Fun fact: Project Habbakuk didn't actually fail, it just wasn't cost-effective. The model that they built on Patricia Lake, in Jasper, Alberta, Canada, actually worked (it floated), and took an entire summer to melt to the point of sinking. The wreckage was rediscovered in 1985, and has since become a popular diving attraction.

Actually, if I remember correctly, Project X-Ray (the bat bombs) were proven to be highly effective, more effective then they anticipated as they set blaze to an Army Air Base in New Mexico. In theory and operation they worked, and the technical aspects were being worked out for the bomb's mass production. Bomb production was greenlighted for a raid on Japan which probably would have been very deadly. However, at the time the Bat Bombs were being primed for combat, the nuclear bomb took top priority, and many Japanese cities have already been firebombed by General Curtis Lemay (about 66) who led the firebombing campaign over Japan. However, Bomber Command now needed untouched cities to test the effects of the nuclear bombs, and the number of remaining cities that met requirements were very limited. Thus between the extensive firebombing of Japan and preparation for a nuclear strike expected to end the War, the need for a bat bomb was overtaken by events and weapons of a higher priority. I would NOT consider them a "failed weapon."

I remember the flying platforms from MSG3, they were weirdly effective but also fun to shoot down.

I remember when I was a kid in the early 2000's, the forward mounted laser cannon and the heat ray that disperses crowds were treated as marvelous advances in technology. But, now in today's world, you call them failures. Interesting how times change

Dale Brown has a series of books where they tested and perfected Tin Man armour, handheld rail guns, and even plane based lasers. All of which took place at the research and testing facility called Dreamland, which is actually a real place

imagine beta testing weapons in the middle of a war

I remember seeing something recently showcasing how far the active denial system has come and it seems much more effective

The flaming pigs made me sad

14:29 The Sturmgewehr 44 wasn't a machine gun it was an assault rifle, the first one in masses produced and inspiration for the ak-47 later.

I haven't even seen the video yet but you know it's going to be good

I've heard of fans having their own head cannon, but this thumbnail takes it to a new level

The turret hat thing takes “that’s my head cannon” to a whole new level

5:55 the rotabuggy did NOT fly it was a propeller kite concept, the propellers served as kind of like a spining parachute that would slow the vehicle's decent, the wings and the propellers were supposed to be detachable, it was not meant to be some early helicopter. PLEASE please Infographics show, I love your channel, I have been following this channel for years but lately you've started to spit out wrong information about your World War weapons and medieval facts.

Actually the GyroJet gun itself didn't have many complex moving parts. In fact it was a lot simpler than a typical self-loading firearm. The malfunctions were caused by the projectiles themselves. Forgotten Weapons and Taofledermaus made videos showcasing this unusual firearm (the latter even got to shoot it).

In all fairness, the "tailsitter" could make a comeback. After all, when used for point-to-point earthbound trips, that's almost exactly what Spacex's Starship is.

The Brits also used war balloons and were more successful. Some of the balloons carried metal wires that destroyed enemy powerlines or carried bombs that detonated over Germany. The balloons were phased out toward the end of the war, likely because of the whole "Having troops and equipment in the area" thing. Unfortunately, some of the balloons did manage to go off course and managed to do damage in more neutral countries.

Interestingly, the laser research from the plane mounted ball turret worked out for the US Navy and Army who made anti-aircraft turrets that were mounted on ships or could be towed as a trailer behind a HMMWV and set up with a generator. In principle, it works, it just requires power which the powerplant of a naval vessel can provide.

the krummlauf was intended to minimize the death spots for the tank crew, and that you can attack enemies near your tank (not all tanks had machineguns for defense). so the shattered bullets were not a negativ point at all.

Some of these weapons seem like they would be more at home in Metal Slug than in real life.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

These weapons got me laughing hard and loud in the middle of the night. 🤣

The laser cannon doesn't seem like a failed weapon. Just with the current technology it isn't practical. Like with the vertical takeoff aircraft. All the research is done, just need a better power source and it can be put on the frontlines rapidly.

The longer videos lately are amazing thank you!

should have done the flying wing. They tried to make one during WW2 but it failed dramatically. many decades later, Northrop tried it again, and with more advance technology they succeeded. It's now called the B-2 bomber.

After the success of Habakkuk, Geoffrey Pyke went and crafted a Zeppelin called Hindenburg made out of pure hellfire and brimstone.

When building houses in Canada, often in winter there is ice buildup on the floor that we have to scrape off to stop slipping. But often there is a lot of sawdust mixed in with it and those spots can NOT be scraped off. The Pykrete ice is much, much harder that regular ice, as well as been slower to melt. That's why he thought it might be a feasible idea.

3:26 his voice cracked lol

the brilliant pebbles sounds like a prototype to an orbital cannon

Not sure where the doubts about Brilliant Pebbles's efficacy are coming from; using computers and radar to aim your shots makes it easy to hit a missile in flight with a projectile.

6:35 "They said it could not be done. They said it was designed for tanks. They said I could not make it smaller and more accurate. They were wrong."

It seems like humans are at their most ingenious when they're trying to destroy each other.

Pycrete actually melts much slower than regular ice. That's kind of an important detail that you left out.

Most of these things happen because of cumbersome bureaucracies with "Discretionary Funds." Also, and who would have guessed, when you threaten people with annihilation they sometimes get a little crazy... Most of these things make a little sense, conceptually, except the flaming pigs and the explosive balloons- those were pretty dumb.

Pykrete is actually surprisingly resilient from melting. People should look up the material to get a better understanding of it. I think making something at least from it is absolutely plausible

Pig missile? That's what I call my- nvm.

I love the yelling sound they use in these videos it makes laugh so much 🤣 uugghhhh!! uugghhhhh!!😂

You’re wrong about the active denial weapon. The sunburn effect was the weapon dialed to the lowest setting. The weapon can fry and vaporize people instantly

Honestly they already made a video similar to this. But they still make it watchable and engaging

The hovering platform is like a super primitive prototype of what Spider Man's Green Goblin or Warhammer 40k's Dark Eldar hellions ride on. Those are super manouverable and Its riders are armoured though.

I think the Gyrojet will make a comeback in 40,000 years time. I just have a gut feeling

The active denial system was only week to avoid being accused of war crimes. It had limiters in place that kept it low intensity. Without limiters in place, the hardware was capable of setting people on fire in an instant

These are some Kerbal Space Program level inventions.

I saw something about pigeon guided bombs in WW2 by the allies, but as for igniting living animals, that is kinda sick. If that backfires on someone, they kind of have it coming.

I remember that active denial system, my unit was one of the guinea pigs. And ya they said it was supposed to do all this stuff to us but when we walked through it all I felt was slight heat where the skin was exposed, and when in full uniform that isn't gonna do anything. Kinda funny

14:24 small correction, the Stg44 was an assault riffle, not a machine gun.

The gyrojet weapon DID NOT contain a gyroscope. The idea was that the nozzles for the propellant would be angled so as to spin the projectile. Replacing the rifling in a gun barrel. It failed because it was inaccurate, and failed to obtain the velocities normally found in conventional ammunition. Brilliant pebbles was a project or code name, which cannot in any way reveal what the real product is or will be. If you think that ones strange . . .

That would be insane if those weapons actually worked

with all of the horror stories that you hear about military "experiments", it's a wonder that weapons like Churchill's 'Funnies' ever succeeded

"But like all the other weird weapons in his arsenal, it fails as well" I laughed so hard at that. Excellent intro.

Lost it when he said “They could stick their Krummlauf out of the small holes…” 😂

I feel that the one with the turret hat can be realistic if you put an automatic turret that detects enemies and shoots them.

It's Kool how factual and consistent infographics is especially producing the animations on a daily basis 👍🤙

Meanwhile the ones who tested and invented these weapons: *FULL OF EMBARRASSMENT BECAUSE THE PROJECTS FAILED*

The Gyrojet did at least give us one thing to rember it for. It's the real world inspiration behind Bolters in 40K! LOL

What about the nuclear mine that would be active as long as the chicken inside it stayed alive?

11:30 -- it is worth mentioning that several of the Japanese balloon bombs landed in Western Canada. At least one surviving example is preserved in a museum. Analysis of the ballast allowed the Allied military to ascertain where in Japan these were being produced and target the site for retaliatory bombing raids.

"Ran into all sorts of problems" is the new headline

if the The Infographics Show replys to me I WILL EAT AA COOKIE! RN

If you want to see The Tail Sitter in person there's 2 or 3 of them in Ohio at the Air Force Museum (it's a HUGE museum, with many cool aircrafts from around the world and timelines) Along with a Canadian made Flying Saucer which was also a flop during WWll. But it sorta worked and looks pretty dope.

I wish they at least put these things in museums. So more people can laugh at them.

Flaming pigs might have been a failure, but the Flaming Lips are FTW 😂

I can’t believe this is actually real

The helicopter was invented in 1939 so why didn't they go with that? We could have had massive amounts of people saved or dropped in if we had the helicopter in ww2

A failed weapon be like: i put a nuke on drone and it goes to the President with a portal that doesn’t even work

My favorite was the Bat Bomb

Nice. If we're going for weird Cold War weapons, the Ecronoplan comes to mind.

The Japanese balloon bombs were actually genius. Think about the Jet Stream and back then they knew some but not that much. So for them to get all the way to California was pretty amazing to say the least. However it did cause some deaths and for that I am sorry to them and their families. Now to time those balloons to drop weights to stay in the air and make it, you have to admit that was crazy. The US definitely didnt want them to know that they were making it all the way over. It sounds a whole better then the Helmet cannon and an aircraft carrier made of ice. Lol.

That bat's the true hero of the war. Said "Let's see how YOU like it!" Rest in peace, little fella.

Despite these failures I still respect the people for at least trying. Many great ideas would have been lost if they were never tried.

Cool video, check out the Convair Model 49 , it was a weird circular looking helicopter that didn't quite work out 🤣.

"yeah but it has mad recoil though" "nah its all g-" "dont say i didnt warn you"

NPCs talking gibberish is distracting and annoying

For every brilliant idea, there’s 100 dumb ones.

Imagine your heat beam got stopped by sunscreen.

Last

The laser at the end could work for land I bet.

WW2 also seen such experimental weapons such as the Japanese "Death Ray".. Invented by a relative on my mother's side. The weapon did not really pan out due to the energy requirements.. Due to it being scrapped its hard to say if such a weapon could be fielded today or not. More so considering the advancements made in the technology involved. It still gets featured in movies though so there is that. If you ever watched old Godzilla movies you seen one without realizing it basically. At least models of them. ( The Death Rays in those films are indeed models of the real thing. ) Germany had a weapon that was based on sound.. A sort of sound cannon.. Though said cannon was the size of an extremely large factory. Both this and the previously mentioned weapon worked and was very deadly.. The problems are mostly due to size issues and time when they where invented. It made for a decent immobile defense platform but there really was not much time for them to improve on it. Honestly there is a bunch more that had potential but because they where made when they where, and not all of the tech was quite there yet.. I feel if these ideas where to be researched again they have some strong potential.

Pikecrete actually worked pretty well it was a insanely hard material and floated well it just wasn't viable overall

I'm pretty sure the last one on the list actually got repurposed onto aircraft carriers to be apart of the anti air system

When the Mongols won over China they only used primitive weapons like bow and arrow, while the Song soldiers got firing squads using muskets, cannon squads and rocket launchers. But when an army are filled with good archers they would win any war, they can read the wind and shot arrows few kilometers out to take out their target while bullets only go so far, the rockets worked well but there were not enough to stop the Mongols.

4:30 I think a lot of people find it funny when the infographics show characters lose their minds 🤬🤯😱

I like to think that in an alternate universe, all these things succeeded. A cooking war helmet and a glorified tanning machine as viable weapons.

The helmet gun was insane 🤣🤣🤣🤣

"The pigs then became early anti Tank missiles" 😂

Badman, why are you hunting Dracula? ...Bat bombs

Imagine being in war and a car pulls up and gives you cancer

The guns with the bent barrels have always made zero sense to me, its like the designer actually just forgot how a gun works lol

bat-bomb segment : *_WRONG!_* gyrojet segment : *_WRONG!_*

Pig missiles is where I lost it 😂😂😂

Pykrete is actually unbelievably hard, you made it sound like something incredibly terrible

Okay the ice boat was just ridiculous

My next barbeque: flaming pig missiles

i was about to say that this is the same animation of SCP Explained but then i saw that they are the same person

I would say the aircraft carrier designers were on a lot of opioids.

The ice ship is the dumbest idea ever imagine just xhilling literally chilling like butter in afridge and ur hull just cracks in half cuz ur boat got a lil sweaty

Died laughing when the cartoon guy fired the helmet cannon and his head just recoiled back HAHAHA

I wouldn't call "Brilliant Pebbles" as failed per se, it led the way for the orbital weapon system that we have now that utilizes tungsten rods.

Test subject: what would you consider a success? Lab worker: for a subject to survive Test subject: how many times you tried? Lab worker: im afraid i haven't clearance for that information just relax its about to begin Test subject: oh ok. Lab worker: running test 43!!

In war,many idea`s came up,so it was about trying and failing,trying and failing all the time.Some were good and some were bad.

That intro is literally just how Volkswagen owners feel 😂😂😂😂