Most cost effective weapon

What do you think was the most cost-effective weapon of WW2? By this I mean what weapon did the most amount of damage for the least cost. We could also talk about the other extreme: what weapon was the least cost-effective? Of course I've got my ideas but I'd like to read yours.

 

I would think the German AA 88 mm both cost-effective and massive proipaganda effect. How many tanks it could kill when others had not effect....

 

Mines. For a little time and effort you have a weapon that suppresses movement, destroys vehicles and infantry. All without allowing the enemy to retaliate directly.

Naval patrol planes.

 

Torpedoes, several times the return for the cost involved.

 

I'd have to agree with Pacifist... mines were cheap and plentiful. Set 'em and forget 'em (although hopefully someone has their locations mapped...)

 

Thinking about it though, I would have to say the Allied codebreaking efforts. They were, by far, the most "cost effective weapon" of World War II.

 

anyone know the damage stats on mines???.....I thought the Germans hit a few in the Channel Dash?....I like the power of the US flamethrower .... very efficient in getting the hard to hit places....you don't want to be on the wrong side of that!..not as many kills, but it would get you through the tough points

 

Tak has something here...''one'' weapon hit to destroy a shipload of troops/cargo/etc, along with the ship...

 

WRT naval mine, they are scattered around the internet.

US Merchant Marine losses to mines were comparatively small compared to other causes. Worthy of note, is that some 20% were sunk or damaged after the war had ended, the last USMM ship recorded as being sunk by a mine was in 1947, the last damaged was in 1950.

 

The Supermarine Spitfire.

A town could buy one for £5000, it could have a career in the RAF lasting years....

...then they'd sell it to some Third World country for almost the same cost....

...THEN it gets brought home to the UK and restored and is worth 1.5-2 million pounds!

 

More on naval mines.

JANAC report can be found here (although it does not account for Japanese vessels under 500 tons): https://archive.org/details/JapaneseNavalAndMerchantShippingLossesDuringWorldWarIiByAllCauses

US Merchant Marine sunk or damaged(entire list and another list of those sunk or damaged just those to mines):
http://www.usmm.org/shipsunkdamaged.html

 

I'm liking naval mines for pure bangs/buck value.
I suppose realistically you ought to factor in all the thousands laid that never struck anything and caused headaches for decades after deployment, the cost of laying etc., but at the pure crunch moment of a mine hitting a capital ship, that's the equivalent of £billions going down to something that, relatively, cost a few quid.

Rubbish at naval stuff though. Biggest Naval asset lost to a mine other than transport ships?


Man-portable rockets maybe a suggestion for pure land-based cost efficiency?
From Bazooka to modern stuff, some very expensive machines have fallen to a pretty cheap RPG sort of strike.

Though maybe we could also say that whatever killed each of the 963 german Generals and above in WW2 was pretty good value.
A General for a .303 round or grenade - the bean-counters would approve,

 

Hmmmmm....nobody mentioned the mortar or, as Von poop mentioned, the man-held portable tank-killers-of which the panzerfaust was the cheapest and arguably the most effective!

 

Mortars is pretty spot on too, surely.
Biggest infantry killer if memory serves? Pretty much a tube, a casting and a blob of HE.

 

Molotov cocktails were cheap and sometimes effective

 

Oh yeah! 4.2" mortar could hit like a 105 howitzer

 

I'm with Adam, hand held rocket launchers. (bazooka, panzerfaust, panzerschrek, PIAT, etc)

 

Overall, that would be the Hospital ship HMHS Britannic(Titanic's sistership)
Warships
WW2, it was the Leander class light cruiser HMS Neptune.
WW1, it was the King George V class battleship HMS Audacious.

 

Moreso. Roughly twice the explosive, but half the range.

 

How much did a single VT proximity fuse for a British 3.5" AA round cost...?