives.

 

OK Here we go.The worst weapons we possessed were the STEN and the PIAT. Both were disasters The sten could not hit a barn door, and the Piat? As well as being too heavy, the bomb was only placed in the tray, and could easily fall out while carrying it. If you hit anything with the Piat? it would be by sheer good luck.
If there is any question? I have used both in action....Dreadful !

I can also tell you that being out in front, on "Point" with a Piat on your own is the lonely place on earth.
Sapper
Forgive me but having fired Stens in the past (In the CCF.) I just can't agree with you. The Sten gun is at least as accurate as any other SMG of the period. In fact having been armed with a Sterling in the past, I couldn't find much difference. (However the Sterling just felt much nicer to hold and carry.)

Second your comment about the PIAT bomb being able to fall out of the weapon, I can only suggest that you were inadequately trained. (Correctly loaded, the bomb won't fall out.) As for is being a disaster, it is heavy but PIATs killed lots of tanks and in the absence of anything else that seems a good thing to me. (The Bazooka only reached the PIATs killing power with the post-war 3.5 inch Super Bazooka.)

 

MP44 vorsatz Pz, the "There's no one here but us chickens" gun


http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=146989&sid=57ae7a77870810628a2e572fcfd1c203 http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=146988&sid=57ae7a77870810628a2e572fcfd1c203

What happened to the bullets!
http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=146996&sid=57ae7a77870810628a2e572fcfd1c203

From the little I've seen about the "shoot around the corner" attachment for the Mp44 was that it actually worked. The real " worst Example of Military Weapon" was the reason that this was developed in the first place. As from the picture above, this was obviously developed and intended to be installed in an armored vehicle. The actual vehicle was the Elephant, the monstrous behemoth that for some reason the designers figured didn't need any anti-infantry arms. As we all know, they were wrong. The curved barrel attachment was developed to address this deficiency and allow the occupants of the vehicle to hose down the sides of their own tank should they be approached by enemy infantry. The fact that the barrel tended to shred the bullets was not thought to be a bad thing because the targets were at close range and this gave the gun a "shotgun" effect. I don't recall hearing if the empty shell casings rolling around on the tank floor caused any problems.