Most clever / inventive weapon of the war

As I understood it, it was designed to move towards and blow up static defences (barbed wire, bunkers and so on) which troops could not approach.

 

I like all the above answers, Spam was really good ! Powdered eggs to go with it.

I would add to the list the German helmet. It was better than anything the allies had and the Japanese and most countries use helmets that look like it today but made with kevlar. The British pie pan helmet does not look like it was worth the metal it was made of.

 

Well if the allied soldiers only saw the thing when it was near them, they could not shoot it as they would die. Goliaths where used on Utah beach and caused unintentional casualties. Their movement systems where damaged so the ran around the beach uncontrollably. GIs thought this was fun until one of them dropped a grenade in one, ran about 10 meters away, then got blown up by the explosion. His squad mates died also.

 

TA, the weird thing is that the Tommy lid was pretty effective for what it was designed for, from a study I read a while back apparently it was desgned to prevent injury by shrapnel from above. This was fine during trench warfare, when most of the shrapnel troops had to deal with was coming down, obviously later it became something of a problem later, hence the turtle helmet I guess.

Still, I like the suggestion of the German tin lid, I'm sure the only reason ours aren't the same is that the MOD won't accept troops wearing coal-scuttle helmets.

 

I guess you'd have to be behind some kind of cover. LOL I had only read of their use in the Eastern front, I did'nt know about Normandy.
Lone Sentry: German Remote-Controlled Demolition Vehicles ("Goliath", WWII U.S. Intelligence Bulletin, July 1944, WW2 Panzers)

 

A few of my choices:

The Hedgehog ASW system
The MP 43 / 44
The VT fuze
The Type XXI submarine and high underwater speed submarines like it.
The GP machinegun... eg., MG 34 / 42
HEAT / Hollow charge weapons. From Eben Emael to the bazooka and panzerfaust.

 

Excellent suggestion Slipdigit!

How about the B29 for a shockingly 'full on' piece of military technology?

Cheers,
Adam.

 

Most of these inventions were just variations or improvements on existing weapons. My choices would be:

Jeep
Landing Craft/Higgins Boat
Both of the specialty bombs used by the Dam Buster Squadron
the snorkle
A-bomb

 

Yes, an improvement was made to the snorkel which was used by the Dutch even before the start of WWII. However, if the Germans were smart they would have foreseen the advantage of such a device and employed it earlier on to solve problems associated with its operation, which in turn may have slowed or quickened (a "what if" question?) the Allies technological advancements in dealing with submerged boats. My point is that by the time they chose to use the idea it was much too late.

 

going from bolt action rifles to semi-automatic rifles such as the SVT-40, M1 Garand and others .


And the Tiger. Killing Morale and knocks your tank out

 

They sure did, compo ration packs contained food for 10 men for one day or 1 man for 10. According to several sources they tasted far better than US field rations and were highely prized by US troops (my Grandpa refers to a shelter that had a wall stacked with compo boxes, wen the US trooops arrived the wall vanished). Good idea for a war winning weapon, but then the attitude to food in the RKKA was different, when the field kitchen was at the front about the best you could expect was thin cabbage soup or maybe buckwheat porridge if you were lucky. There was a formal food ration along western lines but rather than being tins of stew etc it consisted of bread, cheese, meat and some grain. Apparently spam was quite popular and one soviet soldier was entertained by the site of siberian troops eating Spam and Pineapple, unsure of what either of them was.

 

The P-38............yes a novel little widget.

 

I used to have one of these, the most practical and useful tin opener I ever saw

 

Stumbled on this one.....
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUsuoVm_XKI&eurl=

 

Ouch, wouldn't want to be in that tank. I didn't realise howmuch pace they had.

Good find there.

 

Nice video, Will. I have'nt read an awfully lot on it. Supposedly it does'n have a reverse, so if you miss you'd have to circle around or what-not.

 

Can't think why I hadn't mentioned it before, but one of the simplest, most devilishly-effective weapons to catch the enemy by surprise has to be 'Schrage Musik', the upward-slanting MG-FF cannon used by the Nachtjagd.

Designed 'in the field', this mounting of what were effectively obsolete weapons was absolutely devasting, and it took the RAF an incredible amount of time to 'cotton on', preferring instead to believe in 'scarecrow shells', etc....

 

While that Goliath video makes it look nifty, it was in practive relatively ineffective. It was very suspectable to small-arms fire, which usually destroyed the little sucker before it got near its target. And its controller usually had to be within view of the target too...not a very happy predicament to be in in either case!!