Meet 10 armaments that went completely wrong in its creation

War engineering was able to design and produce the most diverse types of weapons during and after the 20th century, the era of the great wars. Some of them were formidable - not that guns are good things, but in the sense that they are a great engineering project and perform optimally on what they are meant to do. Others were miserable failures and endangered anyone who tried to use them, regardless of their level of preparedness.

Among these terribly sloppy weapons we can find battle tanks, rifles, bombs and even submarines, warships and bombers. Check out the full list:

1. Battleships Novgorod class

Created in the 1870s, these weird round warships were produced by Russia to protect their interests over the Black Sea and the Dnieper River. The unusual shape was inspired by a British naval engineer who believed that a round ship would be easier to maneuver.

His mistake. In addition to being difficult to maneuver, the battleships of this class were very unstable from the flat hull underneath and could not navigate against the current of the Dnieper. Although more stable when firing their weapons and easier to defend against enemy attacks, each time a peripheral cannon fired, the battleship spun wildly on the water.

2. Tegetthoff class battleships

The Tegetthoff class battleships were the first three turret warships built by the Austro-Hungarian Empire on the eve of World War I. With their extreme war power, the battleships were in no way able to perform minimally nimble maneuvers, with the risk of sinking. Their extreme weight when fully armed forced them to remain anchored in the harbor, which happened during virtually all of World War I.

In one of the few incursions of these ships into the Mediterranean Sea, they were attacked by Italian ships and ended up extremely damaged or wrecked. Despite all the crew's efforts to lighten the battleship's weight, attempts to retreat always ended with the ship turning and sinking. With the end of the war, this class of battleship was taken by the Allies and eventually became scrap.

3. Locust M22 Tank

The Locust M22 tank was produced by the US Army during World War II from a brilliant idea: to be a lightweight armed vehicle to be placed on the battlefield by gliders such as Hamilcar Mark I. The tank was “only” eight tons, dimensions 1.8 by 2.1 meters and was equipped with 37 mm armament.

About 100 of them were manufactured and were almost never used in battle, where they proved to be a failure in the few experiences they had. First, some of them fell from their gliders or ended up landing upside down. What's more, the news drew so much attention from enemies that they eventually attracted unnecessary firepower, always being totally destroyed and still posing a great risk to the infantry troops accompanying the M22.

In addition to the enormous vulnerability against the simplest enemy weapons, the 37mm armament was completely harmless to enemy tanks. As a result, it was quite clear that the production of this tank was a bore, and a lot of money and lives of soldiers were wasted in this failed attempt to replace attack force with movement agility.

4. War adhesive pump

Produced by the British Army in partnership with two professors at Cambridge University shortly before World War II, the war bomb was a hand grenade aimed at destroying battle tanks and other armored war vehicles.

Having been a failure in the early tests, the outbreak of the Great War forced them to hastily develop a device with this function to prevent the advance of German infantry. The adhesive bomb was made with a glass ball covered with a softer material, such as wool, wrapped in some adhesive. The idea was that the glass would be firm enough to be thrown, but would break when it hit the surface of the tank, allowing the wool to stick to the vehicle.

In practice, it was a little more complicated: the bomb stuck to absolutely everything, including the military uniform and, even worse, the hands of the soldiers. Time H's solution was to run to the tank and stick the bomb to the vehicle, a considerably suicidal and ineffective option. Needless to say, with very little time in use, these grenades were discontinued from use by the British army.

5. K-19 Submarine

The "cursed" submarine built by the Soviets for retaliation against the Americans has been in trouble since its inception. Powered by nuclear power, the submarine has killed a number of employees employed in its construction, such as an electrician who was crushed by the fall of a huge piece and an engineer who fell between the torpedo firing tubes and also died.

In the first mission of the K-19, a problem with the cooling of one of the reactors caused the submarine vehicle to almost melt underwater, which would lead all crew members to certain death. To circumvent the accident, the captain recruited 22 “volunteers” to enter the reactor and manually cool it. Everyone died of radiation in a matter of hours.

If all these problems were not enough, with only 10 years of use, in 1972, 28 sailors were killed aboard due to a submarine fire. All these catastrophes together led to the permanent shutdown of the vehicle.

6. Panzer Tank 68

What to think of a battle tank built in a country famous for its neutrality, whose military forces only participate in peacekeeping missions and whose guard is remembered for peacefully taking care of the Vatican? It is also worth remembering that the term “Swiss Army” refers mainly to a famous brand of harmless pocketknives.

Well, fate was already written when the Panzer 68 was created to take on the best Soviet tanks at the time, the 1960s. About 400 of them were manufactured with formidable design, computerized firing systems for greater precision and a maneuvering procedure more agile.

Unfortunately, the shot backfired, with a Swiss publication debunking the war vehicles in 1979. According to the magazine, more than 50 problems were found in the Panzer 68, including serious flaws that could endanger the Swiss army itself.

One of the main problems pointed out was the inability of the tank to reverse the direction of its movement without being completely stopped, which greatly compromised its agility. Another terrible thing that happened was an interference of the tank's radio frequency with the electrical system, which caused its cannon to swing from side to side on its own. Worst of all, the Panzer 68 weapon fired on its own when the vehicle's heating system was activated. Not interesting when it comes to a naturally cold country.

7. Bat Bomb

This may be one of the most absurd ideas when it comes to weapons of war. Born of the “creativity” of an American dentist named Lytle S. Adams, the bat bomb was designed to reach Japanese cities and towns - with houses made mostly of wood and other flammable materials - with incendiary charges.

The project mentioned a metal capsule that would be filled with hundreds of Tadarida brasiliensis bats, each equipped with a timed incendiary bomb. The capsule would be flown over Japanese cities in mid-air, causing bats to seek shelter in places with limited access, such as roofs of houses and other structures. Some time later, the flammable charges would be fired and would cause surgical precision fires in Japan's urban and military centers.

It is not necessary to mention how many problems this could cause, such as the animals' means of transport, how to keep them alive until the time of the attack, among others. Still, initial tests from March 1943, authorized by the US government, were successful, but eventually caused disasters, such as when some bats escaped by accident and, 15 minutes later, set fire to an almost entire air force base, besides a general's private car.

Since the development of the project took too long and would not be ready until after the end of the war, the bat bomb was canceled by the army and never tried to use this weapon that would not make Batman proud.

8. Mogami Class Cruisers

Sometimes the maxim that every Japanese or Japanese product is of superior quality to others is not true. This is what happened to the Mogami-class cruisers produced by the Japanese Navy under the 1922 Washignton Naval Treaty, which involved, in addition to Japan, the British Empire, the United States, France, and Italy.

The first objective - building warships of up to 10, 000 tons - was not met when the cruises left the shipyard with 3, 000 tons beyond planned. In addition, the ships were equipped with as much weaponry as possible, which made them too heavy, lightweight and unstable.

Then the worst problems began to appear: the cruiser gunshots caused the welds of the joints of parts and plates to crack. In training under a severe storm, the excessive movement of the seawater warped the hull of one of the ships, making it impossible for one of the cannon towers to rotate and requiring costly repairs. It was not long before they were sunk by American ships in the battles of the Pacific Ocean during World War II.

With just over 20 years of use, the ships were retired shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, luckily for the Russians.

9. Aphrodite Bomber

The Aphrodite project aimed to create unmanned bomber planes to reach targets remotely via radio control. For this, old B-17s were emptied, leaving only the fuselage and the engine, and filled with tons of explosives. A pilot had to do the takeoff procedure, since the remote only worked with the plane already in the air, and with the aircraft in flight should jump from it for safety. The Aphrodite would then be guided remotely by a plane that followed close to him to detonate the chosen target.

The first mission involved four aircraft and was a complete catastrophe. Three of them exploded before the pilots could leave the plane, and the fourth exploded without much damage to the target. In the second attempt, now with three aircraft, one exploded on its own, the other was shot down by its enemies, and the third missed its target and exploded into the ocean.

With very rare successes, the project killed more pilots and damaged aircraft than caused damage to enemies, so it was canceled. One of the pilots killed by the Aphrodite project was the elder brother of US President John F. Kennedy.

10. Ross Rifle

The Ross Rifle is not an example of a weapon that went wrong, but a type of weapon applied in completely wrong situations. Serving as the favorite rifle of Canadian hunters and explorers, the Ross was a very accurate weapon that was eventually chosen by the Canadian government as the rifle of soldiers who were sent to the trenches of World War I.

Bitter mistake. A series of problems arose as soon as the Ross rifle began to be used in Europe: its bayonet dropped whenever the gun was fired, its internal mechanisms ceased to function because of the dirt in the trenches and, worst of all, the dog of the The weapon eventually came loose at the time of a shot, usually hitting the wearer in the head, causing serious injury or even death.

It was not long before Canadian soldiers got rid of this problem as soon as possible, choosing to use dead military weapons when they had a chance to find them. After a year of mistakes, the Canadian military command was forced to change its army weapon.

* Posted on 2/18/2016