In the history of mankind, he has always been on the look-out for new and different ways to destroy life. Many times, he has been very successful.
Sometimes... he hasn't...
Britain invented weapon #74 (ST), a hand grenade which became affectionately known as the 'sticky bomb', so named for a special adhesive coating which would, theoretically, stick to the side of an enemy tank and blow it to bits. Unfortunately, it also had the nasty habit of sticking to the soldiers' hands! Which it very often did!
If the soldier somehow managed not to become attached to the grenade, he could pull the pin, after which he had a very generous 5 seconds to toss it. However, at 4 1/2 pounds, only Olympic shot putters had half a chance of throwing it far enough that he wouldn't blow himself up in the process.
The war-time life-span of weapon #74 was, much to the relief of the British soldiers, very short.
Not to be out-done, the Japanese inventers came up with the Lunge Bomb. It was comprised of a long, spear-like pole with a grenade and 3 armour-piercing spikes attached to the end.
To use it, the soldiers had to sneak up on a tank or truck, ram the spikes into the side, and then run like hell before it blew up.
However, since the safety pin had to be pulled before all of this happened, simply ramming the spikes into the tank often detonated the bomb before the soldiers had time to run away.
The 'gold medal' of the stupidest and most useless weapon ever created must go to the Russians for their invention of the 'dog mine' which, if successful, would bring any enemy Panzer division to its caterpillar-treaded knees!
Before World War II, the Russians began to specially-train dogs to associate food with the underside of tanks. (Whether they got this idea from fellow-Comrad Ivan Pavlov or whether Pavlov got his idea from this plan is unknown.) Before long, the dogs were drooling and straining at their leads at the mere sight of a tank.
(WARNING: Animal lovers are advised to read no further!!)
The next step in training was to strap 'dummy' bombs to the backs of the dogs to get them used to the weight.
On day one of Russia's involvement in World War II, real bombs replaced the 'dummies' and the dogs were sent into battle. Unfortunately, they associated food with Russian tanks and forced an entire Russian tank division into hasty and desperate retreat!
The remaining dogs were retired from service on day two.
