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The Revolutionary American Weapons of War That Never Happened

Posted by samzenpus on from the pipe-dreams dept.

An anonymous reader writes There have been many US military machines of war that seemed to be revolutionary, but never make it out of the prototype stage. As Robert Farley explains: "Sometimes they die because they were a bad idea in the first place. For the same reasons, bad defense systems can often survive the most inept management if they fill a particular niche well enough." A weapon can seem like an amazing invention, but it still has to adapt to all sorts of conditions--budgetary, politics, and people's plain bias. Here's a look at a few of the best weapons of war that couldn't win under these "battlefield" conditions.

4 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Revolutionary American weapons... by CurryCamel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You mean the rifled musket?

    1. Re:Revolutionary American weapons... by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah I was hoping for some steampunk goodness as well, a la Brisco County Jr.

      In other news you cannot, cannot have an article about wacky war machines without prolific pictures, it contravenes no less than six seperate articles of the Internet Convention on Clickbait Guidelines.

  2. What, no pictures?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Jeez...

  3. Re:Helicopters by Austrian+Anarchy · · Score: 5, Informative

    I heard that the army uses helicopters not because they want to but because they have to (Air Force having jurisdiction over planes existing since late 40s as a seperate branch) and that in many missions they use helicopters planes would actually be superior.

    Is this true?

    The Key West Agreement that formed the Air Force had a stipulation that the Army would not have any armed aircraft. Lather that was re-interpreted as no armed FIXED-WING aircraft.

    Side note on the Cheyenne, the helicopter that was to be the scout helicopter for the Cheyenne attack aircraft evolved into the AH-1 Cobra. IIRC, the original scout helicopter for the Cobra was the OH-6, later replaced by the OH-58.

    --
    Time Bomber the Book coming soon.