Thursday, April 13, 2017

Whopper Weapons

American generals are peeing their pants in excitement over the first ever use of what they gleefully call the "Mother of All Bombs." Militaries throughout history have been obsessed with having the biggest fucking killing thingies.

MOAB (aka: GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast) - USA
This thing has been sitting on the shelf, unused, for 15 years. It's too big to fit on a standard bomber so must be delivered from a transport plane which means it is useless against any enemy with anti-aircraft capabilities. It is less effective than standard ordinance and is only useful for generals suffering from SPS (small penis syndrome) who've run out of Viagra.

TSAR Tank/TSAR Bomba - Russia
The Tsar Tank is a World War I weapon and the biggest tank ever built. This 27 foot tall tricycle design, two big front wheels and one tiny rear wheel, was designed to roll over trenches like a monster truck over a Mini Cooper. It was too heavy for its wheels. The prototype got stuck in the mud outside Moscow in 1914 and sat rusting until it was dismantled in 1923 for scrape.

The Tsar Bomba is the largest nuclear weapon ever built with a yield as much as 100 megatons or 2000 times bigger than the Hiroshima bomb. It was too heavy to fit on an ICBM so had to be delivered via a specially fitted bomber. Unfortunately, no bomber capable of carrying it could fly fast enough to be out of range before it detonated, meaning the airplane would be disintegrated along with the target. Volunteers?

Schwerer Gustav - Germany
The biggest artillery gun ever built. It required special railroad tracks to be laid to move it to the battlefield. Once there it would take 250 soldiers three days to prepare it for use, 2000 soldiers to defend and operate it, and it was only able to fire 14 shells a day. It was used once in combat on the Russian front for two weeks in 1942.

Panzer VIII Maus - Germany
The "Mouse" was a shorter but much heavier tank than the Tsar Tank. It was six times heavier than the US main battle tank, the Sherman. That weight was a problem because the Germans could not fit it with an engine able to move it faster than a brisk walking pace making it useless during a mobile tank battle.

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