The worst that ever was...

[Vespers War]

In a similar vein to "The best that never was," how about a thread for the flawed, the poorly executed, or just the badly designed weapons and vehicles of the past

My first contribution is the World War II era A38 Valiant. Intended as an assault tank for use by British forces in Asia, it was intended to combine minimum weight with maximum armor. Equipped with a 6-pdr gun (with 55 rounds), a pair of Besa machineguns, and a 210 horsepower 2-stroke diesel, the 27 ton vehicle was slow, lumbering, and had vicious flaws that possibly could have been worked out, but weren't worth the effort. Excessively heavy clutches wore out the driver in an hour, the gear lever had a tendency to whip when downshifting, the turret was bolted, and the ground clearance was too low. Its top speed of 12 miles per hour on pavement was lethargic

A38 Valiant
Crew 3
Tr Mov 29/14
Com Mov 6/3
Fuel Cap 238
Fuel Cons 119
Maint 14
HF 23 HS 20 HR 15
TF 23 TS 20 TR 7

QF 6pdr (57mm) L/50
Rng 380
HE C3, B13, Pen 2C
KE Dam 13, Pen 10-9-7-5

If this had been developed five years earlier and the flaws worked out, it might have been useful as a colonial tank, given Japanese armored doctrine. It would have still been slow and short-legged, but nearly invulnerable to Japanese tank guns and with a gun powerful enough to be effective against any Japanese tank.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Wasn't the Valiant the tank that, so it was claimed, if the driver's foot slipped off the pedals, it would become trapped under them The rumour was that he would be trapped because of this and would have to have his foot amputated to release him.
I'm assuming that while there's probably truth in the claim that it wasn't quite as drastic as all that... however, any vehicle that has that sort of claim levelled against it, well, it's probably not a vehicle worth dealing with!

[Legbreaker]

Wasn't the Valiant the tank that, so it was claimed, if the driver's foot slipped off the pedals, it would become trapped under them The rumour was that he would be trapped because of this and would have to have his foot amputated to release him.

Yes it is. It was so terrible to drive it didn't even make it to the test area for the suspension test (pretty much the first thing that's done) before the driver got out and refused to go another inch, and the officer in charge called the whole thing off. The vehicle was left where it was and towed the 13 miles back to the workshop later where it was pulled apart and inspected. Almost anything you can imagine could be wrong, was.

It's so bad it makes the Sentinel look good. https://youtu.be/uPFHr18pt3Q

[pmulcahy11b]

Weapons-wise, we have the horrible Chauchat light machinegun, called by many who had to use it The Worst Weapon Ever Inflicted Upon the Infantry. The mechanism jammed regularly, often to the point where it had to be field-stripped to get it running again; it was prone to double-feeds, the magazine has large open slots, meant to allow the gunner to see how much ammo he had left; in the trenches of France, the slots merely meant that the ammo inside got very dirty and muddy and fed this dirt into the chamber, leading to more stoppages, and the 8mm Lebel magazines were large, heavy, clumsy, and difficult to load into the weapon due to their pronounced curve. The US Marines used them, since the BAR was not ready and would not be until near the very end of the war, but theirs were rechambered for .30-06. The Chauchat did not react well to the new ammo and this caused frequent failures to feed and extract; in addition, the new magazines did not fit well. Most gunners simply threw them away in disgust or used some of the newer French designs which were beginning to make their appearance late in the war. The unit armorers were always pissed trying to fix the Chauchats. I'm sure many gunners died due to failures at the wrong moment. All in all, a bad joke for the infantry.

[copeab]

The 8mm Lebel cartridge was terrible for self-loading and automatic weapons.

The British 95mm Infantry Howitzer of 1942 is perhaps a classic example of how not to design a weapon. In 1942, a decision was made by the British to design a new support howitzer for the infantry. The gun was made up of parts from several existing weapons, including a 94mm anti-aircraft gun, a 25-pdr field gun and 6-pdr anti-tank gun. Despite being listed as a 95mm weapon, it was actually 94mm, and used the HE and smoke shells of the old 94mm pack howitzer. Not surprisingly, this mishmash of components had problems, not the least of which that the cradle (from the 6-pdr AT gun) was really too light for the job. Also, the gun was designed to be broken down into 10 loads for pack transport, but it was discovered that repeated firings could shake the parts loose. All this could possibly have been overcome if not for one problem. No one had yet asked the infantry if they actually wanted the weapon; when they were finally asked, the answer was "No." The infantry was quite happy with their support weapons and weren't interested in a one-ton howitzer. This finally killed the project. Several hundred had been built, but only a few were ever used in action (mostly in field trials). Almost all were scrapped after the war.

Weight: 1.05 tons
Range: 8,000 yards

[dragoon500ly]

My vote for one of the worst tanks is the World War Two Cruiser Tank Mark V Covenanter.

Designed as a replacement for the Cruiser Tank Mark IV, with thicker armor. It was designed in 1938-39 and one of the features was a new designed 12-cylinder horizontally opposed power plant. It was an excellent idea, developing 340hp, but it was a large engine and almost totally filled up the engine compartment, leaving no room for the radiators. The rushed design process left several problems with the most serious being engine cooling. The solution was to mount the radiators on the left front of the hull, with the coolant pipes running through the crew compartment. This resulted in the crew compartment becoming a rolling sauna.

The Covenanter as a gun tank, never served outside the British Isles. The only versions that saw combat service was the Covenanter Observation Post and the Covenanter Bridgelayer.

[swaghauler]

The "goat" (gamma-goat) was responsible for more accidents than any other vehicle when I first joined the Army.

[Vespers War]

Weapons-wise, we have the horrible Chauchat light machinegun, called by many who had to use it The Worst Weapon Ever Inflicted Upon the Infantry. The mechanism jammed regularly, often to the point where it had to be field-stripped to get it running again; it was prone to double-feeds, the magazine has large open slots, meant to allow the gunner to see how much ammo he had left; in the trenches of France, the slots merely meant that the ammo inside got very dirty and muddy and fed this dirt into the chamber, leading to more stoppages, and the 8mm Lebel magazines were large, heavy, clumsy, and difficult to load into the weapon due to their pronounced curve. The US Marines used them, since the BAR was not ready and would not be until near the very end of the war, but theirs were rechambered for .30-06. The Chauchat did not react well to the new ammo and this caused frequent failures to feed and extract; in addition, the new magazines did not fit well. Most gunners simply threw them away in disgust or used some of the newer French designs which were beginning to make their appearance late in the war. The unit armorers were always pissed trying to fix the Chauchats. I'm sure many gunners died due to failures at the wrong moment. All in all, a bad joke for the infantry.

From what I've heard from people who have fired them, the 8mm Chauchat is a slightly below average gun with odd recoil (due to using a long recoil system) and that nasty tendency to get clogged with gunk from the open magazine that you noted (75% of stoppages were magazine problems). Closed magazines were made in mid-1918, but didn't make it to the front before the end of the war. They'd also jam if overheated because the heat would cause parts to swell and the recoil system would get stuck at full recoil. The ones built by Gladiator mostly had defective sights; SIDARME built much better (but far fewer) guns.

The .30-06 version is the true disaster. All of them were made by Gladiator, and many had poorly reamed chambers and out-of-tolerance machined parts. At least 40% were rejected by inspectors, and even those that passed inspection sometimes had chamber dimensions that caused extraction problems (on top of the dirt and overheating and sights issues).

The Belgians and Poles, who converted their Chauchats to 7.65mm and 7.92mm Mauser (the FM 15/27 and RKM wz 15/27 respectively), kept them until the 1930s because when it was converted for use with rimless rounds, the Chauchat was mostly reliable.

What's really horrifying is the monstrosity that is the Chauchat-Ribeyrolles, a cut-down Chauchat intended for use as a PDW. Luckily, the war ended before it finished trials.

In the end, the Chauchat's flaws do leave one to wonder what would have happened if the French had converted over to (rimless) 7x59mm Meunier before the war. They had planned to replace the Lebel with the STA A6, a semi-automatic rifle fed from stripper clips, but delays in development of the ammunition meant they had just completed the first batch of 1,000 rifles when war broke out and France decided not to switch calibers mid-war. With an easier-to-stack round that could be put in a straight, closed box magazine, at least some of the flaws in the Chauchat could have been mitigated like they were with the switch to Mauser rounds.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

the M60 had a cupola-mounted .50 cal, controlled from the inside. The M85. They were also mounted on LVTP-7s.

The thing wasn't fired with a trigger, but rather a pull chain that actuated a solenoid. It was incredibly unreliable, and if you had to clear a jam, had a tendency to fall to pieces, usually with one of the springs in the gun firing important parts all over creation.

Infantry versions with spade grips were tested, to replace the M2, but they were widely hated.

Oh, and the ammunition linkage (despite the rounds being .50 cal) weren't compatible with the M2. I heard that the military still had a few million rounds sitting in storage, but that could be apocryphal.

But yeah, that thing sucked.

[Olefin]

We put that remote controlled .50 cal on the M88A2 as well - but with a lot better system than a pull chain - that sounds like a screw up waiting to happen

[unkated]

Oh, and the ammunition linkage (despite the rounds being .50 cal) weren't compatible with the M2. I heard that the military still had a few million rounds sitting in storage, but that could be apocryphal.

Make it an easy to picture punishment detail for an offending soldier (or low-ranking private) to spend several hours a days in T2K taking these apart to harvest the .50 cal.

Uncle Ted

[Olefin]

a lot of the salvage jobs are going to be really tedious - everything from trying to strip every useable part you can get out of old wrecks to policing brass for reloads

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Punishment detail aside, that's an interesting question. In the chaos of post-strike supply shipments to Europe (what tiny few there were), let's say you wound up with a few cases of this ammo, and also an M85. Would it be better to make do with the finicky gun until the ammo was spent, or spend the time relinking the ammo to use in an M2...hmm...decisions, decisions.

But anyway, back to the worst that ever was...what about the Dragon ATGM Woof. Huge backblast signature, big kick, terrible minimum range...like all things if it's all you have, then you use it, but man if it's hump that or a Javelin, I know which one I'm taking.

[CDAT]

Punishment detail aside, that's an interesting question. In the chaos of post-strike supply shipments to Europe (what tiny few there were), let's say you wound up with a few cases of this ammo, and also an M85. Would it be better to make do with the finicky gun until the ammo was spent, or spend the time relinking the ammo to use in an M2...hmm...decisions, decisions.

But anyway, back to the worst that ever was...what about the Dragon ATGM Woof. Huge backblast signature, big kick, terrible minimum range...like all things if it's all you have, then you use it, but man if it's hump that or a Javelin, I know which one I'm taking.

As for the M85 and ammo, first do I have a M2, if so then yes I would spend the time relinking the ammo, if I did not then I would have to try and make the best of what I had.

I can not say if the Dragon is a good weapon or not never having used it, but just guessing as it was designed in 1966 I am guessing it is a first generation ATGM, and looking at it from that light it looks decent to me, having good penetration, accuracy, and for the day range.

I was going to say that of course everyone would take something that was designed 23 years later, but then I thought about the M2/M85 and made me think, but still for the most part with some exceptions like the M2 I would still the newer better over the older, assuming it does something different and is not experimental.

[Vespers War]

Another fun World War I oddity is the Grenade No. 12. Also known as the "hairbrush" grenade, it had a pound of ammonal (ammonium nitrate and aluminum) in a box strapped to a handle, with a total weight of 3 pounds (1.36 kilos). Due to this high mass, it can only be thrown 3/4 of a character's normal throw distance. It's a C:4 concussive grenade and is equipped with a 5-second time fuze. It's so bulky, heavy, and clumsy that it's just an absurd weapon. They apparently were carried using a string through a hole in the handle, and a (posed) picture exists of a Frenchman with at least 7 of these grenades, a total of almost 10 kilograms of grenade. They entered service in spring 1915, and I believe left service at the end of that year.