Most exotic plausible World War 2 standard-issue weapons?
- Thread starter Myth
- Start date
True but the Bat Bombs from everything I've read about them were intended to be used against Japan. I've personally have never read anything about them being used against Germany but I could be wrong, not going to argue about it.
marathag
Banned
It was unnecessary in either theater, honestly, since the regular HE and Incendiaries worked.
I remember this scenario once I read on the Wiki where basically WWII drags into the late 40s/50s. One of them had the Red Army develop the AK-47 from behind enemy lines using captured STG-44s.
It was then put to great advantage once the Red Army thundered past the Urals, surprising the war-weary Germans.
It was then put to great advantage once the Red Army thundered past the Urals, surprising the war-weary Germans.
Percy Hobart had a pike even though he had hands on experience at forming armoured units
The chemist who came up with the idea believed the bat bombs would cause more damage than ordinary incendiaries because the bats would scatter and spread fires over a wider area.
Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King cancelled the project when he learned the bat bombs wouldn't be ready until around mid 1945 about the same time as another secret weapon of mass destruction would be ready as well.
A badass in the truest sense of the word; this guy killed Germans with a friggin' LONGBOW when he was being shot at with MACHINEGUNS; ponder the awesomeness of this for a moment...
Ferrouranium alloys were used in place of molybdenum during WW1. They could start coming into vogue again as the Nazis seek autarky. With steel still being used in anti-tank shells, the greater density of ferrouranium (assumption) could be seen as a bonus. Then research into a more uranium based alloy could begin in order to increase density further. The pyrophoric properties might be known or become apparent with greater uranium concentrations, so rounds can contain less or even no explosive filler allowing for even greater armor penetration. No explosive filler means no need for a fuse, though I don't know if the production of those poses significant difficulty.
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That's assuming the uranium alloys used at this point in time are remotely good enough for subcaliber cores or rods. The pyrophoric effect is overrated, it doesn't affect anywhere near enough material to do much.
I meant uranium as a substitute for tungsten and steel in the ammunition of the time, not reproducing modern ammo. You are right about the pyrophoricity not being a factor. There was ammo that eschewed explosive filler in WW2, so it's going to be equivalent to that. I was thinking of ammo that had minimal explosive filler (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzergranate_39)
but I suppose the pyrophoricity wouldn't have after impact effects like even that.
What I mean is that I'm not even sure the mechanical properties of Uranium alloys of the time were anywhere near good enough to make cores. If it's too brittle it may even be worse than steel. Then again I might be wrong, tungsten alloys were good enough after all and research on them for ammo probably dated only to 1935 or so. And now that I think about it they did develop some DU-cored rounds late in the war.
Shaping it might be a problem.
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