The weirdest military vehicle ever...

[Dr.Rob]

The DUKW was a pretty darned important war machine. Ugly or not.

The kettenkrad was designed to move small cannons, rather than something as tedious as a MG34/42. The defacto shooting platform for those was often the shoulder of the loader! That little bike/tractor could move a pretty serious piece of artillery, albiet slowly.

The Ekranoplan is a very odd duck indeed, and they are still made in the former USSR. The largest one ever planned rivaled the spruce goose in size and was designed to land tanks and troops from a Soviet Rapid Deplyment Force from 'beyond the horizon'.

As in: Look juan, our nation is free from communist agitators as I see no ships off the beach.

(5 minutes later)

Look Juan I don't see why you continue to hold on to bourgeoise capitalist ideals, show our comrades some respect!

The ekranoplan in its modern form still is used on the black sea, and small civilian models boast amazing speeds.

As for the Flying tank, the Soviets built one called the Sturmavik, the lower half of the plane was made of armor plate!

Those mini GE jets are real, I know a former AF Colonel who flew one as a test pilot. They are based on racing planes from the 1930's as I understand it.

Wierdest military invention I ever saw?

Gas Mask for a Horse at the cavalry Museum in Kansas, the fliters were so heavy the horse could effectively only haul a few pounds of gear. the masks stayed at home when the cavalry went to war in WW1, the horses were used to move cannons and wounded.

 

[Mike Irwin]

Rob,

The French and British supplied their horses with gas masks, normally a "feed bag" type that went over the muzzle.

 

[Detritus]

truly SAD thing about the development of the XF-85 Goblin, is that Mcdonell-Douglas (Sp??) AND teh Air force made one simple mistake, that was fatal to the program. it was decided that ALL of the inital flight testing including the "recovery" phase (ie hooking back up with it's carrying cradle) would be performed by an M-D civilian test pilot. the man assigned this task had never flown close formation in his life!!! the hook up phase of the goblin's flight is THE hardest part, requiring great proficiency at the ONE skill the civvy test pilot did NOT have. there are accounts by the USAF test pilots who flew "chase" on the tests that it was painful to them to watch the man flail around under the "mother" B-36. and that no one on the military side was surprised when the guy slamed into the docking cradle so had he broke his canopy

had the XF-85 been test flown by USAF test pilots the program MIGHT have been saved and the concept at least truly tested. though due to advances that came along at teh same time, it is unlikely that anything would have ever truly come from the program. the mission it was designed to serve (fighter cover for deep penetration bombers) was soon dropped from the list of "needed assets" as ICBM and higher faster flying bombers came on line. AND as longer range non-parasite fighters became a reality.

 

[Solinvictus70]

DUKW

We have a company here in Chattanooga called "Duck Tours". They take you through the city in a DUKW, then get on the Tennessee River and boat around the Audobon's wilderness island. The tours are really cool. They have three DUKW's, one repainted and the other two in the original OD green.

 

[4v50 Gary]

My vote for wierdest military vehicle is the Vespa Motor Scooter with a recoilless rifle mounted on it.

 

[MicroBalrog]

My vote for wierdest military vehicle is the Vespa Motor Scooter with a recoilless rifle mounted on it

These are real?

 

[4v50 Gary]

Got a photo of it in a book (page 67 of Encyclopedia of Armoured Cars by Duncan Crow & Robert J. Icks) about armored cars. Unfortunately the book doesn't give the production # of these things. Produced by the French in 1950, it was suppose to be parachutable.

 

[gun-fucious]

i'll vote for the Natter:
http://www.nasm.si.edu/nasm/aero/aircraft/bachemba.htm