Most exotic plausible World War 2 standard-issue weapons?

[Carl Schwamberger]

Hang with me on this...

In the chaos of the collapse of France in June 1940 the relevant portions of the Curie Institute, other key physics documents from other French sources, the physicists both French and refugee, the Heavy Water acquired from Norse Hydro back in March 1940, and the trainload of Uranium Ore enroute to France. are all evacuated in a organized manner. Evading the Brits after Frances Gold bullion the French ship takes refuge in a US port. The USN which had a atomic power research program already under way from 1939 takes a long interrogatory series of conversations with the French refugees & the collective group has a abrupt Holy S...t! moment in late August or September. The Admirals hie off to Roosevelt who establishes the MANHATTAN PROJECT a year early 9 October 1940 vs 9 October 1941 as OTL.

OTL the French program was scattered to the winds. Much of the documentation was hidden in France. The Germans parked the Uranium Ore & nearly forgot about it, the Heavy Water went to several laboratories, some physicists hunkered down in France, some found their way to the US, and some were rescued by the Brits. Altogether it took better than a year for the US and Britain to consolidate the progress with their own research & understand the practical possibility of a weapon. This alternate may not get to a working bomb by August 1944. but can cut six months or more off the development.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Post 1918 the US Army continues to fund Goddards & others research into rockets for weapons. In the summer of 1943 the first propaganda shots of the US first IRBM land on Berlin & other assorted German cities.

.... providing the US infantry with shoulder fired AT and demolition weapons with kg+ explosive payloads, vs the ounces in the Bazooka.

...allowing the US to send air to air and air to ground rockets to the RAF in 1940.

... the US Army fielding multiple rocket launcher type artillery from 1941.

 

[COMV99]

The US made more Uranium Metal by Fall 1942, than Greater Germany would by the end of the War.
It seemed to take 10 years for anyone to think of using it alloyed with other materials as a projectile, you just can't use pure U or DU

Titanium is used as an alloying metal in APFSDS, so it's complete out of reach. Molybdenum might be possible, according to wikipedia, but I have doubts about its mechanical properties. Germany would become a large scale Uranium producer after the war, so development of uranium mining beforehand could allow for sufficient production in so far that term can be used in Nazi Germany, but it'll probably more for armor than armor piercing.

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.

Uranium metal is noted as being ductile, which is the opposite of brittle, but I don't know the numbers. I wouldn't be as worried about shaping, tungsten carbide is harder and Uranium has a melting point less than that of iron.

I do want to see a something like the American-180 being issued. A baby's first MG-42 for paratroopers or a manpack gatling version. The Gatling could be upguned to 9mm or .45. Maybe a .45 handcranked integrally suppressed Gatling gun, with the option for a motor.

 

[stephen the barbarian]

imo, china has potential for weird weapons.
thanks to the civil war, their lack of infrastructure, and the arms embargo the pieces are in place for the nifty stuff to pop up.
after all baggers can't be choosers.

 

[Father Maryland]

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.

Hence why I wonder about it being deployable earlier. Yes it might not work as well on a German city as a Japanese one. But Bat's would still roost in places like (wooden) attics, old buildings, and such. Basically have a large number of fires start simultaneously across a wide area.

 

[Father Maryland]

imo, china has potential for weird weapons.
thanks to the civil war, their lack of infrastructure, and the arms embargo the pieces are in place for the nifty stuff to pop up.
after all baggers can't be choosers.

I'm imagining a Chinese Broomhandle Mauser copy (or "Wauzer") that's somehow designed into a automatic SMG with a drum or long stick magazine.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

I'm imagining a Chinese Broomhandle Mauser copy (or "Wauzer") that's somehow designed into a automatic SMG with a drum or long stick magazine.

A fully automatic Mauser C 96 carbine with a drum magazine would seem like a no brainer for the Chinese market considering how many of the pistols (and Spanish knock offs) that were sold there.

 

[Dorknought]

Only one for Andy Murphy, and that film toned down a lot of what he did.
And there has never been a film on Stephen Decatur, whos one of his Barbary War actions impressed Nelson(yes that Nelson) to remark 'the most bold and daring act of the age'
Same for never getting a film on Admiral Lord Cochrane himself, who inspired a lot of fictional RN Captains

Adrian Carton de Wiart needs a movie.

 

[Ravinoff]

Dr. Gatling himself did experiment successfully with an electrically driven Gatling gun in the late 1890s. So it's definitely plausibly possible.

Electrically-driven ones would definitely have made sense, even something equivalent to a GAU-19 would absolutely shred attacking aircraft if mounted on a warship. I'm honestly surprised it didn't pop up with all the experimentation going on. But when I say non-electric, I'm thinking (for WWII, at least) gears and chains and hydraulics. Something like a 5"/38 turret equipped with a couple big-bore Gatlings in the 25mm range, but instead of having an electrical feed from the ship, it's all powered by a big diesel engine in the upper ready room underneath. Hydraulics for elevation, traverse by some kind of huge gear system, with the guns driven by either a high-speed gearbox or...hell, I wonder if you could make a Fokker-Leimberger work with something like a roller chain doubling as the feed system and half-chamber?

imo, china has potential for weird weapons.
thanks to the civil war, their lack of infrastructure, and the arms embargo the pieces are in place for the nifty stuff to pop up.
after all baggers can't be choosers.

China got weeeeeird already, before WWII proper and after. Shangxi C96 copies in .45ACP, FN Model 1900 copies in .30 Mauser/7.65x25mm, about a dozen other kinds of semi-production handguns, every imaginable flavour of Mauser rifle...oh, 250 or so Czech ZH29s that probably ended up captured by the Japanese in Manchuria, that's a good starting point on its own.

 

[Myth]

I'm imagining a Chinese Broomhandle Mauser copy (or "Wauzer") that's somehow designed into a automatic SMG with a drum or long stick magazine.

Something like this, just with a different magazine?

 

[Father Maryland]

Something like this, just with a different magazine?

Pretty much plus some other improvements. Maybe go for a folding or swinging wire shoulder stock versus the removable old fashioned wooden carbine shoulder stock. Then make the magazine larger if possible.

Even more insane would be if you took that and somehow figured out a way to make a Rifle Grenade launcher for them.

 

[marathag]

Pretty much plus some other improvements.

like muzzle brake and a three round burst to aid keeping it on target
Problem with grenade launcher, is simple recoil.
To get a good sized grenade with a decent range, is beyond the ability of the human hand and wrist to absorb that energy

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

How many films would there be about Mad Jack if he'd been an American?

Sean Connery as Jack?

 

[Myth]

Sean Connery as Jack?

Robert Shaw.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Would he draw finger nails across polished slate?

 

[unclepatrick]

A japanese type 89 grenade discharger also know as the Knee Mortar that can really be fired from the knee with out breaking the bone .

 

[Myth]

A japanese type 89 grenade discharger also know as the Knee Mortar that can really be fired from the knee with out breaking the bone .

Maybe a really, really weak pneumatic launcher?

 

[Father Maryland]

like muzzle brake and a three round burst to aid keeping it on target
Problem with grenade launcher, is simple recoil.
To get a good sized grenade with a decent range, is beyond the ability of the human hand and wrist to absorb that energy

I know. Intended it entirely because of how fucking insane it would be to have a Broomhandle Mauser SMG with a folding wire stock or swinging stock with say three round burst and a different/larger magazine that can fire smaller sized rifle grenades. Utterly batshit.

Though I was also thinking of those AT weapons the Germans developed from Flare pistols in the early war. Basically picture something with a potruding warhead like a third the size of a Panzerfaust that is fired from a modified Very Pistol. I could totally see a simpler version being quite popular in China. Just with a standard HE warhead. Simple as pie but presumably capable of demolishing most Japanese tanks or more likely blockhouses and being small enough to easily carry.. Pictures units of KMT tsquads armed with say my proposed Broomhandle Mauser SMG/semi assault rifle concept weapons chambered in .45, these flare gun weapons, Enfield Model 1917 with scopes for a designated Marksmen Role and an American copy of the MG 34 chambered in 30:06 (or perhaps 7.92 Mauser for the Chinese). Ooh perhaps they could also say have one of those disposable multi shot mini flamethrowers the Germans developed post war.

Handflammpatrone - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Basically think of it as a sawed off shotgun sized affair that carries three seperate one shot flame cartridges. The thing can be discarded when all three are used.

Also would be interesting if somehow say a regimental sized force of Gurkha's get's deployed to fight in China proper.

Ooh and have balloons released from "Free China" randomly disperse Liberators disposable pistols or disposable one shot Very Pistol firing a warhead similar to the type the Germans developed across occupied China. Meaning that for the Japanese literally any Chinese civilian could be carrying a pistol to assasinate one or a very pistol weapon to take out an entire marching platoon. Of course that would cause the Japanese to commit more atrocities which would build support for the "free Chinese government".

Oh and for the US the "Inflatoplane". A air droppable inflatable rubber airplane designed to be dropped to downed airmen who would inflate the plane and then take off for home. Of course built by Good Year.

I wonder if with a bit more investment earlier a airship AWAC could have been developed. Something large that has the room for the bulkly electronics and fuel to power it. Something that could have extended range for the radar and stay in the air for days. Sort of like the US postwar AWAC blimps. They'd be kept safely behind fighter screens but would be sort of like movable Radar bases. Obviously chum to evena semi modern aircraft but thanks to the radar's height and the power of the design it would have the ability to see far beyond a similar ground based radar.

Or that Soviet TU-2 Bomber variant that was modified to carry 96 downward firing PPSH 41 SMG's in the bomb bay with each SMG loaded with a 71 round drum. Designed for flying over marching German regiments and strafe them.

Speaking of which it's entirely plausible for one or more country to develop a AC-47 type design for hunting partisans. Basically a converted transport plane or old bomber modified with sideways firing machine guns or autocannon. The Japanese would have found such a design immensely useful in China and elsewhere far away from enemy fighters. The Germans could have also used a small number of say converted JU-52s (or more likely transports or bombers captured from France, Belgium, Poland, Denmark, The Netherlands, Austria, and later Soviet and the like. The type that don't have the numbers for full scale German service but enough to provide a small special group. Not sure which captured Allied planes would be best. The US could have used C47s or such modified with say half a dozen .50BMG M2 Brownings to hunt Japanese on islands where they lacked air defenses. Or during campaigns hunting down the scattered remnants.

 

[marathag]

Maybe a really, really weak pneumatic launcher?

High-Low loft charge, followed by small rocket that fires 10' away

 

[Driftless]

Hydrofoils as torpedo boats.

There had been several serious experiments done earlier in the 20th century, so there was some technological background. Forlanini from Italy, Alexander Graham Bell in Canada.