5 Weird Axis Weapons

We all know from comic books that the Axis were loaded to their schnitzel with awesome and secret weapons that would have won the war if not for heroic fighting and maybe Captain America. Right? Well mostly, but the Axis powers really did experiment with a bunch of zany weapons worthy of Blowfeld from Bond. From stealth aircraft, to monster tanks and death rays, they had it all. Here for you, cracked managers, is my list of 5 weird Axis weapons.

1. Corner shot.

One of the biggest problems in fighting is being able to see around corners without having to stick your head out and get it blown off. Some one in Hitler's army decided that the best way to achieve this would be to make a gun that could shoot around corners. They took a perfectly good MP-44 and literally bent the barrel. This new gun could actually shoot around corners. Of course it also could ONLY shoot around corners and then only in one direction. In a twist of irony fit to be a comic book plot the weapon inspired one country to actually make a better version. Israel is know to employ a gun that can actually change the direction of its barrel and with a video camera attached the operator can do what Counter Strike hackers have been proving to us is the single most frustrating thing in the world and shoot people around corners.

2.Super Tanks.

If there is one thing every general likes it's bigger toys. WWII spawned a host of huge tanks on all sides. The cake goes to Germany who built at least 3 types. The biggest was the Maus Panzer. This behemoth sported a 128mm cannon; that's larger than any cannon in use on tanks today. It also had a co-axial 75mm cannon (the size used on several German main battle tanks as a primary armament and several machine guns. Its armor was thicker than any tank in production and against weapons of the time would have been nearly indestructible. This made it weigh in at 188 tons, keep in mind that the M1 Abrams of the U.S. Army which is the heaviest tank in the world tops off at 70 tons!

Fortunately the war did not go well for Hitler and the production was halted. The Soviets captured both prototypes late in the war and sent them to Moscow. Also thankfully the Soviets were more interested in small tanks (or maybe to figure out how to make the Rolex time piece on the dashboard) so we never had to face this monstrosity.

Amazingly the Germans had plans for even bigger tanks, the P.1000 was a 1000 ton tank being developed by Germany armed with 2 280 mm main guns, 1 128mm gun, 8 20 mm guns, and 2 15 mm guns, also in the works was a even bigger p.1500 which was a 1500 ton self propelled gun with a 800mm main gun! thankfully by 1942 Germany was starting to lose ground to allied forces and put tier plans for a tank fortress behind them.

3. Vortex Gun

As you can probably guess by now the Germans are fascinated with weapons that sound cool but they were just short on time to complete. One of their coolest guns was

known as the vortex gun. It used the principle that air is compressible and if a ring of compressed air is shot out of a gun it stays fairly cohesive over large distances. The idea was to make a anti-aircraft gun that fired these air doughnuts. The hope was that it would rip the wing off a airplane or at longer distances the change in air pressure over the flaps would stall one wing causing the aircraft to spin out and crash. While it sounded good on paper in theory they had trouble getting vortexes actually working. By the time of the Allied invasion the Germans had deployed several around some cities. In fact the only reason we know about them is because some Allied trooper took a picture of one. In a true twist of fate Allied scientists took it back to the United States. There it became a curiosity, until one toy company looked at the concept and said, "hey I can make a toy with this", and the company in the late 60's released the vortex gun which is still sold today. In a stranger twist the toy has inspired the U.S. Army to create a version for less than lethal use.

4. Ku Go Death Ray

The world has always been fascinated with the idea of a death ray. In the 1930's many countries experimented with the idea of using microwaves as a weapon. While most concluded that it could not be made into a practical military weapon (though the British concluded that it could detect air planes hence RADAR) the Japanese with their love of all things ray related took the designs given to them by Germany to a frightening level. They figured out how to magnify microwave emitters to a level useful for harming people. It was developed by Unit 731 which was in charge of Japanese biological and chemical warfare and testing. According to several papers it was used to torture and kill many Allied and Chinese prisoners. Unfortunately for us microwave gun aficionados most of the records were either destroyed or captured by the United States. It should also be noted that the U.S. now fields a operational version of the weapon.

5. Stealth Bomber

If you think that the B-2 was the first stealth bomber then you would be wrong. When designing the B-2 the designers of Northrop Grumman who were making a tour of the Smithsonian came across an unusual airplane. When they got the history of it they decided to use it as a blueprint for their new stealth bomber. The jet plane was the work of a little known airplane design corps, the Horten brothers. For years they had been designing flying wing airplanes. They were so influential that other flying wing enthusiasts like Jack Northrop copied their designs. After America entered the war Hitler decided that he would have to find a way to strike at the American heartland. He believed that a attack on American cities would scare America out of the war. Unfortunately for him, Hitler had neglected his long range bomber force in favor of small planes. The Horten brothers came to the Luffaffa with their flying wing design. It proved amazingly fuel efficient. The German commanders quickly ordered several prototypes made. During flight testing it was discovered that these planes were almost invisible to radar. As Hitler grew more desperate to end the war funding for this America bomber progressed. Eventually a four engine design was under construction when the

Horten factory was over run by American forces. Though the main bomber was destroyed, American forces captured one of the prototypes and sent it to the Smithsonian. Their it languished until the 80's until it was needed for our own stealth bomber. Scarily foreshadowing the B-2's use as a nuclear bomber the America bomber was to have dropped a nuclear (later changed to a radiological, or dirty bomb) bomb.