The Weirdest Weapons That Failed Spectacularly Explained
Lona Explain In Paint
28,175 views
History is full of weird weapons that looked brilliant on paper and failed when reality got involved. This video explores 18 bizarre military inventions, from ancient scythed chariots and giant siege towers to flying tanks, rocket-powered wheels, parasite fighters, and Cold War air-defense systems.
See why the Scythed Chariots failed at Gaugamela, how the massive Helepolis struggled at Rhodes, why the Turtle submarine never sank a British ship, and what went wrong with weapons like the Tsar Tank, Mark 14 torpedo, Antonov A-40, Bat Bomb, Great Panjandrum, Krummlauf, Me 163 Komet, V-3 Supergun, Project Aphrodite, XF-85 Goblin, Gyrojet, and M247 Sergeant York. The common thread is not simply bad engineering. Many of these ideas solved real military problems, but introduced new ones that proved even harder to overcome.
Chapters
0:00 Scythed Chariots at Gaugamela
2:28 The Helepolis
4:57 The Turtle Submarine
7:15 The Nock Volley Gun
9:20 Novgorod
11:43 The Tsar Tank
14:06 The Boirault Machine
16:09 The Mark 14 Torpedo
19:30 The Antonov A-40 Flying Tank
21:42 The Bat Bomb
24:15 The Great Panjandrum
26:37 The Krummlauf
28:45 The Me 163 Komet
31:11 The V-3 Supergun
33:23 Project Aphrodite and Anvil
35:51 The XF-85 Goblin
38:10 The Gyrojet
40:29 The M247 Sergeant York
Which failed weapon had the best idea but the worst execution?
#MilitaryHistory #WeirdWeapons #WeaponsExplained
18 Comments
#1 The scythed chariot is consistently shown with a single man. The only uses for a one-man chariot were racing and maybe hauling the mail if it was too heavy for a horseman. Chariots for battle carried two or three men, a driver and one or two men to fight with bows and spears. The scythes were extra, not the main weapon. They may have been invented by the Persians to break up the Greek phalanx, which was a singularly inflexible formation, but every professional military of later eras was trained to deal with them in just the way shown. Armies went back and forth between mounting scythes in hopes of catching untrained militia or unprepared and scattered troops and leaving them off so the chariots could pack closer together, until they bred larger horses and cavalry replaced chariots except for ceremonies or carrying a few leaders around.
And that answers whether the text is as badly researched as the drawings. I'm not wasting time seeing what utter ignorance is revealed in #3.
*the Chinese invented gunpowder about thirteen hundred years after the siege of Rhodes
Does ask questions. But like you said...it did exist...and they certainly did try it.
The fire bombing bats is the winner.
This race question: is information reliable, or just AI hallucination?
The Weirdest Weapons That Failed Spectacularly Explained
Lona Explain In Paint
28,175 views
History is full of weird weapons that looked brilliant on paper and failed when reality got involved. This video explores 18 bizarre military inventions, from ancient scythed chariots and giant siege towers to flying tanks, rocket-powered wheels, parasite fighters, and Cold War air-defense systems.
See why the Scythed Chariots failed at Gaugamela, how the massive Helepolis struggled at Rhodes, why the Turtle submarine never sank a British ship, and what went wrong with weapons like the Tsar Tank, Mark 14 torpedo, Antonov A-40, Bat Bomb, Great Panjandrum, Krummlauf, Me 163 Komet, V-3 Supergun, Project Aphrodite, XF-85 Goblin, Gyrojet, and M247 Sergeant York. The common thread is not simply bad engineering. Many of these ideas solved real military problems, but introduced new ones that proved even harder to overcome.
Chapters
0:00 Scythed Chariots at Gaugamela
2:28 The Helepolis
4:57 The Turtle Submarine
7:15 The Nock Volley Gun
9:20 Novgorod
11:43 The Tsar Tank
14:06 The Boirault Machine
16:09 The Mark 14 Torpedo
19:30 The Antonov A-40 Flying Tank
21:42 The Bat Bomb
24:15 The Great Panjandrum
26:37 The Krummlauf
28:45 The Me 163 Komet
31:11 The V-3 Supergun
33:23 Project Aphrodite and Anvil
35:51 The XF-85 Goblin
38:10 The Gyrojet
40:29 The M247 Sergeant York
Which failed weapon had the best idea but the worst execution?
#MilitaryHistory #WeirdWeapons #WeaponsExplained