Let's have a thread for all the strange weapon systems that have been experimented with, regardless of whether they ended up working or not.
To start off, I present to Zig Forums the Bell YFM-1 Airacuda. Designed in the mid-30's as a dedicated bomber destroyer, the Airacuda featured design features that are nearly unique, although rightfully so. As you can see, the Airacuda had three seperate crew compartments, two located just fore of the pusher-prop engines, and a primary compartment in the central fuselage. The central compartment held the pilot, a copilot/navigator who also acted as a fire control officer and a radio operator who was also responsible for manning the defensive waist machine guns. In each of the engine mounted compartments sat a loader/gunner whose primary purpose was to reload the 37mm M4 autocannon turrets, although he could also operate them independently.
The issues with the Airacuda basically included every aspect of it's design. It was heavy, slow and maneuvered poorly, being slower than most of the bombers it was designed to hunt. The 37mm autocannons turned out to be somewhat less capable that anticipated, in addition to rendering the loaders compartment with smoke during firing. The engines were horribly prone to overheating, to the point that the aircraft was unable to taxi under it's own power and could only start it's engines when towed to the runway immediately before take-off. Speaking of the engines, the failure of either engine during flight would immediately send the aircraft into a spin. Finally, the Airacuda used an independent APU to power every electrical system on the aircraft. This meant that in the event of a failure of the APU, the entire aircraft effectively shut down, leaving the crew with almost no control at all, as the hydraulic, vacuum, fuel pumps, flaps and engines were all dependent upon it. Despite all this, only one death occurred in the Airacuda's two year career, when a pilot's parachute failed to deploy.
The Airacuda entered service in 1940, before being retired in March 1942. All 9 remaining examples were scrapped.
Forgive me if you've heard this one before: The American Convair NB-36H Crusader and Soviet Tupolev Tu-95LAL were modified versions of existing aircraft designed to be nuclear powered long range bombers. Though neither actually had functioning nuclear engines, both held functioning reactors during flight to test if they were safe enough to fly. Despite the enticing potential of a bomber staying in the air for weeks, the projects never really had a chance. They required a LOT of heavy lead shielding to protect the pilots, and nuclear reactors are not easily started up or shut down like conventional propulsion systems. The projects were shuttered since ICBMs became a much more feasible way of transporting nuclear ordinance.
Nuclear reactors make more sense in dirigibles anyway.
Since I can't remember any names I barely know what to search for but … not that many years ago, on TV there was a documentary about a leaf that wanted to sell his military on the idea of a small ducted fan fighter.
The prototype he built was actually only half-ducted; you could see the fan completely and while the wing bent around it, the swamp-airboat sized fan was otherwise in open air.
His idea was, he could build his own for less than twenty grand … "imagine that instead of a single F-15, the horizon was filled with ten thousand of [my aircraft]"
ring any bells, that you could help out here?
Colton Reed
Why don't militaries attach anti-infantry weapons to the wheels of tank treads? We're moving towards the age of spherical/airless wheels, so I don't see why you couldn't attach a gun to one of the least-armoured portion of your vehicle, even if it's just a .22lr full auto turret.
Richard Vogt (left of Udet) was probably the finest Turbo-Autist to have ever designed planes. You may know some of his designs like the massive Bv238 and the weird Bv141. Anyways, he was seemingly obsessed with wacky designs and his designs would never really take-off (figuratively, not literally;they flew pretty well) with the Luftwaffe.
He also worked in the US after the war, and worked on the Nuclear Powered Bomber project.
I'll bring up a few more things I've seen around. Simply looking at this thing tells you everything you need to know. An attempt to counter British air patrols over the Bay of Biscay, several Type-VII Uboats were modified by cramming as many AAA guns onto the deck as possible. Proved fairly useless and the modifications were either canceled or undone. A naval round developed by the Japanese in WWII, these shells consisted of a mass of thermite-filled tubes (1,200 in the 16" version) in an attempt to combine a shotgun and a flamethrower into an anti-aircraft weapon. Generally considered ineffective. A WW2-era radar guided 1000lb bomb. Combat service began in April 1945, sinking several Japanese ships, including damaging an escort destroyer at a range of 37km.
I have honestly read your post at least half a dozen times and I cannot for the life of me figure out what you hope to gain from this. Closest I can figure, you're trying to bring sponsons back? That's fine, but why the wheels? Who would control these? Are you putting one on every wheel? And what does spherical wheels have to do with anything?
Today it would cost as much as a ultralight due to cheapo steel construction, but be as tough as a CAS.
Kayden Martinez
I mean put a ball & socket joint-style turrent on the wheel part of the treads, and remote control it from inside the tank. It doesn't even need a big barrel, just fill the ball with ammunition like a giant drum and pew pew at the infantry that approach/that you spot. Use a cable connection to prevent hax. What's the worse that could happen?
All of the barrels would get fucked by terrain features riding that low on the vehicle, there would be no way to aim them unless you think a camera mounted way down there would stay clean/functional, no one would be up to the task of actually operating them because they would be busy with servicing the non-retarded guns, a hollow drum would make for some really shit tier running gear and would dent/cave in easier than a solid wheel would crack also meaning that the ammo inside would undoubtedly get damaged and cause jams which cant be cleared because the guns are inaccessible, there's no way to stabilize something that is built to bounce up and down with the terrain so it could only be used while stationary but you cant use it while in a hull down position because the guns are on the bottom of the vehicle, there's no way to clear a stoppage or reload without having to pull out the tanker bars and lift the track off, loading new ammo would get a road march's worth of mud inside the drum, no way to change the barrels you fucked up by hitting on rocks and shit and also got obstructed by mud and burst when you tried to shoot without having to pull the entire assembly apart… Fuck this may be a worse idea than invading Russia in late summer with an army relying primarily on horse drawn transportation.
It was an odd, experimental, prop-driven aircraft that was pitched shortly after the RAF and Fleet Air Arm had been shown the proposals for 1st gen jet aircraft. The rear mounted wings & canards were intended to make it easier to land on aircraft carriers (by giving the pilot a better view of the deck) but some of the limited documentation suggests that the design added a few new problems with landing that at least cancelled that advantage out.
U.s. Tried that too with operation Aphrodite which killed a Kennedy, likely a reason that fucker ted took his place as a presidential hopeful (until he killed his pregger secretary)
Benjamin Reed
Ok Zig Forums I need some help. I remember seeing in a book mention of an obscure early (around the end of WW1, maybe early 1920's) US bomber prototype that had two or four engines, mono wings, all metal AND welded construction. Now for the really odd part; it was made of either Iron or Steel, the reason being supposedly they only had the technology to weld ferrous metals at that time or in widespread use. The plane itself was a fairly bland and forgettable looking design from the picture and drawing they had of it.
I've tried looking for it myself but any mention of an Iron bomber just get's me TF2 weapon results and Steel bomber comes out as "Stealth" bomber. The closest I've found was a German design during WW2 (BV.184) that used steel or a US design also from WW2 that used stainless steel (RB-1/C-93).
Kalinin k7 also had an all steel construction, it was common of early monowings.
Jayden White
That was the US WW2 design I mentioned. I forgot that was also a steel construction, and it is much closer to the time period. The plane in question actually looked a lot like the BV.184 though the wings where stouter
Alright folks, let's bust out some weird ass shit. A testbed for the concept of "intubed propeller", the Stipa's design sought to improve the engine efficiency by placing it within the fuselage. While it did this, it's downsides (low top speed, high aerodynamic drag) made it unattractive to the Regia Aeronautica that they did not pursue further development, although the design is said to have influenced jet propulsion development. Another testbed for new technology, the LIG-7 was a novel design in creating variable area wings. The aircraft's main wing was rather narrow, but a series of wing sections were clustered within one another at the root. Through operation of a hand-crank, these wing sections could extend over the main wing, enlarging it's area for more efficient takeoff and landing performance. Despite the apparent absurdity, the RK system worked excellently, although it's only application would be the… In 1938 the designer of the RK system submitted his design for a variable wing area fighter. Intended to be armed with twin ShVAK 20mm cannons and a pair of machine guns, the fighter would also have two sets of wings, with a similar extending wing sheath to transform them into a single large wing for landing and takeoff. Regretably, the RK-I caught the attention of Stalin, who demanded that the plane make use of the M-106 engine, which was just coming into production. While the airframe was completed, the engine was far from ready. Testing in wind tunnels indicated that the RK-I might be able to reach speeds of 780km/h (for reference, the Bf-109E was capable of roughly 550km/h) in it's 'small wing' configuration. The German invasion forced resources away from non-essential war efforts and the project was abandoned.
doesn't fit your time frame but otherwise meets your description en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YB-9 isn't US but does fit time frame and the article specifically mentions steel and difficulty of working with other metals alchetron.com/Junkers-J-1 probably not a martin b10
not that it helps, but you can search your phrase in google and subtract results you dont want e.g. "iron bomber -tf2"
Idk about the latter but apparently pilots and ground crews were having seizures over how loud the thunderscreech was. Contrarotating turboprops tend to have this problem because the props break the sound barrier. Iirc submerged submarine microphones can hear when a tu 95 flies overhead.
Parker Fisher
A torpedo strapped to a simple wing, this allowed torpedoes to be dropped from up to 40km away. Only came into production during the final stages of WWII, but was used successfully, with three of the thirteen launched landing hits on ships within the Japanese harbor of Kagoshima. Just look at these motherfuckers. In late 1942, the Army determined that the B-17 required modifications following it's heavy losses over Europe. To that end, they tasked Major Robert J. Reed to compile a list of changes that would improve the aircraft. Reeds changes were significant enough to require returning to America to have access to adequate facilities and included: Despite this, the changes were seen as too much of a burden on the production lines, so the Dreamboat was never adopted, although many of the changes were used in the B-29 and B-32 bombers currently in testing.
Theoretically, yes. So far as I'm aware though nobody has tried to build one yet, not even the Nazis ended up in that very precise sweet spot where you're screwed enough to want it and doing well enough to green-light weird experimental aircraft prototypes.
Because it has high airflow and good compression (when moving), while no moving parts, it's possible to run a ramjet or pulsejet on anything combustible. That includes wood dust, sugar, wax, or plastic explosives….
Jayden Ramirez
At that point why not just say fuck it and make a star fort on treads?
That is pretty much what the early tanks were though, just a (vaguely) mobile fortification. I imagine the reason that they weren't made star shaped was that it would make the geometry of the tracks an absolute bitch to work with, assuming you gave it tracks to drive in each of the directions the points were headed.
A nuclear thermoelectric drone would be possible now.
I think I've seen the specs for that awhile back. It would have been a decent tactical bomber compared to even P-38.
Logan Carter
That's part of the snorkel kit for deep water fording. A taller pipe is bolted onto that section stuck to the air intake. Seems pretty obvious for a tank belonging to the marines, flying a maritime themed flag, and that heavily corroded on the surface from wading through the ocean more than a few times.
Sebastian Diaz
This abomination would be amusing, if it wasn't a mass grave on threads.
While it was super stupid atleast they can make excuse that it was designed in 30´s when nobody have much clue how to use tanks. This stupid think on the other hand…
Benjamin Collins
...
Easton Scott
Nothing says epic like a three-barreled revolver even if it's .22
Other nations in the thirties could see that these designs are idiotic. The Maus actually fits into the autistic trends of German heavy tank design. It's more like a logical conclusion.
Multi-turret tanks were used by every major nation at the begining of WW2 (generaly less idiotic designs though). Maus is such terrible idea even when you dont have critical shortage of fuel,steel and planes to protect it.
Julian Allen
It does look super fuckin' cool though.
Eli Foster
The Churchill I and the Char B1 were the only "mass-produced" models that had a second gun, and they weren't multi-turreted, the howitzer was mounted on the chassis.
It was a stop-gap model, not made for the same reasons as the rest.
And still not multi-turreted.
Never went into production.
Brayden Reed
The Char B1 was designed to be a heavy assault gun to break through trenches. They just gave the commander a cupola with a machine gun, and that's not a bad idea at all. The problem is that later they went full retard and gave the commander one of their horrible one-man turrets. As for the Churchill I, as far as I understand the howitzer really was just a secondary weapon, exactly like the machine gun it was replaced by.
Angel Mitchell
Only three were used in the campaign in Norway. The Germans knew these things sucked, but they sent them to Oslo as a stunt. They wanted the British and French to believe that the Panzerkorps possessed heavy tanks. The Neubaufahrzeug design was to be a test bed for mounting a more powerful howitzer on the same sized turret ring of a Panzer IV. They were not supposed to fight, as the first two models were made of mild steel.
Wyatt Smith
Here's another project of the Luftwaffe that never left the development pipeline: The Arado E.654. Because engine nacelles end to be a major source of drag for twin engine heavy fighters they tried to minimize it by putting the engines inside the main fuselage. Alas problems with the long drive shafts and gear boxes caused the project to cancelled.
It fascinates me how the people designing these multi-turreted tanks ignored the experience naval architects had with building battleships (e.g. importance of fire control, no mixed caliber main guns). No wonder these things ended up being horrible.
The engines in pic 2 make it look like a Starfleet design.
Noah Phillips
If you could stealth this how would it be countered?
William Perry
it was a sound design early on. the turret holds a small caliber high velocity anti tank gun, the hull has a large gun for lobbing HE at things. engines get better, armor gets thicker, then small caliber AT doesnt cut it.
Are these things worth the cost? For the price you spend on them what they give you seems to be very limited. Cool as all hell, sure, but I'm not so certain they're worth the price.
Gavin Bailey
Depends. If you badly need an extremely fast missile carrier / troop transport floatplane that flies hugging the water, then yes.
How are four huge jet engines blowing their exhaust on deck a good idea?
Grayson Gutierrez
Sorry I meant the 6 frontal ones.
Asher Gray
Limited strategic value I believe. The original idea behind them was, IIRC, to dash across the Baltic into Scandinavia and establish a beachhead if WWIII broke out.
Austin Clark
They did tested a naval-style fire control system on it. It turned out to be too complex to use.
Except Americans produced 6500 of those deathtraps in 1941-1942, while the production run of T-35 ended in 1939, with 60 units produced in total (and the tanks produced in 1939 were also up-armored). It only went into combat because of dire situation where everything was going in, and Germans actually did the same during battle of Berlin and sent a captured T-35 in combat.
Brandon Johnson
See third pic here:
They are angled down.
Jackson Jenkins
The M3 had quite good combat record for an alleged deathtrap. Like I said, it was a stopgap design that actually worked. And like I also said, it was not a multi-turret.
Cameron Hill
They don't actually cost more than a plane or ship. Also they gulp way less fuel than a plane (and carry more per wing load), they have lots of reactors to start flying but once in flight they don't work. The 3rd pic is the model that was last in use, the two turbo reactor at the front are to get it to move, the tail engine is what it uses once in flight, the reactors being on idle or at a very low regime simply working to balance the plane, but not consuming much fuel.
Just the the difference in fuel bill over the service life of the ekranoplane compared to an aircraft equivalent is way more than enough to cover any R&D and specific manufacturing costs.
Also while the thing had been dead largely due to budget cuts with all the big ones trotting away, they're back with a vengeance. Russian gov' renovated all the design and especially the specific testing facilities needed (which really is what cost the most) and they've been making new proto mainly for arctic transport for the border guards/emercom. They hope to have a transport one in service for 2020.
Josiah Morris
Where? In North Africa, where Germans and Brits had even shittier tanks? Or maybe in Pacific, against Japs, for whom even tanks such as M3 Stuart and BT-7 were formidable adversaries, even in 1945? It worked so well that Americans sent most of them to their allies. Yeah, but it still had 7-man crew, it was too tall and it had one turret too many. I know that it turned out that way because turret for 75mm gun wasn't ready yet, but they could've made it an SPG instead of a giant mobile target with useless turret - even fucking Italians knew better than this.
Jason Martin
Isn't that why he's saying it's good for a tank that was made in a rush?
Vehicles are judged more by how much their crews liked them, than by their combat record.
For example some truly stunning vehicles have a shitty combat record, because they just didn't get a chance to shine, or had even better adversaries. Whereas some shitty tanks had GREAT combat records, because they had a good chance to shine, and crappy adversaries.
The M3 was absolutely despised by everyone that ever been in it, saw it, smelt it… even enemies felt sorry for the people riding in it.
Asher Nguyen
According to the Orlyonok they cost less than a boat of equivalent size, yet carry more armament, father, faster. The only downside of the ekranoplans is that they find it hard to float in place, or turn on a dime. Common misconception is that they can't rise out of ground effect, but they can fly at 10km altitude, only they consume as much fuel as a jet if they do it.
Landon King
Going to bed that US' planned 6th gen fighter will be based on it.
Iran has fielded two squadrons of the smaller ones. Note that these are the Lippisch-type reverse delta winged variants, that have better stability and can climb higher in the ground effect, meaning more seaworthy.
Xavier Lee
Ekranoplan can't fly outside of ground effect. Ekranolyot can. Orlyonok was an ekranolyot and had a ceiling of 3 km.
You know the best thing? They took that design out of Soviet modeling magazine
Please don't be confusing the issue by adding yet another non standardized and poorly defined term that appears in the research for maybe ONE design somewhere.
Eli Harris
We can't have nice things.
William Robinson
The Shinden layout (pusher prop canard wing) saw a lot of success in the kit airplane market. Ever heard of Burt Rutan? he made his start by making the Rutan vari-eze, which not only made canard planes somewhat popular, he also developed a whole new method of making composite aircraft wings, hot-wire cutting styrofoam and fiberglassing directly on top of it. Some fighters use similiar construction (a hard plastic foam instead of styrofoam wrapped with fiberglass/carbon fiber, i heard they can make aluminum foam for this as well)
Rutan liked the canard layout because it creates less drag than a standard cantilevered monoplane. the tail on a normal plane almost always induces drag. In the varieze(and like 20 different versions from different manufacturers, it's a core concept he pioneered in the 70's) *every* surface on the airplane is producing lift, including the wheels fairings and struts. Rather than using a single large wing to lift the entire weight of the aircraft, and using the elevator for pitch control, a canard design actually increases/decreases lift in the canard to pitch the nose up or down. The fuselage of the plane is a giant airfoil as well. In the kit plane world, there is a noticeable(10-20%) increase in cruise speed of this design philosophy versus more standard planes with the same engine/weight.
The alleged advantages of canard wings, if they really exist, manifest so poorly in application, that in practical terms, they might as well be a meme.
Rutan used it because it allows for a more compact fuselage, and because the pusher engines do not allow tails. And maybe because he thought it looked cool and unusual. His personal airplane, the Boomerang, is not a canard.
They did though. With the Campini-Caproni and the CA. 183Bis(half build though) Also Stipa won a lawsuit against Henkel because it used his patent if I remember right.
Isaiah Young
I don't think US could afford a 6 Gen fighter.
Robert Rivera
Canards are fine, and in the age of modern control systems there are plenty of good reasons to use them. Without getting into the details, canards allow a plane to be more efficient.
Connor Jones
Didn't see this post before. To elaborate for others, the increase in efficiency from using the canard to pitch the nose up versus a tail is because a tail needs to push down (creating lift in the downward direction), which creates an overall reduction in lift. This is what's referred to as "trimming" the aircraft to fly at a specific flight state.
Regarding Rutan's aircraft in particular, there is also a benefit to using a pusher prop aircraft in that the propeller actually creates a stabilizing effect. This is because the propeller causes the air to stay laminar against the surface of the wings and body of the aircraft, pushing back the transition to turbulence. In other words, air stays attached to the wings for longer, making the aircraft more stable.
Jace Gray
True, that's what I meant with "influenced jet propulsion development", although I suppose the link was direct enough to say it was a development of the design.
