um. I think the strangest effective weapon I ever heard of was bats strapped with thermal charges with a timed fuse. Sounds stupid, wickedly effective in WWII for setting random numerous fires....all on US Soil during the testing of it, never used and I still wonder why.
The lunge mine was actually used to reasonable effectiveness by the Viet Minh against French forces in the first Indochina War, so much so that a soldier using it has become one of the symbols of our spirit of independence at all cost. As a matter of fact, the picture of the soldier holding the lunge mine in the video was that of a Vietnamese fighter in the battle of Hanoi. This weapon was especially effective in urban engagement in cities like Hanoi, since the narrow streets and building density means that a soldier can spring out practically right next to a tank and detonate his lunge mine before its escort can react. Of course, it is often a suicide attack, and units often hold live funerals for the soldier carrying out the attack. And believe it or not, patriotic ferver was so high that such duty was considered an honor, and people actually volunteered for the job.
🤘 Yes! Though I do prefer the Walpurgis lyrics, the irony of the War Pigs anti-warmonger lyrics are not lost on me when looking at...weapons of war called War Pigs.
@@hughcrandall254same in U.K. Definitely want to be upwind of noxious and hazardous wind carried nastiness. Downwind if you’re creeping up on something you don’t want to smell you.
I worked in R&D for a while. You wouldn't believe the stuff we came up with. The problem was that most of it wouldn't have worked "in the field", usually through lack of robustness, overly complicated or whatever.
if you're going to mention the Japanese lunge mine you should have also mentioned the British "Grenade, Hand, Anti-Tank No. 74", aka the "sticky bomb". Exactly what it sounds like. It had 1.25 lbs of explosive in a spherical case that was covered with an adhesive. The adhesive surface was protected by a light metal case. There was a straight wooden handle, rather like a German "potato masher " grenade. When the user pulled a pin on the handle, the casing would fall away and expose the sticky sphere. Pulling another pin armed the bomb and the user could then either throw the bomb or attempt to slap it onto the side of an enemy vehicle. Letting go of the handle released a lever that would activate a five-second fuse.
The globe was glass and the handle was "Bakerlite" not wooden. They made over 2.5 million of the bloody things. The Germans countered them in 1943 with a system called Zimmerit, which prevented the grenade attaching to the tank. There was also a reasonable chance that the "sticky" would stick to the uniform of the operator with several thousand accounts of the operator being killed by the grenade - great idea, shit execution.
@@jim.franklin"bakerlite" is correctly spelled "Bakelite" and was an invention Dr Baekland in the early part of the 20th Century. It was highly successful and is still in very common use, as it is both easily moldable and machinable, and VERY highly temperature and chemical resistant, and seems to last forever, and is a very good electrical insulator. You will find it in the handles of light switches, and of pots and pans, knives, etc, and many, many other things. Dr Baekland seems to have checked all the boxes, and Bakelite is truly one of the wonders of the 20th century.
John Moses Browning's dad, John Browning, was also a famous gunsmith in his day, mostly making high quality hunting rifles, but he also built some harmonica guns. They required close tolerances so you wouldn't have multiple chambers going off at once. There were also flintlocks that had multiple breeches where you would fire a round, slide the lock back a notch to a fresh charge and ball, prime the pan, fire that, and then repeat up to six or so times. There were also "automatic" and "semi-automatic" flintlock rifles and pistols that had a revolving cylinder. The shooter would cock the hammer, the cylinderf would rotate and line up a charge and ball with the bore, a powder measure would prime the pan during the motion of the cock (which held the flint). The user would fire and pull back the cock which primed the pan and rotated the cylinder to the next shot. Later models were simplified so the operator would have to rotate the cylinder by hand but the pan was still charged by a powder measure when the cock was pulled back. And then the guns were simplified even more where the user had to charge the pan like a regular flintlock after he manually rotated the cylinder. The pistols like this are VERY scarce, less than two dozen left in the world at best guess. Samuel Colt bought the patent for them in the UK and destroyed it so he could claim he invented the revolver. He sought out those earlier pistols and destroyed them.
The bazooka was _not_ a recoilless rifle, since it wasn't _rifled._ Rifling is the grooves down the barrel that makes the rounds spin. The bazooka was just a plain tube, as you can see from the picture you put up at 8:42. You said you wanted to be pedantic.
So it was a recoilless shotgun under UK law and thus if the projectile is made to be less than 2" diameter, you can technically own one with a shotgun license lmao
"Most recoilless weapons are guns, of which many have smoothbore barrels. The term ‘recoilless rifle’ is frequently-but erroneously-used to denote this type of weapons system, whereas it is actually a sub-set of a larger whole" [Small Arms Survey - Research Notes No.55]
💡💡💡💡 The video producer somewhat bungled the lethality of the Davy Crockett launch system’s atomic warheads. It was flux of NEUTRONS that was very lethal in the design to take out Soviet troops inside armored tanks and armored troop carriers. The neutrons could easily penetrate the armor and end the troops in minutes. The neutron spread was much greater than the blast damage. Yet whether the 10 or 100 tons versions yields, that’s a lot of damage too. The design was to stop a massive onslaught of Soviet armor through the Fulda Valley that bridges the former E and W Germany with these radiological bursts.
Actually, it was the gamma and X-ray radiation. The neutron flux was only about 10% of the total radiation flux. Small nukes produce a greater radiation flux in proportion than larger nukes, as the atmosphere absorbs radiation at a fixed rate of half per ~40 metres. In large nukes this means that the prompt radiation effects are overwhelmed by the thermal effects of the atmosphere absorbing the radiation. With smaller weapon yields, less radiation is absorbed to make the fireball. The first neutron radiation-enhanced warhead was deployed on the _Sprint_ ABM missile, which is a weapon worth an episode all by itself. (If there hasn't been one already.)
@ No. X-rays and gamma rays don’t go far in atmosphere, and are ineffective with quick kills of armored vehicle personnel. Recall that bone stops lots of X-rays. They also don’t go far beyond the fireball at lower altitude in denser air, since X-rays produce most of fireball heating. Gamma rays produce relatively low biological absorption which is why alpha, beta, and gamma rays have different scales of bodily absorption, with gamma the lowest rate by far. The actual weapon nuclear reaction is microseconds in duration. Gamma rays require persistent exposure to produce harm, which why 10 millirems were the acceptable exposure limit during atmospheric testing. It’s NEUTRONS that the most lethal by far. They also move the farthest from ground zero, easily penetrate tank armor, and cause ready damage to tissues inside tanks.
@@EK14MeV But the _Davy Crockett's_ W54 is a very low-yield warhead, so the fireball and concussion are very much smaller than the area the radiation affects. Half of 1 MeV gamma rays are stopped by 88 metres of air. That's a constant rate, regardless of the yield of the warhead. _Tsar Bomba_ didn't have much of a radiation effect because the fireball was 8 kilometres across, so the gamma radiation was halved 45-ish times before it even reached the radius of the fireball. Conversely, the W54's fireball was only 18 metres across (as per Simon), so only ~1% of the gamma was absorbed in that radius. You could survive the blast and heat of the _Davy Crockett_ only to get a lethal dose of gamma and X-ray, whereas most modern warheads will incinerate you without the radiation having as much affect. You don't need to invoke neutron radiation for the W54, gamma and X-ray would have done the job just fine. Go visit the Nukemap site and experiment with the _Davy Crockett_ warhead, and others, and note the size of the radiation rings compared to concussion and thermal radii for the different yields.
@@EK14MeV No, I'm saying that the radiation wasn't from neutrons, as you emphatically stated in your initial comment. And by implication the W54 wasn't an enhanced radiation weapon; the radiation was simply the result of the physics of a very small yield nuclear weapon.
That lantern shield looks like a more lethal variant of riot gear. A line of 4-7 guards with those shield can easily hold off an angry group of 'rascals' of the day I imagine. That would be my first thought by just looking at it.
14:18 while the volley gun dates back to the 15th century, that particular image is of a French Mitrilluse, which didn't come around until the later half of the 19th century
In the army museum in Paris there is a breach loading flintlock rifle with preloaded cartridges. The five cartridges were hand made by the gunsmith to fit the rifle. Each cartridge had its own flash pan as well. The rifle is ornate as it was made for a king. I was astonished to see something so modern in concept with that level of technology.
On the Davy Crocket, as I recall, it was also primarily jeep-mounted. The intent was for the crew to roll into position, take aim, and fire, followed immediately by burning rubber to GTFO as rapidly as possible.
I'm missing such contraptions as the turret gun. This is effectively a black powder revolver, but the chambers are in a horizontal disk instead of a cylinder. One of the chambers was pointed forward and the others in various other directions, including back at the operator. Some of the british WWII Home Guard creations should probably also go here. The Blacker Bombard and the sticky bomb (formally Grenade, Hand, Anti-Tank No. 74; an antitank grenade covered in glue) come to mind.
The Blacker Bombard probably would be excluded by the working part. As far as I can tell it was pretty well recognized as being useless militarily, but Churchill forced through its adoption to boost morale. It would eventually lead to the PIAT however.
@@88porpoise The PIAT (Platoon Infantry Anti-Tank) was great weapon at close range as long as you didn't need a second shot since you had to stand up in order to recock the ruddy thing.
@@sirridesalot6652 Yes, but the PIAT was very different from the Blacker Bombard. That the technoloy behind the Blacker Bombard would be developed further to create the PIAT doesn't make the Blacker Bombard good.
The old fable about elephants being afraid of mice now makes more sense ! We were never told that the mice had been smeared with pitch and set alight !
A lot of ancient weapons in use by common soldiers were reforged for more "modern" weapons. The weapons that survived to this day were often the best weapons used by nobels or royals or stuff that was a trophy. Another thing is that "armys" in wartime often consisted of a small core of professional soldiers and the rest were conscripted peasants that had to provide their own weapons or got some really cheap stuff just good enough not breaking even before battle. It´s the same problem with old buildings. The stone were often used multiple times or used as foundation for the next building. One of the most important findings of all times was the Rosetta Stone. A stone inscripted with a decree in three languages later used to translate "forgotten" languages. This stone was found by soldiers during building works in a fortress.
No Simon, a recoilless rifle 9:35 produces a tremendous amount of force out the back of the gun to counter the force required to propell the shell to the target. It also makes that backblast lethal to be in behind a weapon firing 😮
I love the argument that "the founders couldn't have imagined rapid fire weapons when they wrote the 2nd amendment" yet the same founders actually considered using the Belton repeating flintlock rifle during the Revolutionary War and the Lorenzoni had a "large capacity magazine" of 30 rounds decades before the Revolutionary war
And grenade launchers being a thing during their time, and bombs and mortars being common... And rockets gaining popular use not long after. But no... The old farts (one being a famed inventor) couldn't possibly imagine something more than a single shot flintlock.
@DH-xw6jp you seem to forget the majority of artillery during the war was privately owned but your argumentum ad absurdism only proves you have no valid argument to refute what I've said
A bazooka and a recoilless rifle are NOT in the same category. One is a tubular rocket launcher, the other fires actual artillery shells, perforated so the blast vents to the rear. Also the rifle is, actually rifled, giving a much greater range and velocity in exchange for some additional weight.
The other method of increasing the firepower of a flintlock, apart from multiple barrels or feed systems, was to reload from the breach rather than the muzzle, no need to take time to pack down powder and shot, one of the the best examples being the British Ferguson Rifle, loading from the breach also allowed you to use a rifled rather than smooth bore barrel thus increasing accuracy and lethality, the down side was the expense of making them.
the Davy Crockett exists as a tactical battlefield weapon in the Battletech setting, sorta. Its not an RR, but rather an infantry or light vehicle used (mainly) long range missile launcher (thats 'long range' in battletech terms, which is about 900-1200meters). There is also an aerospace version around, used a few times to wipe out capital warships very quickly. They were rare and I think only used by the word of blake in the 3060s/3070s
My favourite outlandish weapon is the 'inert bomb', which was used by Britain and the USA during the invasion of Iraq. These were basically a precision laser guided bomb, but with the warhead replaced with concrete. Dropped from a high altitude bomber, this was more than enough to disable a tank, which had the benefit of limiting collateral damage in urban areas from explosions and UXBs. Also, let's not forget the bouncing bombs of Dambusters fame. That should have made the list.
Multi barreled guns similar to the pepper box are still in use. The A10 Warthog ground attack aircraft uses a rotary autocannon. The advantage of multiple barrels is a faster fire rate and it means that any individual barrel fires fewer bullets/shells in the given time, reducing the risk of overheating.
The pepper box is distinct because each barrel was loaded, so each barrel was its own chamber, while rotary cannons have one action and just rotate out which tube they're shooting through
The pepper box is distinct because each barrel was loaded, so each barrel was its own chamber, while rotary cannons have one action and just rotate out which tube they're shooting through
The lantern shield is similar to the way modern police officers use a large MagLite in their off-hand, cocked at the shoulder, to both illuminate and to strike an enemy. Or the way they use a smaller flashlight held reversed in the off-hand fist, the wrist of which is used to support the pistol hand.
So, I have a family member who I introduced to the Whistlerverse this Christmas, which meant the entire week has been wall to wall Simon Whistler videos, and last night I dreamed that Simon started narrating the whole of Lord of the Rings, but instead of just making a channel, **it was woven into all the channels as tangents about things that Simon and his mates did while he was in uni** And I think that's a thing that would actually work.
Regarding thr mysteries of complex, strange and exquisite crafted objects from ages far past, don't forget that a whole bunch of them weren't really made for practical use. They were predominantly made as demonstrations of the craftmen's skill, like a tangible portfolio when vowing for a job/position.
As any AOE2 player knows, another tactic used against War Elephants (at least once in India) was Flaming Camels: put straw on the backs of some camels, light the straw on fire, and send the camels running at the elephants.
The warhead from the Davy Crocket was designed to minimize the blast-wave and fireball. It was a radiation weapon, but not for fallout. It was optimized for the neutron-flux from the detonation. The intent was to irradiate tanks through neutron activation. It could be used to create fallout from a surface blast, but that wasn't the purpose. It was about stopping armor columns and consenting The Fulda Gap, potentially stopping a war in its infancy. Yes, using nukes to save lives and avoid civilian and infrastructure harm. At least that's how they sold it.
Something else they used pigs for, during the Middle Ages, when besieging a castle, instead of trying to get over the walls or break them down using heavy projectiles, they would dig a tunnel under the wall, using wooden beams to hold up the roof. Then they would set the beams on fire so the roof would collapse and that section of the wall would also collapse, and often they would herd a bunch of pigs into the tunnel, as pig fat burns quicker and hotter, thus burning the beams faster.
late to this but at 14:10 you illustrate the french "militrailleuse" which is not actually a "must fire all at once" volley gun. There was a crank handle which released individual strikers as it was turned, thus you could fire them in a hail by turning the crank quickly but the cartridges could (with care) be fired in small groups or even individually.
Ngl, 2 weapons I hoped to see mentioned where the flintlock axe (used by Polish cavalry for roughly 200yrs so it definitely had some serious merit and was a real life gunblade) and the kaltoff rifle (basically history's first ever repeating firearm)
It's my understanding that, in addition to the lunge mine, some Japanese soldiers would dig narrow ditches and crawl into them with a hammer and a shell (I can't remember the size if I ever knew that) designed for ordnance then have their comrades disguise the hole. They'd then sit and wait for a tank to roll over them and hit the shell with the hammer causing it to explode and disable or possibly destroy the tank. I can only imagine how nasty of a way to go that would have been
Pigs were always used to bring down a turret at Rochester Castle in 1215. During the siege of 1215 King John ordered his men to dig a tunnel that ran under the turret. Once complete they sent 40 Fat Pigs into the tunnel and then sent them on fire. The fat burned at such a high temperature it caused the turret to collapse.
With the elephants, a simpler method was to use archers (or bolt throwers which were giant crossbows). The arrows didn't kill the beasts but hurt/annoyed them enough to drive them mad and start them running amok among their own troops.
Wouldn't you want to be upwind from the Davey Crocket blast? Downwind is where the wind blows toward you from the animal so the animal can't smell you, you would want the wind to blow towards the nuke from you, and that's upwind.
One clever "weird weapon" that would have been effective, at least under certain circumstances, is described in Maj.-Gen. Julian Hatcher's "Hatcher's Notebook." It consisted of a powerful motor with a disk attached, and a hopper that dropped 1/2 in. steel balls onto the spinning disk. The balls would achieve a velocity similar to that of a .45 ACP round, and be released. It had a very high rate of fire, and was intended for use in the trenches of WWI. It was rejected for service, I think, because its accuracy was poor, and its range & penetration much less than that of bullets from a machinegun. It might have been effective against massed attacks at close range, such as what the Germans experienced on Russian Front in WWII.
It was actually built, using steam to drive the disk. It was an utter failure. Ineffective in all respects, in every use case they could imagine. Heavy, bulky, dependant on external power sources, slow to spin up to useable velocity, and completely inaccurate. So, no.
@@lairdcummings9092 What I know about it comes from Hatcher's book. He didn't have much to say, beyond its principle of operation. And I read about it, over four decades ago, so maybe I've forgotten some of what he said. As for accuracy, it would certainly have been a "spray" kind of weapon, kind of like grape-shot from a muzzle-loading cannon, or sweeping fire, from the hip, with a SMG.
8:59 the Davy Crockett Nuclear system, Simon missed out one vital point. It could only be fired by operatives, wearing a rackoon hat, complete with tail attached😍🤣😂🤣😂🤣🤩
That's not how it worked. It was much more clever. No visually detectable explosives. They used those pagers and radios for several months. Nobody detected it.
The Seventy Maxims of Highly Effective Mercenaries #43: If it's stupid and it works, it's still stupid, and you're lucky. The segment on the Davy Crockett reminds me of the jokes about the nuclear hand grenade the US was putatively developing. It would blow a hole in the ground a hundred yards across, but they were having a devil of a time testing it, because you could only throw it about forty feet. With regard to early rapid-fire weapons, I would direct you to the Kalthoff repeating flintlock, which was actually used in combat in 1659; it was a 30-shot weapon that would be reloaded -- including re-priming the action -- by rotating the trigger guard forward and back, allowing for another shot in less than five seconds (there is a Forgotten Weapons video on the subject of this firearm with more detail). Unfortunately, it was far to complicated to build to be a viable choice for a regular infantry weapon, so it faded into history, although it shows that the 30-round magazine capacity that appears to be standard for assault rifles has an unusually long history.
In connection to the Davy Crockett. I never saw the actual figures, but the US Navy's nuclear depth charge comes to mind. It was launched from an ASROC launcher. The maximum range of the rocket was rumored to be around the same as the PK50 radius.
10:56 You got that the wrong way round, down wind means the wind is blowing "down" from the bomb to where you are. It's like upstream and downstream on a river, up is against the flow, down is moving with it. Also the biggest problem with the Davey Crockett wasn't so much irradiating the crew so much as the fact it was a SUPPORT WEAPON. Meaning you'd have to have friendly troops IN FRONT OF IT, between the crew and the enemy army. Given the short range, and need to not drop it on your own front line the whole system would need to be dangerously close to the front lines. You were not going to be able to fire this thing from a position where you didn't have to worry about things like snipers, or even just mortar teams killing the crew of hitting the ammo around the weapon irradiating everyone in the surrounding area.
7:18 about that "too fancy for your average policeman" - have you ever thought about who exactly all those fancy people on Rembrandt's "Night Patrol" are? Yes, sir, militia. Your average local bobby.
"Wallace and Grommit-esque contraptions" Have Wallace and Grommit now replaced Rube Goldberg as the progenitors of strange, fascinating, but ultimately useless, ineffectual mechanical solutions? richard --
The Davy Crockett was the closest thing we ever had to a real life Fireball spell. Material component: W34 warhead. Somatic: pull the trigger. Verbal: 'Back up! BACK UP!'
The Davey Crockett State Park and museum is not far from where I grew up. He was actually a very intelligent man and involved in all sorts of things. Thought my tangent would be acceptable on a Simon video.
I seem to recall references in many medieval fiction novels, to using pigs herded into a tunnel dug under the enemies wall, then under the wall trapped inside and set on fire, possibly along with wood and straw. The reasoning was something like the intense heat of the burning fat from the pig would cause the ground above to collapse somehow and with it the wall. I don't know if this really happened though.
Most likely didn't. Undermining the wall while propping it up with wooden supports, and then burning the supports to collapse the wall was done often, but you don't need pigs for that. I guess it's possible rendered pig fat was sometimes involved, though. Furthermore, supplies are your main time limit when laying a siege. Many sieges failed because the people outside the walls ran out of food first. Nobody would've burned their food to achieve an effect you can get with some pitch and a torch.
@Gear3k makes sense, I suppose the novels used burning pigs to highlight the cruelty of medieval seige warfare in a manner more appropriate for younger audiences
A guy with a name like Polyaenus is for sure going to have to fight his way through the Grove. It’s no wonder he grew up to be the kind of guy who thinks of setting fired to pigs as a way to conduct a battle.
War elephants were also a terrible ancient weapon since once they were startled (by even having a bunch of men waving pointy sticks at them) they would just as likely start trampling your own troops such as in the case of the Battle of Hydaspes where Alexander the Great did just that. No pigs are needed haha
Repeating Rifles existed for FAR longer than people think, with examples going back to the early to mid 1400's. They were not practical for widespread use, but the one seen in the video linked below (from the 1600's) was functional, reliable, and economically viable for a specialized security detail. Going beyond that, there are more well known examples such as the duck foot gun that fired multiple rounds at once. I saw pictures of a duck foot gun with a rotating hammer that could fire each barrel individually, but it was a picture on the internet so grain of salt. I've also heard reports of hand crank rotary guns (think Gatling gun) that date back to the revolutionary war period, but those were limited to one shot per barrel (so about 8 shots total), and verifying this claim has been difficult. According to the Wikipedia page on repeating firearms, examples of revolvers (not pepperbox guns, revolvers. They look remarkably similar to 19th and early 20th century revolvers) started appearing as early as the 15th century. I checked the source on that particular claim, and it is from a book published by a Stanford history professor. The idea of a modern, magazine fed, multiple shots a second capable gun indeed did not come into play until the late 19th century. However, there is the Chelembron system (the earliest known magazine fed firearm) that has existed since at least 1668, meaning that magazine fed firearms are not a modern invention either. I'm sick of people making all kinds of claims about how repeating rifles are a new invention. They are not. They have been around since at least the early-modern period (1500-1700), with some speculation that they may have existed earlier than that in east Asia. th-cam.com/video/ghKrbNpqQoY/w-d-xo.html
Shaped charges do not focus all the explosive energy in one direction. They focus a portion into a jet. You still get significant energy going in all directions, like you do from a bulk charge. At 3 kilos of HE, that is a suicide stick.
I'd assume the utility of warpigs was discovered by accident; someone just happened to be out setting pigs on fire, as people are wont to do, and one of them happened to run towards a nearby elephant causing it to panic.
Burning pigs were also a tactic for damaging stone castles and walls, up into the late middle ages. Tunnels were dug underneath by sappers, the pigs herded in, then ignited as the exit was collapsed. The high temperatures of burning rendered lard weakened stone and mortar, making them far more vulnerable to catapults
AH! Have you heard of the Carl Gustaf 8.4 cm recoilless rifle? Developed 1946 still operational used by USA & Russia to name just two countries. Theortically obsolete but it works on the battle field so still used!
This video reminds me of the movie Mom and Dad Save the World. A grenade that kills people that pick it up. The question was asked "why would anyone pick it up then." The answer, it had "pick me up" writen on it 😅, so stupid! Oh, wiped out like 200 soldiers 😂
7:40 that looks like it's more dangerous to the user than anything. can't put your arm down to the side, can't tuck it behind your shield, can't move the shield to the side to see to stab the other guy and still stab him with the 'free' hand...
Tanks also support each other. Tanks are impervious to machine gun, so if a tank in your troop was getting overrun by infantry you’d just machine gun that tank.
It's worth noting that many of the men in those banzai charges, specifically the ones against tanks, were not carried out by the people Japan conquered. We are talking slave soldiers in suicide charges. It was genocide.
As for the Davy Crocket; I would feel skeptical being asked to operate any weapon named after a person who died in a last-stand operation, might as well have called it Custer… Americans sometimes have very strange naming conventions, like the oil platform Blind Faith…
War pigs are similar concept as fire ox formation in Ancient China. The Ox have knifes tied to their horns and their tails are set on fire. When the large number of ox charge into the enemy formation. It create chaos and heavy casualties. The Japanese lunge mine can be effective in China because the Chinese Nationalist armored unit are inexperience and didn't have infantry support. The Japanese lunge mine can be effective in jungle ambush or night time ambush.
The up wind, down wind for the Davey Crockett was stated incorrectly. Like a stream, the way it flows. Up wind (the wind is blowing away from you = Safe) Down wind (the wind is blowing in your direction = Oh No we're F'ed)
11:20 did you just get up wind and down wind confused? If you release a gas it flows down wind. So you’d want to be up wind of the enemy, for the wind to carry the gas down wind to the enemy. Hence you want to be up wind of the direct you fire a Davey Crocket.
Might be an English to American thing, BUT- If you're upwind of something, the wind is blowing from you to whatever. If you're downwind, whatever is blowing onto you.
Methinks Simon and whoever wrote this episode needs to learn the difference between downwind and upwind. Particularly if they plan on launching any battlefield nukes. 😂😂👍
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um. I think the strangest effective weapon I ever heard of was bats strapped with thermal charges with a timed fuse. Sounds stupid, wickedly effective in WWII for setting random numerous fires....all on US Soil during the testing of it, never used and I still wonder why.
I wonder if Davy Crockett ever thought he would have a shoulder fired nuclear rocket named after himself.
The lunge mine was actually used to reasonable effectiveness by the Viet Minh against French forces in the first Indochina War, so much so that a soldier using it has become one of the symbols of our spirit of independence at all cost. As a matter of fact, the picture of the soldier holding the lunge mine in the video was that of a Vietnamese fighter in the battle of Hanoi. This weapon was especially effective in urban engagement in cities like Hanoi, since the narrow streets and building density means that a soldier can spring out practically right next to a tank and detonate his lunge mine before its escort can react. Of course, it is often a suicide attack, and units often hold live funerals for the soldier carrying out the attack. And believe it or not, patriotic ferver was so high that such duty was considered an honor, and people actually volunteered for the job.
0:25 - Chapter 1 - War pigs
2:55 - Mid roll ads
4:15 - Back to the video
5:30 - Chapter 2 - Lantern shield
8:10 - Chapter 3 - The nuclear bazooka
12:40 - Chapter 4 - Ye olde fast firing guns
16:00 - Chapter 5 - Lunge mine
You're a gentleman and a scholar
War Pigs, also a great Black Sabbath song.
In the field, the pigs are burning.
As the elephant starts turning.
Thanks captian obvious
th-cam.com/video/K3b6SGoN6dA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=GYD-GQLsAlyg8OA3
🤘 Yes!
Though I do prefer the Walpurgis lyrics, the irony of the War Pigs anti-warmonger lyrics are not lost on me when looking at...weapons of war called War Pigs.
lol , came to the comments looking for this .. thanks
Standing down wind from a nuclear blast would make you get irradiated as wind blows down wind, not upwind.😅
You noticed that also.
Depends on which way you Sail Away, Sail Away, Sail Away!
Thanks what I was thinking. Unless it works differently in Britain.
@@hughcrandall254same in U.K. Definitely want to be upwind of noxious and hazardous wind carried nastiness. Downwind if you’re creeping up on something you don’t want to smell you.
“Radiation, everybody.”
I worked in R&D for a while. You wouldn't believe the stuff we came up with. The problem was that most of it wouldn't have worked "in the field", usually through lack of robustness, overly complicated or whatever.
if you're going to mention the Japanese lunge mine you should have also mentioned the British "Grenade, Hand, Anti-Tank No. 74", aka the "sticky bomb". Exactly what it sounds like.
It had 1.25 lbs of explosive in a spherical case that was covered with an adhesive. The adhesive surface was protected by a light metal case. There was a straight wooden handle, rather like a German "potato masher " grenade. When the user pulled a pin on the handle, the casing would fall away and expose the sticky sphere. Pulling another pin armed the bomb and the user could then either throw the bomb or attempt to slap it onto the side of an enemy vehicle. Letting go of the handle released a lever that would activate a five-second fuse.
I THINK Simon has covered this one before. I know I have heard of this explosive before, not a bad idea I gotta admit lol.
The globe was glass and the handle was "Bakerlite" not wooden. They made over 2.5 million of the bloody things. The Germans countered them in 1943 with a system called Zimmerit, which prevented the grenade attaching to the tank. There was also a reasonable chance that the "sticky" would stick to the uniform of the operator with several thousand accounts of the operator being killed by the grenade - great idea, shit execution.
Zimmerite had no effect on adhesive grenades, it was intended to prevent magnetic grenades adhering to the steel hull @@jim.franklin
@@philstothard8333 Not according to the Imperial War Museum
@@jim.franklin"bakerlite" is correctly spelled "Bakelite" and was an invention Dr Baekland in the early part of the 20th Century. It was highly successful and is still in very common use, as it is both easily moldable and machinable, and VERY highly temperature and chemical resistant, and seems to last forever, and is a very good electrical insulator. You will find it in the handles of light switches, and of pots and pans, knives, etc, and many, many other things. Dr Baekland seems to have checked all the boxes, and Bakelite is truly one of the wonders of the 20th century.
John Moses Browning's dad, John Browning, was also a famous gunsmith in his day, mostly making high quality hunting rifles, but he also built some harmonica guns. They required close tolerances so you wouldn't have multiple chambers going off at once. There were also flintlocks that had multiple breeches where you would fire a round, slide the lock back a notch to a fresh charge and ball, prime the pan, fire that, and then repeat up to six or so times. There were also "automatic" and "semi-automatic" flintlock rifles and pistols that had a revolving cylinder. The shooter would cock the hammer, the cylinderf would rotate and line up a charge and ball with the bore, a powder measure would prime the pan during the motion of the cock (which held the flint). The user would fire and pull back the cock which primed the pan and rotated the cylinder to the next shot. Later models were simplified so the operator would have to rotate the cylinder by hand but the pan was still charged by a powder measure when the cock was pulled back. And then the guns were simplified even more where the user had to charge the pan like a regular flintlock after he manually rotated the cylinder. The pistols like this are VERY scarce, less than two dozen left in the world at best guess. Samuel Colt bought the patent for them in the UK and destroyed it so he could claim he invented the revolver. He sought out those earlier pistols and destroyed them.
The bazooka was _not_ a recoilless rifle, since it wasn't _rifled._ Rifling is the grooves down the barrel that makes the rounds spin. The bazooka was just a plain tube, as you can see from the picture you put up at 8:42.
You said you wanted to be pedantic.
so a clean bore rifle is not a rifle?
@@MegaMons123 That's right. That's why the M60 tank's 105mm M68 gun is rifled and the M1 _Abrams_ tank has a 120mm smoothbore.
So it was a recoilless shotgun under UK law and thus if the projectile is made to be less than 2" diameter, you can technically own one with a shotgun license lmao
"Most recoilless weapons are guns, of which many have smoothbore barrels. The term ‘recoilless rifle’ is frequently-but erroneously-used to denote this type of weapons system, whereas it is actually a sub-set of a larger whole" [Small Arms Survey - Research Notes No.55]
It was recoilles firearm.
💡💡💡💡 The video producer somewhat bungled the lethality of the Davy Crockett launch system’s atomic warheads.
It was flux of NEUTRONS that was very lethal in the design to take out Soviet troops inside armored tanks and armored troop carriers. The neutrons could easily penetrate the armor and end the troops in minutes.
The neutron spread was much greater than the blast damage. Yet whether the 10 or 100 tons versions yields, that’s a lot of damage too.
The design was to stop a massive onslaught of Soviet armor through the Fulda Valley that bridges the former E and W Germany with these radiological bursts.
Actually, it was the gamma and X-ray radiation. The neutron flux was only about 10% of the total radiation flux. Small nukes produce a greater radiation flux in proportion than larger nukes, as the atmosphere absorbs radiation at a fixed rate of half per ~40 metres. In large nukes this means that the prompt radiation effects are overwhelmed by the thermal effects of the atmosphere absorbing the radiation. With smaller weapon yields, less radiation is absorbed to make the fireball.
The first neutron radiation-enhanced warhead was deployed on the _Sprint_ ABM missile, which is a weapon worth an episode all by itself. (If there hasn't been one already.)
@ No.
X-rays and gamma rays don’t go far in atmosphere, and are ineffective with quick kills of armored vehicle personnel.
Recall that bone stops lots of X-rays. They also don’t go far beyond the fireball at lower altitude in denser air, since X-rays produce most of fireball heating.
Gamma rays produce relatively low biological absorption which is why alpha, beta, and gamma rays have different scales of bodily absorption, with gamma the lowest rate by far.
The actual weapon nuclear reaction is microseconds in duration.
Gamma rays require persistent exposure to produce harm, which why 10 millirems were the acceptable exposure limit during atmospheric testing.
It’s NEUTRONS that the most lethal by far. They also move the farthest from ground zero, easily penetrate tank armor, and cause ready damage to tissues inside tanks.
@@EK14MeV But the _Davy Crockett's_ W54 is a very low-yield warhead, so the fireball and concussion are very much smaller than the area the radiation affects. Half of 1 MeV gamma rays are stopped by 88 metres of air. That's a constant rate, regardless of the yield of the warhead.
_Tsar Bomba_ didn't have much of a radiation effect because the fireball was 8 kilometres across, so the gamma radiation was halved 45-ish times before it even reached the radius of the fireball. Conversely, the W54's fireball was only 18 metres across (as per Simon), so only ~1% of the gamma was absorbed in that radius. You could survive the blast and heat of the _Davy Crockett_ only to get a lethal dose of gamma and X-ray, whereas most modern warheads will incinerate you without the radiation having as much affect. You don't need to invoke neutron radiation for the W54, gamma and X-ray would have done the job just fine.
Go visit the Nukemap site and experiment with the _Davy Crockett_ warhead, and others, and note the size of the radiation rings compared to concussion and thermal radii for the different yields.
@akizeta You're restating my arguments.
@@EK14MeV No, I'm saying that the radiation wasn't from neutrons, as you emphatically stated in your initial comment. And by implication the W54 wasn't an enhanced radiation weapon; the radiation was simply the result of the physics of a very small yield nuclear weapon.
That lantern shield looks like a more lethal variant of riot gear. A line of 4-7 guards with those shield can easily hold off an angry group of 'rascals' of the day I imagine.
That would be my first thought by just looking at it.
The lantern shield was the 15th centuries equivalent to the duct tape mode for doom
14:18 while the volley gun dates back to the 15th century, that particular image is of a French Mitrilluse, which didn't come around until the later half of the 19th century
Poor Montigny gets no respect...
In the army museum in Paris there is a breach loading flintlock rifle with preloaded cartridges. The five cartridges were hand made by the gunsmith to fit the rifle. Each cartridge had its own flash pan as well. The rifle is ornate as it was made for a king. I was astonished to see something so modern in concept with that level of technology.
On the Davy Crocket, as I recall, it was also primarily jeep-mounted. The intent was for the crew to roll into position, take aim, and fire, followed immediately by burning rubber to GTFO as rapidly as possible.
I'm missing such contraptions as the turret gun. This is effectively a black powder revolver, but the chambers are in a horizontal disk instead of a cylinder. One of the chambers was pointed forward and the others in various other directions, including back at the operator.
Some of the british WWII Home Guard creations should probably also go here. The Blacker Bombard and the sticky bomb (formally Grenade, Hand, Anti-Tank No. 74; an antitank grenade covered in glue) come to mind.
The Blacker Bombard probably would be excluded by the working part. As far as I can tell it was pretty well recognized as being useless militarily, but Churchill forced through its adoption to boost morale.
It would eventually lead to the PIAT however.
@@88porpoise The PIAT (Platoon Infantry Anti-Tank) was great weapon at close range as long as you didn't need a second shot since you had to stand up in order to recock the ruddy thing.
@@sirridesalot6652 Yes, but the PIAT was very different from the Blacker Bombard.
That the technoloy behind the Blacker Bombard would be developed further to create the PIAT doesn't make the Blacker Bombard good.
The old fable about elephants being afraid of mice now makes more sense ! We were never told that the mice had been smeared with pitch and set alight !
A lot of ancient weapons in use by common soldiers were reforged for more "modern" weapons. The weapons that survived to this day were often the best weapons used by nobels or royals or stuff that was a trophy. Another thing is that "armys" in wartime often consisted of a small core of professional soldiers and the rest were conscripted peasants that had to provide their own weapons or got some really cheap stuff just good enough not breaking even before battle.
It´s the same problem with old buildings. The stone were often used multiple times or used as foundation for the next building. One of the most important findings of all times was the Rosetta Stone. A stone inscripted with a decree in three languages later used to translate "forgotten" languages. This stone was found by soldiers during building works in a fortress.
No Simon, a recoilless rifle 9:35 produces a tremendous amount of force out the back of the gun to counter the force required to propell the shell to the target.
It also makes that backblast lethal to be in behind a weapon firing 😮
12:39 When discussing the Davey Crockett weapons system it's just best "suspend disbelief", like in a bad sci-fi movie and ignore radiation.
I love the argument that "the founders couldn't have imagined rapid fire weapons when they wrote the 2nd amendment" yet the same founders actually considered using the Belton repeating flintlock rifle during the Revolutionary War and the Lorenzoni had a "large capacity magazine" of 30 rounds decades before the Revolutionary war
And grenade launchers being a thing during their time, and bombs and mortars being common... And rockets gaining popular use not long after.
But no... The old farts (one being a famed inventor) couldn't possibly imagine something more than a single shot flintlock.
@DH-xw6jp you seem to forget the majority of artillery during the war was privately owned but your argumentum ad absurdism only proves you have no valid argument to refute what I've said
@@dcsteve7869 I wasn't refuting you, I was agreeing and adding more examples.
Perhaps I should have added /s to that last paragraph, my bad.
@@DH-xw6jp In that case, my apologies. Sometimes the intent of the post doesn't translate over the internet.
Slight correction, Rule 43: If it's stupid and it works, it's still stupid and you're lucky.
😂
Imagine how delicious the battlefield smelled after scaring off the elephants
Not good if it smells anything like burning off the hair of the hide off a wild pig...nasty! 🙃
You haven't shovelled much 🐷💩🤣🤣🤣🤣
"I like the smell of bacon in the morning! It smells like ... victory!"
A bazooka and a recoilless rifle are NOT in the same category. One is a tubular rocket launcher, the other fires actual artillery shells, perforated so the blast vents to the rear. Also the rifle is, actually rifled, giving a much greater range and velocity in exchange for some additional weight.
The other method of increasing the firepower of a flintlock, apart from multiple barrels or feed systems, was to reload from the breach rather than the muzzle, no need to take time to pack down powder and shot, one of the the best examples being the British Ferguson Rifle, loading from the breach also allowed you to use a rifled rather than smooth bore barrel thus increasing accuracy and lethality, the down side was the expense of making them.
the Davy Crockett exists as a tactical battlefield weapon in the Battletech setting, sorta. Its not an RR, but rather an infantry or light vehicle used (mainly) long range missile launcher (thats 'long range' in battletech terms, which is about 900-1200meters). There is also an aerospace version around, used a few times to wipe out capital warships very quickly. They were rare and I think only used by the word of blake in the 3060s/3070s
My favourite outlandish weapon is the 'inert bomb', which was used by Britain and the USA during the invasion of Iraq. These were basically a precision laser guided bomb, but with the warhead replaced with concrete. Dropped from a high altitude bomber, this was more than enough to disable a tank, which had the benefit of limiting collateral damage in urban areas from explosions and UXBs.
Also, let's not forget the bouncing bombs of Dambusters fame. That should have made the list.
Multi barreled guns similar to the pepper box are still in use. The A10 Warthog ground attack aircraft uses a rotary autocannon. The advantage of multiple barrels is a faster fire rate and it means that any individual barrel fires fewer bullets/shells in the given time, reducing the risk of overheating.
The pepper box is distinct because each barrel was loaded, so each barrel was its own chamber, while rotary cannons have one action and just rotate out which tube they're shooting through
The pepper box is distinct because each barrel was loaded, so each barrel was its own chamber, while rotary cannons have one action and just rotate out which tube they're shooting through
The lantern shield is similar to the way modern police officers use a large MagLite in their off-hand, cocked at the shoulder, to both illuminate and to strike an enemy. Or the way they use a smaller flashlight held reversed in the off-hand fist, the wrist of which is used to support the pistol hand.
1:41 ok that is litteraly a ham formated flare.
„Chaf, Pig, Chaf, Pig“
„Pig empty, pig empty, break, break“
After the war pigs have done their job you have bacon... Win Win.
And ham, pork chops, spare ribs...
You scare off the elephants and give the enemy clogged arteries
So, I have a family member who I introduced to the Whistlerverse this Christmas, which meant the entire week has been wall to wall Simon Whistler videos, and last night I dreamed that Simon started narrating the whole of Lord of the Rings, but instead of just making a channel, **it was woven into all the channels as tangents about things that Simon and his mates did while he was in uni**
And I think that's a thing that would actually work.
Love the Monty Python falsetto:
"Wait....is that an explosive on a stick?!"
😂😂😂
Regarding thr mysteries of complex, strange and exquisite crafted objects from ages far past, don't forget that a whole bunch of them weren't really made for practical use. They were predominantly made as demonstrations of the craftmen's skill, like a tangible portfolio when vowing for a job/position.
As any AOE2 player knows, another tactic used against War Elephants (at least once in India) was Flaming Camels: put straw on the backs of some camels, light the straw on fire, and send the camels running at the elephants.
The warhead from the Davy Crocket was designed to minimize the blast-wave and fireball. It was a radiation weapon, but not for fallout. It was optimized for the neutron-flux from the detonation. The intent was to irradiate tanks through neutron activation. It could be used to create fallout from a surface blast, but that wasn't the purpose. It was about stopping armor columns and consenting The Fulda Gap, potentially stopping a war in its infancy. Yes, using nukes to save lives and avoid civilian and infrastructure harm. At least that's how they sold it.
Something else they used pigs for, during the Middle Ages, when besieging a castle, instead of trying to get over the walls or break them down using heavy projectiles, they would dig a tunnel under the wall, using wooden beams to hold up the roof. Then they would set the beams on fire so the roof would collapse and that section of the wall would also collapse, and often they would herd a bunch of pigs into the tunnel, as pig fat burns quicker and hotter, thus burning the beams faster.
@11:00 You've got upwind and downwind the wrong way round.
late to this but at 14:10 you illustrate the french "militrailleuse" which is not actually a "must fire all at once" volley gun. There was a crank handle which released individual strikers as it was turned, thus you could fire them in a hail by turning the crank quickly but the cartridges could (with care) be fired in small groups or even individually.
Ngl, 2 weapons I hoped to see mentioned where the flintlock axe (used by Polish cavalry for roughly 200yrs so it definitely had some serious merit and was a real life gunblade) and the kaltoff rifle (basically history's first ever repeating firearm)
Technically the Kaltoff Repeater was not a rifle (smooth bore)
@@Samson-h6l agreed. That said, itll deff cause a minimum of a very bad day
It's my understanding that, in addition to the lunge mine, some Japanese soldiers would dig narrow ditches and crawl into them with a hammer and a shell (I can't remember the size if I ever knew that) designed for ordnance then have their comrades disguise the hole. They'd then sit and wait for a tank to roll over them and hit the shell with the hammer causing it to explode and disable or possibly destroy the tank. I can only imagine how nasty of a way to go that would have been
Pigs were always used to bring down a turret at Rochester Castle in 1215.
During the siege of 1215 King John ordered his men to dig a tunnel that ran under the turret.
Once complete they sent 40 Fat Pigs into the tunnel and then sent them on fire.
The fat burned at such a high temperature it caused the turret to collapse.
With the elephants, a simpler method was to use archers (or bolt throwers which were giant crossbows). The arrows didn't kill the beasts but hurt/annoyed them enough to drive them mad and start them running amok among their own troops.
Wouldn't you want to be upwind from the Davey Crocket blast? Downwind is where the wind blows toward you from the animal so the animal can't smell you, you would want the wind to blow towards the nuke from you, and that's upwind.
One clever "weird weapon" that would have been effective, at least under certain circumstances, is described in Maj.-Gen. Julian Hatcher's "Hatcher's Notebook." It consisted of a powerful motor with a disk attached, and a hopper that dropped 1/2 in. steel balls onto the spinning disk. The balls would achieve a velocity similar to that of a .45 ACP round, and be released. It had a very high rate of fire, and was intended for use in the trenches of WWI. It was rejected for service, I think, because its accuracy was poor, and its range & penetration much less than that of bullets from a machinegun. It might have been effective against massed attacks at close range, such as what the Germans experienced on Russian Front in WWII.
It was actually built, using steam to drive the disk.
It was an utter failure. Ineffective in all respects, in every use case they could imagine.
Heavy, bulky, dependant on external power sources, slow to spin up to useable velocity, and completely inaccurate.
So, no.
@@lairdcummings9092 What I know about it comes from Hatcher's book. He didn't have much to say, beyond its principle of operation. And I read about it, over four decades ago, so maybe I've forgotten some of what he said. As for accuracy, it would certainly have been a "spray" kind of weapon, kind of like grape-shot from a muzzle-loading cannon, or sweeping fire, from the hip, with a SMG.
8:59 the Davy Crockett Nuclear system, Simon missed out one vital point. It could only be fired by operatives, wearing a rackoon hat, complete with tail attached😍🤣😂🤣😂🤣🤩
1:41 Polyanus was Greek ...
"Come on in and take my Shittt!!"
This is the best intro for a sponsor, I was laughing so much 🤣
2:35 not my proudest moment…. But some bacon does sound wonderful about now.
We aren't the only ones who thought that. I pictured Homer Simpson, "mmmmm..., bacon and ham, my two favorite animals".
I'm suprised you didn't cover the old plastique explosive between two lithium batteries trick. Hezbolla fell for it two times in one week!
Didn’t they just replace one of the lithium batters with explosives? There’s a vid of them doing it. Def worked though!
That's not how it worked. It was much more clever. No visually detectable explosives. They used those pagers and radios for several months. Nobody detected it.
Operation Grim Beeper is spy movie stuff
They basically did yeah. The explosive plus the lithium flare = relatively large fireball explosion. @@peter-radiantpipes2800
@@peter-radiantpipes2800 Yes, the Israeli terrorist pager attack, blew off the face of a 9-year-old girl its youngest victim out of 300 people.
The Seventy Maxims of Highly Effective Mercenaries #43: If it's stupid and it works, it's still stupid, and you're lucky.
The segment on the Davy Crockett reminds me of the jokes about the nuclear hand grenade the US was putatively developing. It would blow a hole in the ground a hundred yards across, but they were having a devil of a time testing it, because you could only throw it about forty feet.
With regard to early rapid-fire weapons, I would direct you to the Kalthoff repeating flintlock, which was actually used in combat in 1659; it was a 30-shot weapon that would be reloaded -- including re-priming the action -- by rotating the trigger guard forward and back, allowing for another shot in less than five seconds (there is a Forgotten Weapons video on the subject of this firearm with more detail). Unfortunately, it was far to complicated to build to be a viable choice for a regular infantry weapon, so it faded into history, although it shows that the 30-round magazine capacity that appears to be standard for assault rifles has an unusually long history.
sounds like an rpg I heard of
@@andyf4292 From the "Schlock Mercenary" webcomic.
That was a fantastic episode of that 30 rounds repeating rifle on Forgotten Weapons.
Anything with Simon gets an automatic thumbs up in my book!!😁😁💪💪
The Davey Crockett is really amazing from an engineering standpoint…among the tiniest nuclear weapons ever devised.
Simon: "War pigs."
Me: "GENERALS GATHER IN THEIR MASSSSEEEEEEEEEEEEES"
Did the Davy Crockett come with a pack of Nuka Cola?
Fatman right?
No, but you got a free ticket to see metal gear
No but George Washington needed surf shield, or Nord, or was it coffee, no wait it was Google ads.
11:05 No, you want to be UPwind (where the wind comes from, and blows toward the target). DOWNwind is the Bad Place.
In connection to the Davy Crockett. I never saw the actual figures, but the US Navy's nuclear depth charge comes to mind. It was launched from an ASROC launcher. The maximum range of the rocket was rumored to be around the same as the PK50 radius.
10:56 You got that the wrong way round, down wind means the wind is blowing "down" from the bomb to where you are. It's like upstream and downstream on a river, up is against the flow, down is moving with it.
Also the biggest problem with the Davey Crockett wasn't so much irradiating the crew so much as the fact it was a SUPPORT WEAPON. Meaning you'd have to have friendly troops IN FRONT OF IT, between the crew and the enemy army. Given the short range, and need to not drop it on your own front line the whole system would need to be dangerously close to the front lines. You were not going to be able to fire this thing from a position where you didn't have to worry about things like snipers, or even just mortar teams killing the crew of hitting the ammo around the weapon irradiating everyone in the surrounding area.
7:18 about that "too fancy for your average policeman" - have you ever thought about who exactly all those fancy people on Rembrandt's "Night Patrol" are? Yes, sir, militia. Your average local bobby.
Kudos on finding that vertical harmonica pistol; they were super rare for some reason and images of them are, also.
"Wallace and Grommit-esque contraptions" Have Wallace and Grommit now replaced Rube Goldberg as the progenitors of strange, fascinating, but ultimately useless, ineffectual mechanical solutions?
richard
--
No, they replace Heath Robinson.
The Davy Crockett was the closest thing we ever had to a real life Fireball spell.
Material component: W34 warhead.
Somatic: pull the trigger.
Verbal: 'Back up! BACK UP!'
War Pigs was also a Black Sabbath song!
The Davey Crockett State Park and museum is not far from where I grew up. He was actually a very intelligent man and involved in all sorts of things.
Thought my tangent would be acceptable on a Simon video.
I seem to recall references in many medieval fiction novels, to using pigs herded into a tunnel dug under the enemies wall, then under the wall trapped inside and set on fire, possibly along with wood and straw. The reasoning was something like the intense heat of the burning fat from the pig would cause the ground above to collapse somehow and with it the wall. I don't know if this really happened though.
Most likely didn't. Undermining the wall while propping it up with wooden supports, and then burning the supports to collapse the wall was done often, but you don't need pigs for that. I guess it's possible rendered pig fat was sometimes involved, though.
Furthermore, supplies are your main time limit when laying a siege. Many sieges failed because the people outside the walls ran out of food first. Nobody would've burned their food to achieve an effect you can get with some pitch and a torch.
@Gear3k makes sense, I suppose the novels used burning pigs to highlight the cruelty of medieval seige warfare in a manner more appropriate for younger audiences
Actually some of the best coverage of the Davy Crockett I’ve seen. Well done Simon.
A guy with a name like Polyaenus is for sure going to have to fight his way through the Grove. It’s no wonder he grew up to be the kind of guy who thinks of setting fired to pigs as a way to conduct a battle.
War elephants were also a terrible ancient weapon since once they were startled (by even having a bunch of men waving pointy sticks at them) they would just as likely start trampling your own troops such as in the case of the Battle of Hydaspes where Alexander the Great did just that. No pigs are needed haha
Repeating Rifles existed for FAR longer than people think, with examples going back to the early to mid 1400's. They were not practical for widespread use, but the one seen in the video linked below (from the 1600's) was functional, reliable, and economically viable for a specialized security detail.
Going beyond that, there are more well known examples such as the duck foot gun that fired multiple rounds at once. I saw pictures of a duck foot gun with a rotating hammer that could fire each barrel individually, but it was a picture on the internet so grain of salt.
I've also heard reports of hand crank rotary guns (think Gatling gun) that date back to the revolutionary war period, but those were limited to one shot per barrel (so about 8 shots total), and verifying this claim has been difficult.
According to the Wikipedia page on repeating firearms, examples of revolvers (not pepperbox guns, revolvers. They look remarkably similar to 19th and early 20th century revolvers) started appearing as early as the 15th century. I checked the source on that particular claim, and it is from a book published by a Stanford history professor.
The idea of a modern, magazine fed, multiple shots a second capable gun indeed did not come into play until the late 19th century. However, there is the Chelembron system (the earliest known magazine fed firearm) that has existed since at least 1668, meaning that magazine fed firearms are not a modern invention either.
I'm sick of people making all kinds of claims about how repeating rifles are a new invention. They are not. They have been around since at least the early-modern period (1500-1700), with some speculation that they may have existed earlier than that in east Asia.
th-cam.com/video/ghKrbNpqQoY/w-d-xo.html
Shaped charges do not focus all the explosive energy in one direction. They focus a portion into a jet. You still get significant energy going in all directions, like you do from a bulk charge. At 3 kilos of HE, that is a suicide stick.
I'd assume the utility of warpigs was discovered by accident; someone just happened to be out setting pigs on fire, as people are wont to do, and one of them happened to run towards a nearby elephant causing it to panic.
Burning pigs were also a tactic for damaging stone castles and walls, up into the late middle ages. Tunnels were dug underneath by sappers, the pigs herded in, then ignited as the exit was collapsed.
The high temperatures of burning rendered lard weakened stone and mortar, making them far more vulnerable to catapults
@@danakers6243 The Mongols used cats with their tails set on fire, on at least one occasion during a siege on a city...
One would then have to wonder how one just happen to set a pig on fire 😂
Like people are to do on weekends
🔥 🐷 😢
Didnt they do the same to ox
🤔 Excuse me, Simon. You got your "Upwind & downwind" Reversed. 😁
Love your videos.
Considering that we developed( never adopted) a nuclear grenade, the Davy Crocket was downright reasonable.
How about the Girardoni air rifle of 1780. Magazine fed with 20 round magazine, at a time when most soldiers were using single shot muzzle loaders.
As a kid, I got to touch the Davey Crockett at the Army Ordinance Museum in the Aberdeen Proving Grounds!
AH! Have you heard of the Carl Gustaf 8.4 cm recoilless rifle? Developed 1946 still operational used by USA & Russia to name just two countries. Theortically obsolete but it works on the battle field so still used!
Bacon bomb😂
😂 When you want to take care of the enemy and after battle snacks in one go.
This video reminds me of the movie Mom and Dad Save the World. A grenade that kills people that pick it up. The question was asked "why would anyone pick it up then." The answer, it had "pick me up" writen on it 😅, so stupid! Oh, wiped out like 200 soldiers 😂
7:40 that looks like it's more dangerous to the user than anything. can't put your arm down to the side, can't tuck it behind your shield, can't move the shield to the side to see to stab the other guy and still stab him with the 'free' hand...
In Danish, 'recoilless rifles' are called (directly translatet) 'nozzle canons'. 😏
"Who knows; it was a really long time ago!" 🤣 you just invalidated the work of thousands of historians. Great video!
Tanks also support each other. Tanks are impervious to machine gun, so if a tank in your troop was getting overrun by infantry you’d just machine gun that tank.
So Fallout having that Fat Boy launcher isnt so outrageous.
10:30 I think you have upwind and downwind confused. If you are downwind of a fire, the smke is blowing towards you ...
The Davey Crocket weapon system was designed to fight various type of kaiju. And was theorized to be effective against Eastern Deities.
It's worth noting that many of the men in those banzai charges, specifically the ones against tanks, were not carried out by the people Japan conquered. We are talking slave soldiers in suicide charges. It was genocide.
As for the Davy Crocket; I would feel skeptical being asked to operate any weapon named after a person who died in a last-stand operation, might as well have called it Custer…
Americans sometimes have very strange naming conventions, like the oil platform Blind Faith…
War pigs are similar concept as fire ox formation in Ancient China. The Ox have knifes tied to their horns and their tails are set on fire. When the large number of ox charge into the enemy formation. It create chaos and heavy casualties. The Japanese lunge mine can be effective in China because the Chinese Nationalist armored unit are inexperience and didn't have infantry support. The Japanese lunge mine can be effective in jungle ambush or night time ambush.
No matter what you're going through in life, no matter how bad of a day you might be having; just remember there was a guy named 'Polyaenus'
We didn’t talk about the gay bomb they tried to make in ‘94 that costed 7.4M
For something more modern, Germany is currently developing a missile intended to be fired from a submarine's torpedo tubes to shoot down helicopters.
Sideprojects: "Who knows? It was a long time ago. Go ask Megaprojects"
Hey! The lunge mine bonsai! did that shit and battlefield 1 all the time was so much fun 😂
Not to be pedantic, but the M20 Super Bazooka was in service in Korea in 1950 and used in the defense of the Busan Perimeter. So a bit before 1952.
The up wind, down wind for the Davey Crockett was stated incorrectly. Like a stream, the way it flows. Up wind (the wind is blowing away from you = Safe) Down wind (the wind is blowing in your direction = Oh No we're F'ed)
The lantern shield feels very german engineering. Instead of wrapping a burning rag around the metal bits of a spear or halberd 🪓
I was disappointed you didn't include the Bat Bomb! If not for the atomic bomb, we probably would have used Bat Bombs.
11:20 did you just get up wind and down wind confused?
If you release a gas it flows down wind. So you’d want to be up wind of the enemy, for the wind to carry the gas down wind to the enemy. Hence you want to be up wind of the direct you fire a Davey Crocket.
Might be an English to American thing, BUT-
If you're upwind of something, the wind is blowing from you to whatever.
If you're downwind, whatever is blowing onto you.
Methinks Simon and whoever wrote this episode needs to learn the difference between downwind and upwind. Particularly if they plan on launching any battlefield nukes. 😂😂👍
The Davie C. Rockett system would be immediately fatal to someone standing behind it.