Any weapon is made for a specific purpose: some are defensive, some are offensive. And there is one that was made specifically in order to cause as much suffering as possible to the enemy. It is precisely this unique ancient weapon that will be discussed in this collection.
Khopesh
Khopesh is a type of bladed weapon of Ancient Egypt with a sickle-shaped blade. In form and functionality it is something between a sword and an ax. Khopesh quite successfully combines the features of both of these weapons - with this weapon you can chop, cut, and stab. The first mention of it appears in the New Kingdom, the last - around 1300 BC. e. Most often, the khopesh worked like an ax; in practice, it is impossible to stop its blow with a blade alone - it breaks through. When experimenting on a plywood board without frames 10 mm thick, a training khopesh with a blade thickness of 4 to 8 mm and a weight of 1.8 kg pierced it without any problems. Strikes from the back of the blade easily pierced the helmet.
Kakute
A fighting ring or kakute is a non-lethal type of Japanese weapon, which consists of a small hoop encircling the finger and riveted/welded spikes (usually from one to three). A warrior usually wore one or two rings - one on the middle or index finger and the other on the thumb. Most often, rings were worn with the spikes inward and were used in cases where it was necessary to capture and hold a person, but not kill him or cause deep damage. However, if the kakute were turned with their spikes outward, they turned into serrated brass knuckles. The goal of the kakute was to subdue the enemy, not to kill him. These fighting rings were especially popular among kunoichi - female ninjas. They used poison-coated kakute for quick, fatal attacks.
Shuangou
Shuangou is a sword with a hook-shaped tip, a dagger-shaped pommel and a sickle guard. As a result, a warrior armed with such a strange weapon was able to fight at different distances, both close and at a distance from the enemy at the distance of the tip of a sword. The front part of the blade, the concave part of the guard, the pommel of the handle and the outer side of the hook were sharpened. Sometimes the inner side of the hook was not sharpened, which made it possible to grab this part of the weapon and strike like an ax with the same “moon-shaped guard.” All this variety of blades made it possible to combine techniques both at long range and close. With a dagger handle you can hit with reverse movements, with a sickle - with a guard, you can not only cut the enemy, but also hit with brass knuckles. The toe - hook of the sword made it possible not only to hit with chopping or cutting movements, but also to catch the enemy, grab limbs, cut, clamp and block the weapon, or even pull it out. It was possible to hook the shuangou with hooks, and thus suddenly increase the attack distance.
Zhua
Another Chinese weapon. The iron “hand” of Zhua was a long stick, at the end of which was attached a copy of a human hand with huge claws that easily tore pieces of flesh from the body of opponents. The weight of the zhua itself (about 9 kg) was enough to kill the enemy, but with claws everything looked even more terrible. If the zhua was used by an experienced warrior, he could pull soldiers off their horses. But the main goal of the Zhua was to snatch shields from the hands of opponents, leaving them defenseless against the deadly claws.
Skissor
In essence, it is a metal sleeve that ends with a semicircular tip. Served for protection, successfully blocking enemy blows, and also for delivering your own blows. The wounds from the scissor were not fatal, but very unpleasant, leading to heavy bleeding. The scissor was light and had a length of 45 cm. The first to use the scissor were Roman gladiators, and if you look at the images of these battles, you can definitely distinguish the scissor from most warriors.
Sickle Chariot
It was an improved war chariot with horizontal blades about 1 meter long on each side of the wheel. The Greek military leader Xenophon, a participant in the Battle of Kunax, talks about them this way: “These were thin braids, widened at an angle from the axis, and also under the driver’s seat, turned towards the ground.” This weapon was used mainly for a frontal attack on the enemy formation. The effect here was calculated not only to physically eliminate the enemy, but also to have a psychological moment that demoralizes the enemy. The main task of the sickle chariots was to destroy infantry battle formations. Throughout the fifth century BC, the Persians were constantly at war with the Greeks. It was the Greeks who had heavily armed infantry, which the Persian horsemen found difficult to defeat. But these chariots literally struck terror into their opponents. Archers raced on chariots and struck the enemy with well-aimed arrows.
Archery is quite popular nowadays. Bow hunting and sport shooting are truly masculine pastimes. It is very important to choose the right arrows for your bow in order to become a true master in this activity.
Greek fire
A flammable mixture used for military purposes during the Middle Ages. It was first used by the Byzantines in naval battles. The installation with Greek fire was a copper pipe - a siphon, through which the liquid mixture erupted with a roar. Compressed air or bellows like blacksmith's were used as buoyant force. Presumably, the maximum range of siphons was 25–30 m, so initially Greek fire was used only in the navy, where it posed a terrible threat to the slow and clumsy wooden ships of the time. In addition, according to contemporaries, the Greek fire could not be extinguished by anything, since it continued to burn even on the surface of the water.
Morgenstern
Literally from German - “morning star”. A bladed weapon with impact and crushing action in the form of a metal ball equipped with spikes. Used as the top of clubs or flails. Such a pommel greatly increased the weight of the weapon - the morning star itself weighed more than 1.2 kg, which had a strong moral impact on the enemy, frightening him with its appearance.
Kusarigama
Kusarigama consists of a kama sickle, to which an impact weight is attached using a chain. The length of the sickle handle can reach 60 cm, and the length of the sickle blade - up to 20 cm. The sickle blade is perpendicular to the handle, it is sharpened on the inner, concave side and ends with a point. The chain is attached to the other end of the handle, or to the butt of the sickle. Its length is about 2.5 m or less. The technique of working with this weapon made it possible to strike the enemy with a weight, or confuse him with a chain, and then attack with a sickle. In addition, it was possible to throw the sickle itself at the enemy, and then return it using a chain. Thus, kusarigama was used in the defense of fortresses.
Macuahutl
Aztec, resembling a sword. Its length, as a rule, reached 90–120 cm. Sharp pieces of volcanic glass (obsidian) were attached along the wooden blade. The wounds from these weapons were horrific due to the combination of a sharp edge (enough to decapitate an opponent) and jagged edges that tore flesh. The last mention of macuahutl dates back to 1884.
The history of wars is the history of the invention of weapons. And it is worth noting that even in the world of modern technology, weapons that were created hundreds of years ago still look quite effective today. We discussed this once, and this review contains the most incredible types of weapons that look quite strange today.
Let's start the review...
1. Greek steam gun
In 214 BC, troops of the Roman Republic laid siege to the Sicilian city of Syracuse to gain strategic control of the island of Sicily. The general Marcus Claudius Marcellus commanded a navy of 60 quinqueremes (Roman war galleys with 5 rows of oars). He attacked the city from the sea (from the Strait of Messina), while the ground forces began attacking Syracuse from land. Despite the fact that the city was surrounded on all sides and blocked from the outside world, it could not be taken due to the fact that the Romans had such a famous inventor as Archimedes among their opponents.
Ballistas on the walls killed the attacking cavalry. And from the sea side it was also not easy for the ships. During the siege, Archimedes developed a weapon that could literally turn ships up to 150 meters away into ash. All it took was... a few drops of water. The device was deceptively simple: a copper tube was heated over coals, after which a hollow clay projectile was dropped into it. When the pipe was heated to red, a little water was poured into it, which immediately evaporated. The steam fired a projectile that, when it hit the wooden ship, filled it with flammable chemicals.
2. Vortex catapult
Catapults are military machines that existed many centuries ago. Movies usually show huge structures bombarding walls with rocks. At the same time, the Chinese developed a smaller version of this combat vehicle, which they called the Xuanfeng or “vortex catapult,” which was distinguished by extraordinary accuracy. Like a sniper rifle, the vortex catapult fired once, but accurately at the target. These fighting vehicles were small enough to be moved quickly across the battlefield, giving them a strategic advantage over heavier catapults and trebuchets, which were more destructive but much less maneuverable.
3. Jet cats
Up until 2014, no one had even heard of jet or rocket cats. At least no one except Franz Helm, who invented them. Around 1530 AD. An artillery master from Cologne created a manual for conducting siege warfare. At that time, gunpowder was beginning to be actively used in Europe, so the manual contained a detailed description of all kinds of bombs with colorful illustrations. Among them was a description of a rocket cat. It was recommended to catch a cat from a besieged city, tie a bomb to it and release it. The cat will supposedly run away to his home (i.e. inside the city), where he will explode.
4. Triple arcballista
The ballista - a giant crossbow on a cart - was invented during ancient Greece and Rome. It was a very powerful weapon, but this was clearly not enough for the Chinese and they created three giant bows in one. The evolution of arcballistas, which used a pair or more arcs, took place gradually, beginning during the Tang Dynasty. Records from the time indicate that arcballists could fire iron bolts up to 1,100 meters, three times as far as other siege weapons. It was thanks to the arcballists that the Mongols were able to turn the tide of the war in their favor, which ultimately led to the emergence of the Yuan dynasty.
5. Shooting shield
Even in the 16th century, when firearms were a novelty, people realized that firearms were the future. In the armory of King Henry VIII, in addition to his beloved morningstars, there were three pistols and 46 gun shields. These shields were typically wooden or metal discs with a pistol sticking out from the center. Although previously considered a historical curiosity, these shields may have been quite common. Traces of gunpowder were found on some shields in museums, which clearly indicates that they were previously actively used.
6. Chinese flamethrower
Chinese inventors have created some of the strangest weapons the world has ever seen. The first prototypes of flamethrowers, the so-called “fire spears,” appeared in the 10th century. These were spears to which bamboo tubes were attached, capable of shooting fire and shrapnel up to several meters away. These were soon replaced by bamboo cannons, which could spew fire almost continuously thanks to low-nitrate gunpowder.
Such guns could produce an almost continuous stream of flame for up to five minutes. Arsenic oxide was also added to the fire mixture, which, when burned, caused vomiting and convulsions in the enemy. Moreover, cannon barrels were also often filled with razor-sharp shards of porcelain for added destructive power.
7. Whip pistol
On March 17, 1834, Joshua Shaw patented a whip with a pistol hidden inside the handle. Instead of a conventional trigger, this pistol had a button on the whip handle that could be easily pressed with the thumb. This allowed a person to use the whip as usual, but still be able to fire from the handle.
8. Hwacha
At the turn of the 16th century, Korea invented the hwacha, the first multiple rocket launcher system that could fire more than 100 rockets in a single salvo. The emperors also had larger versions of this weapon, which fired 200 missiles at a time. As ammunition, the Hwacha used arrows that exploded upon impact with the target.
When the Japanese invasion of the country began in 1592, Korea already had hundreds of hwanghas in service. During the siege of Haenju in 1593, a Japanese army of 30,000 suffered a crushing defeat from 3,000 soldiers, townspeople and warrior monks, who simply poured fire from the walls into the besieging army. More than 10 thousand invaders died.
9. Ax pistol
Almost every developed culture had its own prototypes of gunblades - shooting blades. The most original in this was Germany, where axes with built-in barrels were invented in the mid-1500s. They could be used simultaneously as a slashing weapon and a firearm.
10. Hellburner
In 1584, at the beginning of the Eighty Years' War, Spain besieged Antwerp, where Dutch rebels were hiding. Federigo Giambelli (who several years ago offered his invention to the Spaniards, but they only laughed at him) suggested that the Antwerp authorities break through the Spanish siege with the help of “hell burners” - improved fire ships.
The city allocated him only 2 ships instead of the required 60, but this did not bother Giambelli. He made cement chambers inside the ships (so that the gunpowder would not explode accidentally), which he filled with 3,000 kilograms of gunpowder, and also installed clock fuses for the first time in history. As a result, the ships exploded among the Spanish ships, instantly killing 1,000 people.
This is how they used to shoot, and here it is. Here are the bladed weapons of yesteryear and this one. By the way, here’s an interesting story about The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy was made -
Yawara
It is a wooden cylinder, 10 - 15 centimeters long and approximately 3 centimeters in diameter. Yawara is wrapped around the fingers, and its ends protrude on both sides of the fist. It serves to make the blow heavier and stronger. Allows you to strike with the ends of the ends, mainly in the centers of nerve bundles, tendons and ligaments.
Yawara is a Japanese weapon that has two appearance versions. According to one of them, the Japanese brass knuckles are like a symbol of faith, which was an attribute of Buddhist monks - vijra. This is a small shaft, reminiscent of an image of lightning, which the monks used not only for ritual purposes, but also as a weapon, since they needed to have it. The second version is the most plausible. An ordinary pestle, which was used for pounding cereals or seasonings in a mortar, became the prototype of the yawara.
Nunchaku
It consists of sticks or metal tubes about 30 cm long connected to each other using a chain or rope. The prototype of homemade weapons was the flails used to thresh rice.
In Japan, threshing flails were considered tools of labor and did not pose a danger to enemy soldiers, so they were not confiscated from the peasants.
Sai
This is a piercing bladed bladed weapon of the stiletto type, outwardly similar to a trident with a short shaft (maximum one and a half palm widths) and an elongated middle prong. The traditional weapon of the inhabitants of Okinawa (Japan) and is one of the main types of Kobudo weapons. The side teeth form a kind of guard and can also perform a damaging role due to sharpening.
Unusual weapons of antiquity It is believed that the prototype of the weapon was a pitchfork for carrying bales of rice straw or a tool for loosening the soil.
Kusarigama
Kusarigama (kusarikama) is a traditional Japanese weapon consisting of a sickle (kama) and a chain (kusari) that connects it to a striking weight (fundo). The location where the chain is attached to the sickle varies from the end of its handle to the base of the kama blade.
Unusual weapons of antiquity Kusarigama is considered to be a medieval invention of the ninja, the prototype of which was an ordinary agricultural sickle, which peasants used to harvest crops, and soldiers used to cut their way through tall grass and other vegetation during campaigns. There is an opinion that the appearance of the kusarigama was determined by the need to disguise weapons as non-suspicious objects, in this case an agricultural implement.
Odachi
Odachi (“big sword”) is a type of Japanese long sword. To be called an odachi, a sword must have a blade length of at least 3 shaku (90.9 cm), however, as with many other Japanese sword terms, there is no exact definition of the length of an odachi. Usually odachi are swords with blades 1.6 - 1.8 meters.
Unusual weapons of antiquity The Odachi completely fell out of use as a weapon after the Osaka-Natsuno-Jin War. The Bakufu government passed a law according to which it was forbidden to have a sword of more than a certain length. After the law went into effect, many odachi were trimmed to conform to the regulations. This is one of the reasons why odachi are so rare.
Naginata
Known in Japan at least since the 11th century. Then this weapon meant a long blade from 0.6 to 2.0 m long, mounted on a handle 1.2-1.5 m long. In the upper third, the blade expanded slightly and bent, but the handle itself had no curvature at all or was barely outlined. At that time, they worked with naginata using wide movements, holding one hand almost at the very blade. The naginata shaft had an oval cross-section, and the blade with one-sided sharpening, like the blade of the Japanese yari spear, was usually worn in a sheath or sheath.
Unusual weapons of antiquity Later, by the 14th-15th centuries, the naginata blade was somewhat shortened and took on its modern shape. Nowadays, the classic naginata has a shaft 180 cm long, onto which a blade 30-70 cm long is attached (60 cm is considered standard). The blade is separated from the shaft by a ring-shaped guard, and sometimes also by metal crossbars - straight or curved upward. Such crossbars (Japanese hadome) were also used on spears to parry enemy blows. The blade of a naginata resembles the blade of an ordinary samurai sword; sometimes this is what was mounted on such a shaft, but usually the blade of a naginata is heavier and more curved.
Qatar
The Indian weapon gave its owner wolverine claws; the blade lacked only the strength and cutting ability of adamant. At first glance, the katar is a single blade, but when the lever on the handle is pressed, this blade splits into three - one in the middle and two on the sides.
Unusual weapons of antiquityThree blades not only make the weapon effective, but also intimidate the enemy. The shape of the handle makes it easy to block blows. But it is also important that the triple blade can cut through any Asian armor.
Urumi
A long (usually about 1.5 m) strip of extremely flexible steel attached to a wooden handle.
Unusual weapons of antiquity The excellent flexibility of the blade made it possible to wear the urumi secretly under clothing, wrapping it around the body.
Tekkokagi
A device in the form of claws attached to the outside (tekkokagi) or inside (tekagi, shuko) of the palm of the hand. They were one of the favorite tools, but, to a greater extent, weapons in the arsenal of the ninja.
Unusual weapons of antiquity Usually these “claws” were used in pairs, in both hands. With their help, it was possible not only to quickly climb a tree or wall, hang from a ceiling beam or turn around a clay wall, but also with high efficiency to resist a warrior with a sword or other long weapon.
Chakram
The Indian throwing weapon “chakra” may well serve as a clear illustration of the saying “everything ingenious is simple.” The chakra is a flat metal ring, sharpened along the outer edge. The diameter of the ring on surviving specimens varies from 120 to 300 mm or more, width from 10 to 40 mm, thickness from 1 to 3.5 mm.
Unusual weapons of antiquity One of the ways to throw chakram was to unwind the ring on the index finger, and then with a sharp movement of the wrist throw the weapon at the enemy.
Skissor
the weapon was used in gladiatorial combat in the Roman Empire. The metal cavity at the base of the scissor covered the gladiator's hand, which made it possible to easily block blows and also deliver his own. Scissor was made of solid steel and was 45 cm long. It was surprisingly light, which made it possible to strike quickly.
Kpinga
A throwing knife used by experienced warriors of the Azanda tribe. They lived in Nubia, a region of Africa that includes northern Sudan and southern Egypt. This knife was up to 55.88 cm long and had 3 blades with a base in the center. The blade closest to the hilt was shaped like male genitals and represented the masculine power of its owner.
Unusual weapons of antiquity The very design of the kpinga blades increased the chances of hitting the enemy as hard as possible upon contact. When the owner of the knife got married, he presented the kpinga as a gift to the family of his future wife.
The history of human warfare is as addictive as Game of Thrones, only much, much more brutal. Time and time again, the wisdom of the ages is used to figure out how to effectively hit, maim, shoot and kill enemies. And, damn, how good we are at this craft! However, the guys in the history books were no less inventive than us. In war it’s like in war.
In 214 BC. e. The Roman Republic laid siege to the Sicilian city of Syracuse in an attempt to gain strategic control of the island. General Marcus Claudius Marcellus led a fleet of 60 quinqueremes - Roman warships - through the Strait of Messina and struck head-on, while the second part of the army advanced by land. But as the noose tightened around the city, the mighty Roman army found itself facing an unexpected foe: Archimedes.
But no matter what the Romans threw at him, Archimedes was always three steps ahead. Ballistas on the outer walls routed the advancing cavalry. At sea, the “Claw of Archimedes” smashed them into a rain of debris and slaves screaming in horror. The siege dragged on for two years in an epic battle of military might and scientific wits.
During this siege, it is believed that Archimedes developed a weapon so destructive that it was capable of burning ships to ashes at a distance of 150 meters. And all it took was a few drops of water. The device was deceptively simple: a copper pipe heated over coals, and inside it was a hollow clay projectile.
When the pipe was hot enough, a little water was injected into the pipe under the projectile. The water instantly evaporated, pushing the projectile towards the advancing ships. On impact, the clay rocket exploded, spraying flammable chemicals onto the wooden ships.
Even today, Archimedes' steam gun remains a matter of fierce debate. The MythBusters said no, but a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology managed to build a working - and extremely effective - model using the original description of the gun.
They calculated that their 0.45 kg metal bullet was launched with twice the kinetic energy of a .50 caliber M2 machine gun. If the projectile had not been launched directly into a wall of mud, it could have traveled a distance of 1200 meters. And all this for half a glass of water.
Vortex catapult
Catapults are fairly old machines of war, and like modern guns, there were many types of catapults for different purposes. While movies usually show the siege ballistas and powerful catapults used by Greek and Roman troops, China made a small catapult that could hit high-value targets with extreme accuracy: the xuanfeng, or vortex catapult.
Like a sniper rifle, the Vortex Catapult operated in a one-shot, one-death style. It was small enough that it could be quickly moved around the battlefield, and an entire catapult could be carried on its base until someone saw the target. This gave the vortex catapult a strategic advantage over heavier catapults and trebuchets, which, although they caused great destruction with a single shot, required time and effort to maneuver.
In addition to deadly accuracy, the Chinese built vortex catapults with two lines and two holders, resulting in the projectile bag being located exactly in the center. No other culture has done this.
Rocket cats
No one had ever heard of rocket cats before 2014. No one except Franz Helm, the man who invented them. Somewhere around 1530 AD. e. An artillery master from Cologne in Germany was writing a military manual for siege warfare. Gunpowder was just beginning to have an impact on warfare, and because of this the book became popular. Helm's manual included descriptions of all kinds of bombs imaginable and unimaginable, colorfully illustrated and darkly surprising.
He then added a section advising besieging armies to find the cat. Any cat, he said, will come from the city you are trying to defeat. Attach a bomb to it. In theory, the cat will return to its home and then burn the entire city. Pigeons will also work.
Whether it was or not is not for us to decide, but most likely not. According to Mitch Fraas, a University of Pennsylvania scholar who had the pleasure of being the first to translate this siege text, there is no historical evidence that anyone ever attempted to carry out Helm's proposal. According to this scheme, the most likely result will be your burned camp.
Three bow archballista
Invented and perfected during the heyday of the Greek and Roman empires, the ballista was essentially a giant crossbow mounted on a cart. But its arc did not bend like a regular crossbow. Instead, solid beams of wood were installed between twisted skeins of rope. When the lever was wound, the ends of the arc rotated in the opposite direction and twisted the ropes, creating tension.
It was a very powerful weapon, but one bow was not enough for the Chinese. They wanted three at once. Multi-bow archballista was a gradual development, beginning in the Tang Dynasty with the crossbow, which used two bows for extra power. Records from the period show that this bow could fire an iron bolt 1,100 meters, three times further than other siege crossbows could.
But two hundred years later, the invasion of the Mongol yoke inspired the Chinese to add another arc to the arcballista. At the very beginning of the Song Dynasty, they rolled out the “sanchong chuanji nu” - “small bed with three bows.”
Few details remain about this arcballista. It is believed that the Mongol horde, fearful of these powerful defensive machines, hired Chinese engineers to create their own three-bow monsters. Ultimately, the tide of the war was turned in favor of the Mongols and led to the emergence of the Yuan Dynasty.
Shield-guns
Already in the 16th century, when the concept of firearms was relatively new, people began to understand that if you combine something with a cannon, it will be twice as cool. King Henry VIII was particularly interested in this idea. In addition to the traveling staff, which was combined with a flail and three pistols, his arsenal included 46 shield-guns, as in the picture above.
These shields were essentially wooden discs with a cannon running through the center, although they differed in places. Some were lined with iron on the front, others had a metal grille over the cannon for aiming, but all of them were mostly regarded as decorative curiosities, without much historical interest.
Most of them went to scattered museums, where they collected dust on displays along with other strange works of the Middle Ages. Recently, the Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK examined examples of such shields and found that they may have been more common than most historians originally believed. Therefore, they decided to collect the maximum number of such shields and carefully study them.
It turned out that some of these shield-guns had powder burns, meaning they had been used. Some were designed to block the side of a ship, where they were apparently used as an additional protective layer and anti-personnel fire line. In the end, it probably made more sense to keep the gun and shield separate, so this strange weapon fell into obscurity.
Chinese flamethrower
Like the early prototypes of firearms, the Chinese protoguns represented a huge arsenal, the individual examples of which are difficult to imagine. Having no idea what a gunpowder weapon should look like, Chinese inventors used their tabula rasa to come up with the strangest weapons the world had ever seen.
Fire spears, the first incarnation, appeared sometime in the 10th century. These were spears attached to bamboo tubes that could shoot fire and shrapnel several meters away. Some fired lead pellets, others released poisonous gas, and others fired arrows.
Very soon they made way for pure fire tubes as troops abandoned spears in favor of cheap disposable bamboo cannons that fired only once but could be mass produced and fired one after the other. The trunks were often combined, resulting in an almost endless stream of death.
From the depths of this creative chaos, a fire-splashing pipe emerged. Historians call this weapon a flamethrower, but this description is not entirely correct. Using a low-nitrate form of gunpowder, such a weapon could produce continuous bursts of flame for five minutes.
But what made it deadly was the addition of arsenic oxide to the mixture. The toxic smoke caused vomiting and convulsions. On top of that, the barrel was often stuffed with razor-sharp shards of porcelain. The result was instantaneous ripping, accompanied by a bath of poisonous fire. If the Chinese enemy did not die on the spot, his insides gradually stopped working due to exposure to arsenic. He eventually went into a coma and died.
Whip pistol
On March 17, 1834, Joshua Shaw received a patent for the only thing that could make Raiders of the Lost Ark even better: a riding whip with a pistol hidden in the whip's handle. What made it especially useful - and dangerous at the same time - was its shooting method.
Instead of using a trigger like most guns, the pistol had a button on the side of the grip that could be pressed with the thumb. This allowed the person to hold the whip as normal and still have access to the pistol's trigger. Usually the trigger was flush with the handle, but when cocked it stuck out and insisted on immediate shooting.
At least one of these whip pistols was actually made, although there is no evidence that they were mass produced. To a greater extent, this is a curiosity, not a weapon. Its main disadvantage was that the gun could only be unloaded once, but then again, sometimes one shot is all you need.
China fiercely defended its gunpowder weapons during the 14th and 15th centuries. He had made the most explosive advances in military technology since the bow and arrow, and he had no plans to give it up without a fight. China imposed a strict embargo on expert gunpowder in Korea, leaving Korean engineers to deal with the seemingly endless onslaught of Japanese invaders on their own.
At the turn of the 16th century, however, Korea made significant progress in the development of gunpowder and built its own machines that could rival the Chinese flamethrowers. The Korean secret weapon was the hwacha, a multi-missile launcher capable of launching over 100 missiles in a single salvo. The larger versions used by the Monarch could fire up to 200. These things were a significant threat to the samurai, capable of laying down layers of tightly packed samurai with each salvo.
Hwacha ammunition was called singijeon and was an exploding arrow. The syngijeons' fuses were adjusted depending on the distance to the opponent, so that they exploded upon impact. When the Japanese invasion began in full force in 1592, Korea already had hundreds of fire wagons.
Perhaps the greatest test of the Hwacha's strength came at the Battle of Hengchu in 1593. When Japan launched a thirty-thousand-strong advance up the hill toward Hengchu Fortress, the fortress had barely 3,000 soldiers, citizens, and fighting monks to defend it. The chances of defense were extremely low, and the Japanese forces moved forward in confidence, not knowing that the fortress had one ace up its sleeve: 40 hwacha mounted on the outer walls.
The Japanese samurai attempted to climb the hill nine times, continually encountering rain of hellfire. More than 10,000 Japanese died before they decided to abandon the siege, marking the first major Korean victory against the Japanese invasion.
Ax gun
Almost every culture has at least one version of a blade weapon. Not only does it look cool, but it also offers flexibility on the battlefield. Bayonets used during the Crimean War and the American Civil War are the most famous modern examples, but the trend dates back to the first Chinese fire spears in the 10th century.
However, no one has brought it to the same level as Germany. Among the well-preserved examples of German ax guns housed in the Dresden Historical Museum are examples dating from the mid to late 1500s.
Some could be used as a chopper and a gun at the same time, while others became firearms only when the blade attachment was removed. They were apparently designed for cavalry, which explains the widened grips, otherwise they would have been pistols.
Hellburners
It was 1584, the sixth long winter of the Eighty Years' War, and Federig Giambelli could sense vengeance in the air. Years ago, he offered his services as a weapons designer at the Spanish court, but was laughed at. In anger, he moved to Antwerp, where he finally found an opportunity to avenge the bruised Italian ego.
Celebrating the victory over the Ottomans, Spain sent the Duke of Parma to lay siege to Antwerp, which had become the center of the Dutch separatists. The Duke hoped to strangle the city with a blockade of ships across the Scheldt River.
Antwerp responded by sending burning ships - literally ships on fire - to blockade. Laughing, the Spanish army pushed them back with pikes until the ships burned and scattered in the river. Nevertheless, wanting to take revenge on the Spaniards, Giambelli asked the city council to give him 60 ships, promising to break the blockade. The city only gave him two.
Without despair, Giambelli began making his weapon masterpiece. He cut off the hold from each ship, built a cement chamber inside with walls 1.5 meters thick and loaded 3,000 kilograms of gunpowder. He covered it with a marble roof and filled each ship to the brim with “every dangerous missile imaginable.”
Finally, he built a clock mechanism that would ignite the entire load at a predetermined time. These two ships became the world's first remotely detonated time bombs, "hellburners".
As night fell on April 5, Giambelli sent 32 burning ships ahead of his infernos to distract the Spanish. The Duke called his men from the blockade to push the ships away. But one of the important ships sank too deep and far from the blockade and sank softly when its igniter misfired. When the burning ships went out, the second important ship easily touched the line of Spanish ships and seemed to settle firmly in the water. Some of the Spanish soldiers began to laugh.
And then the second ship exploded, killing 1,000 people and making a 60-meter hole in the blockade. Cement blocks the size of tombstones fell from the sky. Importantly, the explosion opened an artery for replenishing city supplies.
The shocked Dutch did not even move to try to get the supplies that had been placed down the river. A few months later they surrendered to the Spanish. Giambelli did everything he could. His war with Spain was over, and she remembered his name well.
Based on materials from listverse.com
Today, as the military industry develops at an increasingly rapid pace, new types of weapons are reported almost daily - armed drones, destructive missiles and many other mechanisms with which it is so easy to take a human life.
Here you will see more ancient types of weapons - not swords, axes and spears, but weapons that were owned only by a select few, they were so dangerous.
Madu
In ancient times, Hindus and Muslims were prohibited from carrying weapons, so they improvised to create an object that looked like an ordinary work tool or utensil, but was actually a weapon that could be deadly. Madu was made from crossed antelope horns. The horns sticking out to the sides were ideal for attacking the enemy from behind, but, of course, those who carried mada with them claimed that it was a means of self-defense, and nothing more.
Haladiye
One of the most formidable types of weapons created in India is the Haladiye dagger. These daggers were carried by the Rajputs, a class of warriors whose code of honor resembled that of the samurai. The Haladiye resembles a small sword, but it has two blades, making it more difficult to use. However, those who have honed their skills in battles with the help of haladiye can attack the enemy from both sides!
Kakute
Kakute is a spiked ring originally from ancient Japan. Although the kakute appears small and harmless in appearance, it was one of the most dangerous weapons of female ninjas. Such rings have from 1 to 3 spikes, which makes a blow from the hand on which it is worn fatal - especially if it is struck in vulnerable parts of the body. Kakute with poisoned spikes were especially dangerous.
Sodegarami
Sodegarami was used by the Edo police to catch criminals. With the help of this spiked pole, the police could, by sharply throwing it forward, tangle the clothes of the criminal in order to make it easier to disarm him. The name "sodegarami" translates as "sleeve entangler". It was convenient for them to separate the samurai during the battle - there was no other legal way: any other weapon could kill the samurai, which was prohibited by law (only another samurai could kill a samurai).
Atlatl
One of the oldest types of weapons, the atlatl is the ancestor of bows and arrows. The atlatl could only be used over a short distance, but spears thrown with this simple mechanism achieved high speed! The weapon was so effective that some scientists suggest that it was due to its use by humans that the mammoth population became extinct. The atlatl is so fast because the weapon was made from amazingly flexible wood. It was used on every continent except Africa; Europeans saw it used by the Aztecs in the 16th century.
Khopesh
An ancient Egyptian weapon, the khopesh is a cross between a battle ax and a sword. Before the khopesh began to be used as a weapon, it was a symbol of the power of the pharaoh, but due to its effectiveness in battles, it began to be used to arm armies and even cut down trees. Khopesh was made of bronze, so it was extremely heavy and difficult to use, but precisely because of its weight (as well as its curved shape) its destructive power exceeded all wildest expectations.
Cestus
Although the cestus is not a lethal weapon, it deserves mention: it perfectly protected the hands of fist fighters during fights in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, and was also used by fighters as a shield. The difference between the cestus and modern boxing gloves is in the materials from which they were made: the Greeks used leather belts, as well as iron plates, spikes and blades, which turned the means of protection into a weapon for a lethal technique.
Shotel
This sword-like weapon originated in ancient Ethiopia; It was very difficult to use because of its shape. At first, the shotel was very popular, but later both Ethiopia and Europe realized that it was not only difficult to make, it was also ineffective in close combat due to its excessive length. The only good thing about this weapon is that it is difficult to deflect with a shield!
Spike knife
This dagger with a short T-shaped blade was created for close combat and surprise attacks. The butcher knife is taken in the hand so that the blade protrudes from the fist between the index and middle fingers. There is a similar sword design that is more suitable for long battles than for rapid attacks. The poke knife is still used in various parts of the world for self-defense, but it is a very ancient type of weapon.
Bagh nakh
Bagh nakh, also known as tiger claws, are weapons originating from ancient India and Japan. It has 4 to 5 curved blades that are designed to tear apart the opponent's muscles - they are too short to reach the internal organs. The weapon was popular among assassins, who used deadly poisons coupled with tiger claws for a precise and deadly strike. In addition, women carried such weapons with them for self-defense from strangers and wild animals.
Subscribe to Quibl on Viber and Telegram to keep abreast of the most interesting events.
Loading...
