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CLASSIC: (Some of) History's Dumbest Military Prototypes · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Filler, ridiculous historians, We get a we get a classic
0:02
Speaker 1: for you that just keeps coming back to our mind.
0:07
Speaker 1: We brag about our friend Christopher hasiotis constantly because he
0:12
Speaker 1: is just that cool and uh, just here in spirit.
0:15
Speaker 1: He is always with us. And uh, Christopher came to
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Speaker 1: us a while back and said, hey, guys, do you
0:24
Speaker 1: think the military does dumb stuff?
0:27
Speaker 2: Sometimes? Not a chance, not a chance, They're all it's all.
0:31
Speaker 2: It's all thriller, no filler. Yeah.
0:34
Speaker 1: And Christopher, you know, knows us well, and he probably
0:39
Speaker 1: if I had, if I had to guess, Christopher probably
0:42
Speaker 1: knew that we had been working on some hilarious stuff
0:46
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know, historical missteps or some
0:50
Speaker 1: ridiculous history. Weird ideas like the government the world's governments
0:56
Speaker 1: pitch all kinds of crazy stuff. They'll see a cat
0:58
Speaker 1: walking around and then and I'll say, can we turn
1:01
Speaker 1: this cat into a spy?
1:02
Speaker 2: What if? Yeah, let's just mount to some lasers on
1:05
Speaker 2: the heads of these dolphins. That was doctor Evil. But
1:08
Speaker 2: you get the idea. If I'm not mistaken, then this
1:11
Speaker 2: episode on idiotic military prototypes involves like a thing that
1:14
Speaker 2: was like a pedal driven helicopter under a dome like
1:19
Speaker 2: it was trying to be sort of like a War
1:22
Speaker 2: of the World sort of space vehicle like Jetson's type thing,
1:25
Speaker 2: but just it could not stay aloft. And I'm probably
1:29
Speaker 2: misremembering some of the details there, But that's the kind
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Speaker 2: of stuff you're in for on this episode, and we
1:35
Speaker 2: can't wait to roll the tape.
1:39
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. First things first,
2:08
Speaker 1: the US military has so much money. It's only tangentially
2:13
Speaker 1: related to our episode today. But if we're looking at
2:16
Speaker 1: a hard number, in twenty seventeen alone, the US military's
2:21
Speaker 1: budget was around a little over six hundred and ten
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Speaker 1: billion dollars.
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Speaker 2: Ben, that can't be true. It's true.
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Speaker 1: No, it's true, And you have to wonder where all
2:31
Speaker 1: this money goes. We have not been in the military ourselves,
2:36
Speaker 1: that we're aware.
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Speaker 2: Of, right, No, No, but I think you've spent some
2:38
Speaker 2: time around military type things. That's true in my other life.
2:43
Speaker 1: And our super producer, Casey Pegram has also to our knowledge,
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Speaker 1: not been involved in the military or cannot admit to anything.
2:53
Speaker 2: He's more of a sleeper agent type, you know.
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Speaker 1: I always had him pegged as that as well, and
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Speaker 1: I mean that as a compliment, Casey, every time that
3:02
Speaker 1: we are looking into strange stories for ridiculous history, we
3:07
Speaker 1: have a pretty high likelihood of running into some shenanigan
3:10
Speaker 1: by one military or another. Because militaries and governments drive
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Speaker 1: a lot of technological innovation, right, There are a lot
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Speaker 1: of things that are now common in the civilian world
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Speaker 1: started out as military initiatives for the purposes of waging war.
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Speaker 2: It's right, And there's always kind of a disconnect where
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Speaker 2: you think, oh, that's like crazy future technology, but terns
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Speaker 2: out the military was doing it like twenty years ago,
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Speaker 2: and then it kind of gets when they're like done
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Speaker 2: with it, then it gets leaked out into the public
3:36
Speaker 2: sphere and you can kind of you know, get a
3:38
Speaker 2: thumb drive or like a PlayStation or whatever, or a
3:41
Speaker 2: GPS system exactly.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and this this is something that's been on our
3:45
Speaker 1: collective minds for some time, both in this show and
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Speaker 1: other shows.
3:49
Speaker 2: That we've done. So we were over the moon when
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Speaker 2: our good pal friend of the show, Christopher Ahasiotis hit
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Speaker 2: us up earlier and said, Hey, what what do you
4:01
Speaker 2: guys think about weird military weapons that never quite made it?
4:07
Speaker 2: We said, something to the effect of holy smokes, will
4:10
Speaker 2: you please hang out with us on air? And by
4:12
Speaker 2: golly by gum he agreed. Welcome back to the show,
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Speaker 2: Ridiculous Historians. Christopher hasiotis, Hey, thanks for having me. And
4:19
Speaker 2: then we all hugged, and then we all hugged again
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Speaker 2: and again and again.
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Speaker 1: We've been hugging this whole time and doing light handholds. Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: So Christopher, of course, thank you for returning to the show.
4:34
Speaker 1: If anyone listening through some gross miscarriage of cosmic justice
4:40
Speaker 1: hasn't had the chance to check out your appearance on
4:43
Speaker 1: our Louie Louie episode, I would say, I don't know
4:46
Speaker 1: what you think, nol. I would say, pause this episode
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Speaker 1: and listen to that. It's one of my personal favorite
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Speaker 1: episodes we've ever done. So, Christopher, what inspired you to
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Speaker 1: think about this topic?
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Speaker 3: There are, as you mentioned, You know, the military contributes
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Speaker 3: so many things to society in terms of technological innovations,
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Speaker 3: lots of great stuff that we've gotten out of, you know,
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Speaker 3: the minds behind military weaponry. But to get to those successes,
5:10
Speaker 3: you know, sometimes you got to break a couple what
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Speaker 3: nuclear bombs eggs to make a god we're gonna stretch
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Speaker 3: this metaphor out to make some sort of omelet of
5:21
Speaker 3: death and destruction and death omelet.
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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I like that.
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Speaker 3: But yeah, there are just a lot of examples of
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Speaker 3: really strange things out there where you would think this
5:33
Speaker 3: is an Internet hoax the first time you hear about it,
5:35
Speaker 3: or you would think surely someone on some committee would
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Speaker 3: have said, guys, wait a minute, that's that's just not
5:44
Speaker 3: gonna work. But I probably a lot of you out
5:47
Speaker 3: there listening have been in a situation where you know
5:50
Speaker 3: your boss has an idea, and your boss really loves
5:54
Speaker 3: the idea, and you're thinking, I know that's not a
5:57
Speaker 3: good idea, and everyone around here knows that's not a
5:59
Speaker 3: good idea, but the boss really wants to do this.
6:02
Speaker 2: And sometimes bosses like to throw out big, wild ideas
6:05
Speaker 2: to justify their existence, you know, in the hopes that
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Speaker 2: it'll like be a big splash, but a lot of
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Speaker 2: time to just kind of fizzles. And today we're going
6:12
Speaker 2: to talk about some good fizzles.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, fizzles splashes kabooms uh puts. Yeah, all the onomatopeias
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Speaker 3: out there.
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Speaker 1: That's true yet, and we have we have compiled some
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Speaker 1: of our favorites. We do have to say from the beginning,
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Speaker 1: we're not going to get to every single spectacular, strange,
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Speaker 1: hilarious failure.
6:34
Speaker 2: Now we're going to do to a piece. Yeah, we're going.
6:36
Speaker 1: We're gonna We're gonna, maybe, if the winds at our
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Speaker 1: back and everything goes according to plan, hit up a
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Speaker 1: total of six. But we have curated these, and we
6:45
Speaker 1: want to know what you think. You know, what do
6:49
Speaker 1: you think about this?
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Speaker 2: Guys?
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Speaker 1: Christopher Sinture our guest today, would you like to do
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Speaker 1: the honors and kick off the first invention?
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Speaker 3: Guys, just sit right back and I'll hear a tale,
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Speaker 3: A tale of a fateful trip that departed from a
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Speaker 3: Russian port upon a rounded ship.
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Speaker 2: Was a mighty sail in. Man, I'm sorry, I can't
7:13
Speaker 2: not do that.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know what's Gilligan and Russian Comrade Ben,
7:19
Speaker 3: I know you've got.
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Speaker 1: A Russian accent, uh Coln Red gilgelf I love it.
7:23
Speaker 2: I love it. Yeah.
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Speaker 3: The first thing I want to talk to you about
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Speaker 3: are the round ships of the Russian Navy. We're talking
7:29
Speaker 3: eighteen sixties technology. Two ships in particular, the Vitzi Admiral
7:34
Speaker 3: Popov and the Novgorod. Now these were coastal defense ships.
7:38
Speaker 3: You have to think back to the time of the
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Speaker 3: Russian War. So Russia had just suffered some defeats at
7:43
Speaker 3: the hands of France and some of their allies, and
7:46
Speaker 3: they had actually been banned from building and maintaining battleships
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Speaker 3: in the Black Sea. But Russia still needed to defend
7:51
Speaker 3: their land and their sea, and specifically we're talking about
7:55
Speaker 3: the Kerch Strait. Now that's the if you think back
7:58
Speaker 3: to your geography class, the part of the world right
8:00
Speaker 3: between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. So
8:02
Speaker 3: you've got a little straight where ships passed through and
8:06
Speaker 3: they need to defend it. And this task of creating
8:08
Speaker 3: a defense was given to Vice Admiral Popov. He said,
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Speaker 3: I'm gonna make you some ships to defend the waters.
8:16
Speaker 3: He said, I'm gonna make you some round ships to
8:18
Speaker 3: defend the waters. Next, it's three hundred and sixty degrees
8:21
Speaker 3: of protection RW floating platforms kind of tank like, not
8:25
Speaker 3: intended for quick fleet battle, but just intended to defend
8:30
Speaker 3: more like death bullies. Yeah, so he came up with
8:33
Speaker 3: this circular boat. He wanted to build ten of them,
8:36
Speaker 3: but the Russian Navy said, let's let's go, let's build two,
8:40
Speaker 3: you know, and then we'll talk about the rest. So
8:43
Speaker 3: I want you to picture just a circular platform, a
8:46
Speaker 3: couple hundred feet across, Okay, six propellers on the back,
8:50
Speaker 3: two cannons on the top. Now let me ask you.
8:53
Speaker 3: Have you guys been canoeing?
8:54
Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah, no, kayaking? Kayaking?
8:57
Speaker 3: Okay, So have you ever been kayaking and just road
9:01
Speaker 3: just on one side?
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Speaker 2: You kind of go around in circles like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Speaker 3: Now imagine you're just firing a cannon just on one side.
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Speaker 2: And then it accelerates your spin.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and you're a completely circular boat.
9:14
Speaker 2: So this wasn't moored in any way to the seafloor.
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Speaker 3: So this was a ship. It was a monitor, which
9:20
Speaker 3: is a type of small light warship defined by kind
9:24
Speaker 3: of oversized guns. So you've got this round ship, two
9:28
Speaker 3: guns on top, and anytime one gun would fire, it
9:31
Speaker 3: would just spin the ship around in a circle. And
9:34
Speaker 3: they tried and tried and tried to figure out a
9:37
Speaker 3: way to counterbalance this. They tried to run the propellers
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Speaker 3: in the opposite direction of the firing. It just didn't work,
9:44
Speaker 3: and it just came down to a severe misunderstanding and
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Speaker 3: or just plane ignoring the physics on the part of
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Speaker 3: Admiral Popov. Well, isn't there a vodka named after I
9:56
Speaker 3: don't know if it's named after him, but it is
9:58
Speaker 3: named that. Okay, Well, maybe maybe there was vodka vodka
10:01
Speaker 3: best forgotten from the it's no mister Boston.
10:04
Speaker 2: You know, I know it's pretty low shelf.
10:07
Speaker 1: But so maybe those were his two big ideas. Round
10:11
Speaker 1: warships and you know, low rent vodka.
10:14
Speaker 3: Well, he thought that if you if you created a
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Speaker 3: really shallow round broad boat, it would float really well
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Speaker 3: on the water.
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Speaker 2: And it did.
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Speaker 3: It floated fine. But the problem is what makes boats
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Speaker 3: so successful is the shape. They're sort of long. They
10:28
Speaker 3: cut through the water.
10:29
Speaker 2: Right.
10:30
Speaker 3: When you have a wide broad boat with six propellers
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Speaker 3: trying to push forward, you're pushing the entire mass. There's
10:37
Speaker 3: a lot more drag. It just does not work. And
10:40
Speaker 3: nobody said, hey, Popov, let's not do this. So the
10:45
Speaker 3: ships were built, we're talking eighteen seventy. They actually, despite
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Speaker 3: their ridiculous nature, were put into service defended the straits.
10:53
Speaker 3: Didn't do it particularly well.
10:55
Speaker 2: So they did these embarrassing tests and they tried to
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Speaker 2: fix it, but they realized they couldn't, but they just
11:00
Speaker 2: went ahead and forged on.
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Speaker 3: Well, the thing is is the tests themselves weren't that embarrassing.
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Speaker 3: We're still in early days of tank testing. And by
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Speaker 3: tank I mean a giant tank of water. You know,
11:08
Speaker 3: it takes a lot to build a ship, and you
11:10
Speaker 3: don't want to just put it out on the water and.
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Speaker 2: Because then there you are. So they did models.
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Speaker 3: Right, Well, they built a big tank of water, built
11:17
Speaker 3: some models, and you know, these tanks were still water,
11:21
Speaker 3: and that's one of the things. These ships worked fine
11:24
Speaker 3: in still water. But let me read you a little
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Speaker 3: bit about this ship from the book World's Worst Warships,
11:30
Speaker 3: a very specific book out in two thousand and two
11:33
Speaker 3: from Anthony Preston. He said the Vita Admiral pop Up
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Speaker 3: and the Novgorod were quote too slow to stem the
11:39
Speaker 3: current and proved very difficult to steer. In practice. The
11:43
Speaker 3: discharge of even one gun caused them to turn out
11:45
Speaker 3: of control and even contra rotating. Some of the six
11:47
Speaker 3: propellers were unable to keep the ship on correct heading.
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Speaker 3: They were prone to rapid rolling and pitching in anything
11:53
Speaker 3: more than a flat calm and could not aim or
11:55
Speaker 3: load their guns under such circumstances.
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Speaker 2: So wouldn't that throw off the trajector of the shot
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Speaker 2: as well? Right, So it would not only screw up
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Speaker 2: the navigation of the boat in the direction, it would
12:05
Speaker 2: like be completely impossible to aim.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you would have to just be really
12:09
Speaker 3: lucky or hit the broadside of a boat that's nearby,
12:11
Speaker 3: or try to shoot it, I don't know, at the
12:14
Speaker 3: water as a warning. Basically, these were in serve. These
12:17
Speaker 3: two boats were in service for about three decades. They
12:20
Speaker 3: just kind of floated there, they did their thing. Ultimately,
12:23
Speaker 3: they were put into storage in eighteen ninety three, and
12:25
Speaker 3: right before the First World War kicked off.
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Speaker 2: They were just scrapped.
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Speaker 1: Because they figured they could use the materials for something
12:31
Speaker 1: a little bit less cartoonishly ineffective.
12:34
Speaker 3: Or it was just wasting everyone's time. You know, you
12:36
Speaker 3: had better things to do than to just keep a
12:38
Speaker 3: giant round boat that Honestly, it looks like a toy.
12:41
Speaker 3: It looks like a child's toy that you would float
12:43
Speaker 3: in a bathtub. So it doesn't even look scary, No,
12:45
Speaker 3: it looks perfect circle.
12:47
Speaker 2: Yeah no, I yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:48
Speaker 3: And we've got some photos we can share on ridiculous historians.
12:51
Speaker 2: What's the logic though, is it? What's this pop off
12:53
Speaker 2: fellow thinking, like, is he trying to cut corners? Oh? Wow,
12:56
Speaker 2: literally cut all the corners.
12:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, he really just want to come up with a
13:01
Speaker 3: really smart idea, you know, it's the kind of thing
13:03
Speaker 3: you want to be the one who solves the problem. Yeah,
13:06
Speaker 3: and he just didn't. There were other round boat proponents
13:11
Speaker 3: at the time. There's a guy in England in eighteen
13:14
Speaker 3: fifties who was really all about the roundhul People thought
13:16
Speaker 3: it would add stability to the ship, and it added
13:19
Speaker 3: stability in certain circumstances, but in rain, in wind, in
13:24
Speaker 3: choppy waters, you know, the kind of things that happen
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Speaker 3: when you're at sea.
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Speaker 2: No dice.
13:29
Speaker 1: So one important note for everyone listening who's thinking maybe
13:34
Speaker 1: the same thing I initially thought, which is, well, okay, sure,
13:38
Speaker 1: this ship rotates wildly anytime the gun is fired. The
13:41
Speaker 1: guns are fired. Rather, why don't they just make these
13:44
Speaker 1: weapons of absolute chaos and have the guns fire quickly?
13:47
Speaker 1: So this stuff is just sort of spinning Tasmanian Devil
13:50
Speaker 1: style firing on all sides. The problem, I believe is
13:54
Speaker 1: the loading time, right, because every shot was so these
13:58
Speaker 1: were order type rounds.
14:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is still eighteen seventies, eighteen eighties, so we
14:04
Speaker 3: don't have machine gun technology on a boat like this.
14:08
Speaker 2: And they can't load it while it's spinning. Yeah, exactly.
14:11
Speaker 1: So I would be very curious to find out how
14:13
Speaker 1: long it took them to shoot, get back to a calm,
14:16
Speaker 1: stable state, and then reload and shooting.
14:19
Speaker 3: I guess in theory, if you fired both cannons at
14:22
Speaker 3: precisely the right time, it would stabilize itself. But that
14:25
Speaker 3: seems so so unlikely and.
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Speaker 2: A wasting a shot because obviously your target's only going
14:31
Speaker 2: to be on one side or the other chances are
14:33
Speaker 2: so you got to coordinate and be like, all right, guys,
14:35
Speaker 2: we got a three two one go oh yeah, this
14:38
Speaker 2: is comical. Yeah.
14:39
Speaker 3: I mean, in Popov's defense, he was trying to solve
14:41
Speaker 3: problems and ignoring the problems generated by his supposed solutions.
14:47
Speaker 3: The ships that were round like this could be much
14:49
Speaker 3: more heavily armored so they could withstand more attacks. So
14:53
Speaker 3: he did solve that problem, but it just kind of
14:56
Speaker 3: ignored with the failings.
14:59
Speaker 2: I think we can definitely call that a military fail.
15:01
Speaker 3: Yes, Popovka as it was known, the type of ship
15:06
Speaker 3: they named it after him, to his glory and or
15:10
Speaker 3: maybe in glory.
15:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's next? Do I get to go? Do you
15:14
Speaker 2: want to go? I do, because I really want to
15:16
Speaker 2: say these two words. Yeah, I go for it. Rocket bullets, yes, okay,
15:21
Speaker 2: rocket bullets. That's fine, right, yes.
15:24
Speaker 1: So one of the first questions would be aren't all
15:27
Speaker 1: bullets propelled?
15:29
Speaker 2: What makes these different? Well? These these are propelled using
15:32
Speaker 2: rocket fuel? Nice or jet fuel, let's let's be fair. Yeah,
15:36
Speaker 2: so this is uh, this might sound like something out
15:40
Speaker 2: of a James Bond movie, and as it turns out,
15:42
Speaker 2: it actually is. This weapon called the gyro Jet made
15:47
Speaker 2: by two gentlemen named Robert Mainhart and Arthur T. Beal
15:51
Speaker 2: who started a company, an arms company called MBA, which
15:54
Speaker 2: was short for Manhart and Bell Associates. They decided they
15:57
Speaker 2: wanted regular guns just weren't cut for them. They want
16:00
Speaker 2: to do something a little more futuristic because this is
16:02
Speaker 2: the time when we wanted to rocketize everything.
16:05
Speaker 3: And so their company was NBA, right, yeah, NBA, and
16:08
Speaker 3: I should have been like Magic Bullet Association or something.
16:10
Speaker 2: Thanks, thank you. So the first thing they worked on
16:13
Speaker 2: was something called the fin Jet, which shot these tiny
16:17
Speaker 2: little needle type rocket bullets out of this weapon. And
16:20
Speaker 2: the thing that was cool about rocket bullets that so
16:22
Speaker 2: what I'm gonna keep calling them is they were self propelling.
16:26
Speaker 2: They didn't need that much complicated mechanisms in the gun
16:29
Speaker 2: itself because these bullets literally had a rod of jet
16:34
Speaker 2: fuel running through them and a little element that could
16:37
Speaker 2: get hit by the hammer didn't even need a firing pin,
16:40
Speaker 2: and then it would propel itself out of the muzzle.
16:42
Speaker 2: And I actually saw a really great video where some
16:45
Speaker 2: guys with a YouTube channel got ahold of one of these,
16:48
Speaker 2: the Gyrojet model, and you can see they did slow
16:51
Speaker 2: motion photography where the bullet exits the muzzle and then
16:54
Speaker 2: a little ways out it gets rocketized, so when it
16:57
Speaker 2: comes out initially it's actually going quite slow. So one
17:01
Speaker 2: of the issues with this gun was it didn't work
17:03
Speaker 2: very well at point blank range because you know, people
17:06
Speaker 2: would joke that you could stop it with your hand,
17:08
Speaker 2: and you know, it might break some bones in your hand,
17:10
Speaker 2: but it certainly would not penetrate your skin.
17:12
Speaker 3: And its range. If you fired a bullet that's moving
17:15
Speaker 3: not slowly, its trajectory wouldn't stay constant.
17:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing about it. It used a technology
17:22
Speaker 2: called spin stabilization, which I'm a little foggy on the
17:26
Speaker 2: exact because I'm not like a ballistic specialist or anything.
17:30
Speaker 2: But the bullets had these three holes drilled in the
17:33
Speaker 2: back of them that when it would cause them to
17:36
Speaker 2: rotate really really fast, and they would achieve such an
17:39
Speaker 2: incredible speed once they actually got to their maximum velocity,
17:43
Speaker 2: And a lot of that had to do with the
17:44
Speaker 2: fact that they came out of the barrel like spinning.
17:46
Speaker 3: So it's sort of like a rifling technology exactly like that,
17:50
Speaker 3: but not because the barrels were smooth. They didn't actually
17:53
Speaker 3: have that.
17:53
Speaker 2: That's what a regular gun it has bored out kind
17:56
Speaker 2: of like little whatever you call it, markings or kind
17:59
Speaker 2: of grooves exactly. That caused the bullet to do that,
18:01
Speaker 2: because otherwise it would just go wild and not be
18:05
Speaker 2: accurate at all. Turns out, it still wasn't very accurate
18:08
Speaker 2: because of the fact that this rocket fuel would burn
18:12
Speaker 2: at pretty unpredictable rates and you could never quite predict
18:16
Speaker 2: what it was going to do. So this video that
18:18
Speaker 2: I saw, which is really really worth checking out, if
18:20
Speaker 2: you just searched testing gyrojet rocket guns, why were they
18:24
Speaker 2: a commercial failure? On YouTube you can find these guys
18:26
Speaker 2: that do this amazing test of this. You can't find
18:29
Speaker 2: these anymore because the parts don't exist.
18:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, I imagine that they look kind of like a
18:33
Speaker 3: like a bottle rocket, you know, where they just sort
18:35
Speaker 3: of spin off wildly you can't quite decide which way
18:39
Speaker 3: it's going to go.
18:39
Speaker 2: No, they were much more stable than that, Yeah, but
18:42
Speaker 2: they certainly were not as stable as a traditional gun.
18:45
Speaker 2: They did some tests where they measured how, you know,
18:48
Speaker 2: how accurate they were compared to a regular gun, and
18:50
Speaker 2: it wasn't insane, but it was just very unpredictable. And
18:53
Speaker 2: there's one part where it just kind of like went
18:56
Speaker 2: up all of a sudden and like shot the GoPro
18:59
Speaker 2: camera off of the dummy that they were firing at. So,
19:02
Speaker 2: but they had other models. They had a more of
19:04
Speaker 2: a rifle with a scope on it, and they had
19:05
Speaker 2: something that kind of looks like a machine gun, a carbine,
19:09
Speaker 2: but these were they loaded one bullet at a time
19:12
Speaker 2: and it was semi automatic, so you could fire one
19:14
Speaker 2: after the other, but it certainly wasn't fully automatic and
19:17
Speaker 2: this is pretty neat in order to keep the rocket
19:20
Speaker 2: fuel from like leaking out or to keep it contained properly.
19:24
Speaker 2: These guys were super innovative. They figured out that titanium
19:27
Speaker 2: oxide was the best chemical for containing this stuff so
19:31
Speaker 2: it didn't accidentally ignite, just like in the casing. And
19:35
Speaker 2: they just went down to the local paint store and
19:38
Speaker 2: bought the white paint that had the most titanium oxide content,
19:42
Speaker 2: And so you can actually see they got these rocket
19:44
Speaker 2: fuel rods in these long kind of like almost like
19:47
Speaker 2: big thick pencil lead and then they lathed it on
19:51
Speaker 2: like an actual lathe to get it cut down to
19:53
Speaker 2: the right size to fit these bullets, and then they
19:56
Speaker 2: spray painted them white on the outside and then put
19:58
Speaker 2: them in the casing and it did discharge a shell.
20:02
Speaker 2: It shot the whole thing out. So that's what made
20:04
Speaker 2: them different.
20:04
Speaker 1: To question, Yeah, how much did these costs and did
20:09
Speaker 1: the cost play a role in their failure other than
20:11
Speaker 1: they're completely hilarious.
20:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, lack of reliability and this maybe is a very
20:16
Speaker 2: good military one because it doesn't feel like they were
20:18
Speaker 2: developed for the military, but it was too good of
20:21
Speaker 2: like a weaponry fail to not throw in here and
20:23
Speaker 2: especially the fact that it was very much featured in
20:26
Speaker 2: You Only Live Twice, the James Bond movie, because of
20:29
Speaker 2: the fact that you look at them, they look like
20:32
Speaker 2: a cool like spy gun.
20:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely that. I mean, given that it's full
20:37
Speaker 3: of rocket fuel, I wouldn't want to carry that around
20:39
Speaker 3: in my pocket. But it's a it's a cool looking gun.
20:41
Speaker 3: It is a cool looking gun. Not to mention that
20:43
Speaker 3: apparently they could engineer the bullets so that they would
20:47
Speaker 3: dissolve in the human body.
20:49
Speaker 2: Cool wow, And that was a big part of it,
20:51
Speaker 2: I believe in the Bond film because that way you
20:52
Speaker 2: would leave no trace and there would be no forensic
20:54
Speaker 2: evidence to tie anybody to it. To the mice bullets exactly.
20:58
Speaker 1: But I think that they did at least get tested
21:02
Speaker 1: by the US Army, if not specifically this brand of
21:07
Speaker 1: rocket bullets, something something like this. They had a gyro
21:11
Speaker 1: jet had an assault rifle that the Army tested briefly.
21:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I didn't run across that myself. It
21:18
Speaker 2: was a very bit of a blip in the history
21:20
Speaker 2: of these weapons. But I mean, the Army's gonna get
21:24
Speaker 2: wind of any new fangled device. They'll give it a go,
21:27
Speaker 2: they'll throw a little money at it.
21:28
Speaker 3: But if you're going to miniaturize something, I mean you might.
21:30
Speaker 3: You could. You could load that thing with little tiny
21:33
Speaker 3: explosives in the tip. You could have like a tiny
21:35
Speaker 3: little ballistic missile. And it's interesting. The weapons failed because
21:40
Speaker 3: of largely they were expensive and they were a pain
21:43
Speaker 3: to make because to drill those holes I was talking
21:45
Speaker 3: about that that created the spin, they had to have
21:47
Speaker 3: these tapered drill bits which had to be custom machined themselves,
21:51
Speaker 3: and they would always break. So to make that the
21:53
Speaker 3: ammunition was very expensive because again the guns themselves only
21:57
Speaker 3: really had a hammer and the firing pin was fixed
22:00
Speaker 3: because it actually would push the hammer would push it backwards,
22:04
Speaker 3: and then the firing pin would pierce the little primer
22:06
Speaker 3: that would then set off the chain reaction that would
22:09
Speaker 3: like the rocket fuel, but you would see it come
22:11
Speaker 3: out of the gun and it wouldn't start shooting a
22:13
Speaker 3: little rocket tail out of it until it was about
22:15
Speaker 3: halfway to the target. So, I mean, it's it's pretty fascinating.
22:18
Speaker 3: But the company NBA actually went on to make a
22:22
Speaker 3: lot of non lethal ammunition like beanbag shot, and they
22:27
Speaker 3: made little pen guns like little pen projectile things that
22:30
Speaker 3: were that were used in the military.
22:33
Speaker 2: So cool, pretty cool, right, yeah, And that's ridiculous. I mean,
22:37
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think it's more interesting, but it's
22:38
Speaker 2: just a very roundabout way of doing something that was
22:41
Speaker 2: already done pretty well, sort of like but but but
22:43
Speaker 2: these use rocket fuel. These use rocket fuel. Guys, have
22:47
Speaker 2: you heard about rocket fuel?
22:48
Speaker 3: I like to think in the future, when humanity is
22:51
Speaker 3: gone and the world is overtaken by let's say, mice,
22:55
Speaker 3: U super smart intelligent mice. Yeah, absolutely, they're going to
22:59
Speaker 3: find the guns and these will act like giant bazookas
23:02
Speaker 3: or missile launchers. I'm just picturing a cute little mouse
23:05
Speaker 3: holding one of these guns on its shoulder, launching rockets
23:08
Speaker 3: at you know cats.
23:09
Speaker 2: I love that image. And last thing I do want
23:12
Speaker 2: to say that in the video that I saw, the
23:15
Speaker 2: ammunition they had was was very, very old and it
23:18
Speaker 2: all worked, you know, And I would have thought that
23:20
Speaker 2: the fuel would have degraded or something would have happened
23:23
Speaker 2: to make it not function properly, or it would just
23:25
Speaker 2: explode in the gun and not do what it was
23:27
Speaker 2: supposed to do. And it wasn't perfectly accurate, but It
23:29
Speaker 2: definitely reached the target every time and didn't just like
23:32
Speaker 2: zoom off somewhere else entirely. It just didn't, you know,
23:35
Speaker 2: keep a perfect bead, you know what I mean?
23:37
Speaker 3: Well, you know what the answer is to all this, that,
23:38
Speaker 3: the expensive, boring tips and all that. Lasers. Lasers, Yeah, always, yeah.
23:44
Speaker 3: I am not a scientist, I am not a ballistics expert.
23:47
Speaker 3: But as with all things in life, the answer is
23:50
Speaker 3: probably just lasers.
23:51
Speaker 2: And you are. You are a well known laser enthusiast. Yeah,
23:54
Speaker 2: why not.
23:55
Speaker 1: It's one of the first things people told me about
23:57
Speaker 1: you when we started working together.
23:59
Speaker 2: They're just neat, They're great. Oh man.
24:02
Speaker 1: We used to have a very like an industrial class
24:05
Speaker 1: laser at the office years and years ago. It mysteriously disappeared.
24:11
Speaker 3: Would it make a cool laser sound? Like in the
24:13
Speaker 3: really cheesy techno songs?
24:14
Speaker 1: I feel like every time we played around with it
24:17
Speaker 1: and we were literally just playing with a dangerous laser,
24:20
Speaker 1: one of us was making sound making. Yeah, because it
24:23
Speaker 1: was better than the click click.
24:25
Speaker 2: Why did you Why did you have this to what
24:26
Speaker 2: was it? What was it for? You know, just to
24:29
Speaker 2: learn about stuff? Lasers are cool?
24:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't powerful enough. To physically cut things. But
24:35
Speaker 1: it was one of those lasers that would do permanent
24:38
Speaker 1: damage to your eye. Got it and if you shot
24:40
Speaker 1: it towards someone's eye, and we do some good for kids,
24:43
Speaker 1: good for great for children.
24:45
Speaker 2: I was at a Black Crows concert once and someone
24:48
Speaker 2: had one of those laser pointers and was shooting at
24:49
Speaker 2: the singer guy, and he got very upset. He threatened to,
24:53
Speaker 2: uh take it away from him and put it someplace
24:56
Speaker 2: like uh yeah, Poughkeepsie in his pocket. Yeah, it was
25:00
Speaker 2: gonna confiscated, not give it back. It sounds a very
25:05
Speaker 2: substitute teacher vibe there. So we've talked about an amazing ship.
25:16
Speaker 1: We've talked about some uh some I would say, very
25:19
Speaker 1: innovative bullets. Both of those things on the offset seem
25:23
Speaker 1: like they are worth investigating, right, I'd like to give
25:27
Speaker 1: you one that I'm on the fence about, especially because
25:30
Speaker 1: in my past life hosting car stuff, I learned to
25:33
Speaker 1: love ridiculous vehicles. Have you ever looked at a jeep
25:38
Speaker 1: and thought I would get one of these if it
25:42
Speaker 1: was also a helicopter? Because if you have been thinking
25:45
Speaker 1: about this, I want to introduce everyone to the Hafner
25:49
Speaker 1: Rota Buggy. It is a British experimental aircraft that looks
25:54
Speaker 1: kind of doofy.
25:56
Speaker 3: So it looks like exactly what you said. It looks
25:58
Speaker 3: like a helicopter truck. Yeah, there you go.
26:00
Speaker 2: And what's ridiculous to me is there's having the rotors
26:05
Speaker 2: and the wheels.
26:06
Speaker 1: It's sort of transit wise. It's kind of like wearing
26:09
Speaker 1: Paris suspenders and a belt. So the Rota Buggy came
26:14
Speaker 1: about as as a solution to the problem of air
26:19
Speaker 1: dropping off road vehicles and a guy named Raoul Hafner
26:23
Speaker 1: of the Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment created this after they
26:31
Speaker 1: had an earlier invention that had some success, which was
26:36
Speaker 1: the Rota shoot. They took this rotor thing and ran
26:39
Speaker 1: with it. It was an experimental one person kit rotor thing.
26:46
Speaker 2: Wow.
26:46
Speaker 3: So it's kind of like a helicopter that you sit
26:50
Speaker 3: on that is sort of like a segue with blades.
26:54
Speaker 3: It just seems that seems dangerous. It looks like a
26:56
Speaker 3: wind sock or something like that. Yeah, it's hovering behind this.
27:00
Speaker 3: Is it tethered to that truck bed?
27:01
Speaker 1: It is tethered. They though they were probably be picking
27:04
Speaker 1: up speed and then the air would catch here. It's
27:08
Speaker 1: a kite essentially with.
27:11
Speaker 3: It's like a giant kite or like a big rudder
27:13
Speaker 3: that flies behind your back, but also you have helicopter
27:16
Speaker 3: blades on your head.
27:17
Speaker 1: I think the emphasis was to look whimsical in this,
27:21
Speaker 1: but it enjoyed some, as we said, some success, which
27:25
Speaker 1: led to the creation of the Rota buggy. I think
27:29
Speaker 1: similar to the way you feel about rocket bullets. No,
27:32
Speaker 1: I think I just like saying Rota buggy.
27:33
Speaker 2: Rotabuggy's fun. But Ben, do you think they were trying
27:35
Speaker 2: to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies with whimsy.
27:38
Speaker 2: I think they were trying to strike whimsy into their
27:41
Speaker 2: heart of their enemies. Yeah. So here's the crazy thing.
27:44
Speaker 2: It's so un aerodynamic.
27:46
Speaker 1: It looks so poorly designed because jeeps and helicopters have
27:50
Speaker 1: two very different ways of transporting people and two very
27:54
Speaker 1: different footprints design wise. But their initial tests were were
28:00
Speaker 1: pretty promising because they weren't testing it stemmed to stern,
28:04
Speaker 1: soup to nuts, an entire operation. They were testing aspects
28:08
Speaker 1: of an operation. They started by dropping it from around
28:12
Speaker 1: eight feet or so, and then they say, okay, well
28:14
Speaker 1: it can just drop eight feet it'll be fine, and
28:18
Speaker 1: things didn't really go wrong until November nineteen forty three,
28:23
Speaker 1: when they tried to toe it to get enough speed
28:26
Speaker 1: to get the Roto buggy into the air.
28:29
Speaker 2: It didn't.
28:29
Speaker 1: It didn't work the first time on the sixteenth of November,
28:32
Speaker 1: and it wasn't till the twenty seventh of November that
28:35
Speaker 1: they got a Bentley auto to pull it, and this
28:39
Speaker 1: unwieldy machine was able to become airborne and it reached
28:43
Speaker 1: gliding speeds of forty five miles an hour, which is
28:46
Speaker 1: surprisingly good, you know for.
28:49
Speaker 3: A totally not aerodynamic object.
28:52
Speaker 2: A jeep with a helicopter button. Yeah, but okay, so
28:55
Speaker 2: what when did it all go south? Ben? When did
28:57
Speaker 2: it all go south?
28:59
Speaker 1: So would you believe me if I told you in
29:01
Speaker 1: the parking lot on our office. Now I'm kidding, I
29:04
Speaker 1: wish I could take us out of a Rota buggy
29:06
Speaker 1: ride went? It went severely south. As they continued testing,
29:12
Speaker 1: there were huge problems with vibration, speed and instability, and
29:19
Speaker 1: they kept improving it. Nineteen forty four they got it
29:21
Speaker 1: to a flight speed of seventy miles an hour or
29:24
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirteen kilometers, and the last flight in
29:30
Speaker 1: September of nineteen forty four.
29:32
Speaker 2: It broke a record for itself.
29:34
Speaker 1: It was able to fly for ten minutes and was
29:38
Speaker 1: described as highly satisfactory. And the thing is that the
29:42
Speaker 1: British Army probably would have continued trying to make Roda
29:45
Speaker 1: buggies if it were not for the introduction of large
29:50
Speaker 1: gliders that could carry vehicles. So gliders like the air
29:55
Speaker 1: speed horsa which are just they look like planes, but
29:59
Speaker 1: they're these things if you see the picture, can carry vehicles.
30:04
Speaker 3: So it's the kind of situation where whoever came up
30:06
Speaker 3: with the road a buggy solved a problem pretty well,
30:10
Speaker 3: but as they were doing that, someone else is working
30:12
Speaker 3: on the same problem and just totally surpasses that.
30:14
Speaker 2: The laser disc conundrum. Yeah, I mean, but can't you
30:17
Speaker 2: just drive a jeep out of the back of an
30:19
Speaker 2: airplane and have it like a jeep parachute, like in
30:23
Speaker 2: Fast and the Furious.
30:25
Speaker 1: One would one would think. I guess what they were
30:27
Speaker 1: grappling with was a failure of material science at the
30:31
Speaker 1: time too, because then you would have to build a
30:33
Speaker 1: fabric strong enough and resilient enough not to just break.
30:36
Speaker 3: That's true, and maybe this, uh, this cheepicopter could then
30:42
Speaker 3: speed up and take off again and return. So like
30:45
Speaker 3: let's say you were attacking a little island, you could
30:47
Speaker 3: drop them all off, they could come back. You could
30:49
Speaker 3: have a cheepicopter for a while.
30:51
Speaker 2: It does sound like fun.
30:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, take a chepicopter ride, see the Grand Canyon, see
30:57
Speaker 3: the world. It sounds like a like a nice whims
31:00
Speaker 3: a holiday things.
31:00
Speaker 2: I would just prefer though, if like the blades like
31:03
Speaker 2: folded up, like in a really cool way with like
31:05
Speaker 2: a sound effect.
31:06
Speaker 3: Like so you're talking about transformers.
31:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. It and a
31:09
Speaker 2: lot of flying cars do that now, or flying car prototypes?
31:14
Speaker 2: This was eight minute.
31:14
Speaker 3: We have flying what do you know that we don't?
31:16
Speaker 1: We have flying car prototypes, as in like one to
31:19
Speaker 1: two copies of something like Terrafugia.
31:21
Speaker 2: So it's like, finally it's the future. It's weird.
31:24
Speaker 1: So we're all good friends with our pal Scott Benjamin,
31:28
Speaker 1: who's a wonderful, brilliant aerodype man, but he hates flying cars,
31:34
Speaker 1: and for the better part of the last six years
31:37
Speaker 1: he and I have been very beefed up about this.
31:40
Speaker 2: Look.
31:40
Speaker 1: I get that they're dangerous. I understand that I get
31:43
Speaker 1: that it would be disastrous to have flying cars. But
31:46
Speaker 1: I don't want everyone to have flying cars. I just
31:49
Speaker 1: want one because as long as there's only one, things
31:52
Speaker 1: are going to be relatively fine. You guys are cool.
31:55
Speaker 1: Would you guys want one? I think we could get
31:57
Speaker 1: the number up to four without we just wouldn't.
32:00
Speaker 2: Well, there's a whole conundrum that goes into flying cars.
32:02
Speaker 2: I mean, you ever heard of airplanes. We have to
32:04
Speaker 2: have a whole system of air traffic controllers and you know,
32:07
Speaker 2: coordinated takeoffs and landings. And if there were flying cars,
32:10
Speaker 2: just willy nilly, there'd be a lot of air mid
32:14
Speaker 2: air collisions. I think.
32:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, but we figured it out right. I mean, I
32:17
Speaker 3: imagine there's a podcast from the late eighteen hundreds on
32:21
Speaker 3: whatever format they podcasted in back then, saying, would you
32:25
Speaker 3: have an.
32:25
Speaker 2: Automobile a horseless carriage?
32:27
Speaker 3: We have horses. You know what would happen if you
32:30
Speaker 3: had ten people in a town with a car. That
32:32
Speaker 3: would be madness.
32:33
Speaker 2: I think that is etched podcast right into wax cylinders. Yes,
32:37
Speaker 2: absolutely so, there we are road a buggy. I like it.
32:43
Speaker 2: If you are a road of bugs that you have
32:45
Speaker 2: missed this period in history. Do not despair. The last
32:48
Speaker 2: thing I'll say about it is you can go to
32:50
Speaker 2: a town with an amazing name. You're gonna love this.
32:52
Speaker 2: No Middle Wallop. And in Middle Wallop there.
32:57
Speaker 1: Is a museum of Army Flying that has a replica
33:00
Speaker 1: of a Roada Buggy as well as a road a
33:03
Speaker 1: tank which is the same thing, but a tank.
33:06
Speaker 3: That seems like you would need much bigger blades to
33:08
Speaker 3: keep a tank aloft.
33:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a weird idea, but this.
33:10
Speaker 3: Is the kind of thing where if if any ridiculous
33:13
Speaker 3: historians are listening at home, and you're enjoying this show
33:15
Speaker 3: with your who knows you know, your your daughters, your sons,
33:19
Speaker 3: you could make a little toy Roada buggy, you know,
33:21
Speaker 3: just go buy a toy helicopter, snap off the blades.
33:24
Speaker 2: That's called a transformer.
33:26
Speaker 3: No no, no, I'm taking it. Buy two things, gloom together,
33:29
Speaker 3: make your own toys. Have a little Rota Buggy warfare.
33:33
Speaker 2: Thing going on at home, the toy mashup.
33:35
Speaker 1: I like to Yeah, So what's what's next, Christopher?
33:39
Speaker 2: Well?
33:40
Speaker 3: I started off with some wildly propulsive cannons, and that
33:45
Speaker 3: is where we are headed again, but this time we're
33:48
Speaker 3: staying stateside. We're not going to Russia. We're in the
33:51
Speaker 3: United States. Well, let me correct that we're in the
33:54
Speaker 3: Confederate States of America.
33:56
Speaker 2: Oh boy.
33:56
Speaker 3: Or in the lead up to what would become that
33:58
Speaker 3: you're seen a double barrel old canon.
34:01
Speaker 1: I feel as if I can picture it in my
34:04
Speaker 1: mind popped right in when you see the words.
34:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, double barrel cannon. Right, you've got think of a shotgun.
34:09
Speaker 3: Double barrel shotgun shoots out twice as much shot.
34:12
Speaker 2: But can't you unload it one barrel at a time
34:15
Speaker 2: as well? You can, yeah, because there's like a little
34:17
Speaker 2: compound trigger, right, Yeah.
34:20
Speaker 3: But you don't want to do that with a double
34:21
Speaker 3: barrel canon.
34:21
Speaker 2: Well, I was wondering. Yeah.
34:23
Speaker 3: So the double barrel canon we're going to talk about
34:25
Speaker 3: is from the American Civil War, but it's not a
34:28
Speaker 3: purely American invention. The idea of this goes back to
34:31
Speaker 3: sixteen forty two so Renaissance Italy, Florence in particular, and
34:35
Speaker 3: there was an inventor named Antonio Petrini who came up
34:39
Speaker 3: with the idea of a double barrel canon. It was
34:41
Speaker 3: put into action though, in eighteen sixty two by a
34:44
Speaker 3: man named John Gilliland. Now Gleiland was a mechanic and
34:48
Speaker 3: dentist living in Athens, Georgia. Okay, oh all right, yeah,
34:52
Speaker 3: not too far from where we are. We're here in
34:53
Speaker 3: Atlanta recording, So about an hour and a half up
34:56
Speaker 3: the road, Galliland said, I'm going to take two cannons,
35:00
Speaker 3: put them together in one sort of one molded entity.
35:04
Speaker 3: They've got two side by side boars in a three
35:07
Speaker 3: inch diameter, and you've got these two six pound balls
35:10
Speaker 3: next to one another. But that's not it. You've also
35:14
Speaker 3: got a ten foot chain connecting the two balls.
35:17
Speaker 2: I have heard of this. Yeah, that sounds dangerous.
35:21
Speaker 3: Well, you know, think of the what are they called
35:23
Speaker 3: the yeah bolos that gauchos in South America used to
35:27
Speaker 3: capture birds or horses or whatever. So you've got these
35:30
Speaker 3: two balls connected by a chain, propelled from a cannon.
35:34
Speaker 3: Think of the destruction possible, these spinning balls of death
35:38
Speaker 3: a chain in between them. It's just gonna tear through
35:41
Speaker 3: the Union soldiers right, just cut you right in half.
35:44
Speaker 2: You would you would think, imagineah, you think you think?
35:47
Speaker 2: So it's not quite what happened. Now.
35:49
Speaker 3: Gilliland was passionate about this idea. He actually put out
35:52
Speaker 3: a subscription service to raise funds to develop the prototype.
35:56
Speaker 3: He raised about three hundred and fifty dollars. I don't
35:59
Speaker 3: know if those were Confederate or Union dollars. And he
36:02
Speaker 3: built it, he tested it, and reports from the time
36:05
Speaker 3: say they blasted the cannon two balls a chain, It
36:10
Speaker 3: tore through a cornfield, it knocked down a chimney, it
36:13
Speaker 3: killed a cow. But it was just so wild and
36:16
Speaker 3: uncontrollable that the Confederate Army said, no, no, no, this
36:19
Speaker 3: is ridiculous. We do not want this.
36:21
Speaker 2: In terms of accuracy, yeah, you.
36:22
Speaker 3: Would have to fire both cannons simultaneously because they're sitting
36:27
Speaker 3: parallel to one another, but slightly splayed, a slight degree
36:31
Speaker 3: of difference in the direction in which they propel the ball.
36:35
Speaker 3: And that's so that the two cannon balls that sit
36:37
Speaker 3: next to one another, when they fly out of the
36:39
Speaker 3: cannon will spread out and kind of pull the chain
36:43
Speaker 3: between them. Okay, but getting that exactly right with the
36:46
Speaker 3: eighteen sixties technology, you can't be that precise. And so
36:50
Speaker 3: what happens is even a split second of timing difference
36:54
Speaker 3: in firing one or the other side of the cannon,
36:56
Speaker 3: or a little bit of wind or a little bit
36:59
Speaker 3: of who knows, some material in the barrel will just
37:02
Speaker 3: send one ball slightly faster than the other, and all
37:05
Speaker 3: of a sudden you get something that's sort of rip
37:07
Speaker 3: sawing through the terrain, going in completely the wrong direction. Now,
37:10
Speaker 3: that could be destructive. It tore down some trees. But yeah,
37:14
Speaker 3: it's just too risky to bring into warfare.
37:16
Speaker 2: I got a good idea. What's your idea? Bigger cannons,
37:20
Speaker 2: bigger balls, bigger balls, longer chains. Well no, not even
37:24
Speaker 2: just one, just one barrel, one barrel, bigger, So big cannons,
37:29
Speaker 2: big cannons.
37:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting because I heard about the ball and
37:33
Speaker 1: chain stuff before. But I always thought to your point, Noel,
37:37
Speaker 1: I always thought that the it was a situation where
37:40
Speaker 1: there was a single cannon and they loaded the balls
37:43
Speaker 1: sort of atop each other with the chain hanging out,
37:46
Speaker 1: and then shot it out that way.
37:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, that seems like that would make more sense than
37:50
Speaker 3: having two sources of propulsion.
37:52
Speaker 2: Let's double down.
37:53
Speaker 1: Did anybody try like a triple barreled cannon.
37:56
Speaker 3: I think they have that at Burger Cane, right, it
37:59
Speaker 3: comes with the kid, comes with cheese. Yes, there's a
38:02
Speaker 3: special sauce but yeah, so this canon, it was just
38:06
Speaker 3: a total failure. But Galliland believed so passionately in his invention.
38:10
Speaker 3: He kept trying to make the case to the Confederate army.
38:13
Speaker 3: The canon was shipped from Athens, Georgia to Augusta, where
38:16
Speaker 3: it was put into more testing because he really really
38:19
Speaker 3: thought it would work. Ultimately, no, no, no is what
38:22
Speaker 3: the Confederates said. It was sent back to Athens. It
38:26
Speaker 3: was used in battle, but just as a signal, so
38:29
Speaker 3: kind of a warning shot to let the Confederates know
38:32
Speaker 3: that the US troops were arriving, so you know, as
38:36
Speaker 3: canons are used. And you can see that canon today.
38:38
Speaker 3: It still sits in Athens, Georgia. It was sold by
38:41
Speaker 3: the city for a while, luckily was not scrapped or anything,
38:44
Speaker 3: and the city bought it again and it now sits
38:46
Speaker 3: atop a hill in Athens, Georgia, right next to city Hall.
38:50
Speaker 3: There's a little plaque. You can kind of go look
38:52
Speaker 3: at it and say, that's weird.
38:53
Speaker 2: Have you seen it? I have seen it. Yeah, See,
38:55
Speaker 2: I used to live in Athens and this is all
38:57
Speaker 2: ringing a bell when you were talking about it, and
39:00
Speaker 2: I feel like I've seen it before.
39:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's at the corner of College Avenue and what not,
39:06
Speaker 3: West Washington. I think corner of Clayton Street.
39:08
Speaker 2: I think that's right.
39:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's it's it's on the Northeastern corner. Pointed
39:13
Speaker 3: straight up at the Yankees. Oh oh wow. Not that
39:17
Speaker 3: it's a threat or anything. It doesn't work, and it
39:19
Speaker 3: never worked, but you know, it might as well.
39:22
Speaker 1: Might as well have the impotent rage represented in a statue.
39:27
Speaker 2: Oh that's a good one, Christopher. Yeah, that's a great one.
39:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you guys want to take a field trip,
39:30
Speaker 3: we'll just hop on over to Athens.
39:31
Speaker 2: Let's go. I'm all about I haven't been back in
39:33
Speaker 2: too long. It's a good place, all right. Well, I
39:42
Speaker 2: guess I'm gonna stick with kind of retro futuristic kind
39:46
Speaker 2: of ones. Cool. This one is. I'm just gonna call
39:49
Speaker 2: it the hoverboard. Heard of it? Yes, yes, yes, yeah.
39:54
Speaker 2: It turns out it was real.
39:55
Speaker 3: So I feel like a lot of what we're talking about,
39:57
Speaker 3: at least what you guys are talking about, could come
39:59
Speaker 3: straight out of the back the Future movies. You've got
40:00
Speaker 3: the flying cars, You've got a hoverboard.
40:03
Speaker 2: Rocket bullets. Yeah, okay, it's a Hoverboard's a bit of
40:06
Speaker 2: a misnomer. It's really more like a helicopter platform. Okay,
40:10
Speaker 2: So this is something that was designed by the Hiller
40:14
Speaker 2: Company for the US Navy. Originally it was called the
40:18
Speaker 2: VS one Pawnee and it's basically a disc with fans
40:23
Speaker 2: underneath it, and it used something called rotor duct technology.
40:27
Speaker 2: So here's the interesting part about it. I also used
40:30
Speaker 2: something called kinesthetic control. Can you guys guess what that is?
40:33
Speaker 2: Controlling by moving your body? That's right, which is why
40:36
Speaker 2: I think of the hoverboard. So yeah, literally, a person
40:40
Speaker 2: manning one of these things, or piloting one of these
40:43
Speaker 2: things rather would be standing atop the strange little disc
40:48
Speaker 2: in kind of like a cage with no controls except
40:51
Speaker 2: for a throttle. So all they had control over was altitude.
40:55
Speaker 2: With an actual device to navigate, they have to lean
40:59
Speaker 2: the left lean of the lean four lean backward, and
41:02
Speaker 2: so it's almost like a segue in that respect. So
41:06
Speaker 2: they definitely tested these. They had a prototype which was
41:09
Speaker 2: much smaller than the second one. They kind of made
41:12
Speaker 2: the whole thing a little bigger, added a little bit
41:14
Speaker 2: more stability, and then the third one is massive, and
41:17
Speaker 2: it was so massive that it wouldn't even allow you
41:20
Speaker 2: to do the kinesthetic controls because it was just so unwieldy.
41:23
Speaker 3: They had like a group of guys run exactly now,
41:27
Speaker 3: come back center go, I know.
41:30
Speaker 2: So they added a seat to this one in more
41:31
Speaker 2: traditional helicopter type control, so there were actually some steering
41:36
Speaker 2: capabilities on this third one. So this was in nineteen
41:40
Speaker 2: fifty three. The US Navy's Office of Naval Research essentially
41:46
Speaker 2: gave this company, Hillar Helicopters, a contract to develop one
41:52
Speaker 2: of these. It was a twin engined ducted fan VTOL,
41:57
Speaker 2: which I think we all agree stands for verse takeoff
42:00
Speaker 2: and landing better. Yeah, no runway, no runway required. That's
42:04
Speaker 2: that's the one positive thing about this this device.
42:07
Speaker 3: Well, also I imagined it inspired a lot of Mega
42:10
Speaker 3: Man villains. To me, it sounds like kind of thing
42:12
Speaker 3: it's like right out of a nineteen eighties video game,
42:15
Speaker 3: which is like bad guys fun flying platforms exactly.
42:19
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, these things were very slow and they couldn't really
42:23
Speaker 2: figure out like any kind of real practical use for
42:27
Speaker 2: it in battle. There is in fact a video though,
42:30
Speaker 2: I'd like to play a clip from of one of
42:32
Speaker 2: the first flight tests of this thing.
42:39
Speaker 4: Well, this is quite a machine you have here. I
42:41
Speaker 4: suppose you've come as close as anyone to operating a
42:44
Speaker 4: flying carpet.
42:44
Speaker 5: How does it feel, Well, it feels fine. And the
42:47
Speaker 5: nice thing about it's very.
42:48
Speaker 2: Easy to fly.
42:50
Speaker 4: What do you think, phil is a truly revolutionary characteristic
42:53
Speaker 4: of this machine.
42:54
Speaker 5: Well, I mentioned earlier it was so easy to fly.
42:56
Speaker 5: We do it by shifting our weight. Is the way
42:58
Speaker 5: we control the aircript.
42:59
Speaker 4: I say by that, you mean you don't have any
43:02
Speaker 4: mechanical controls as we normally think of them in then aeroplanes,
43:05
Speaker 4: such as a stick in the rudder.
43:07
Speaker 5: Oh, we have a throttle, which all aircraft have, but
43:10
Speaker 5: we control it by shifting our weight using our feet.
43:14
Speaker 2: So yeah, again, he even says the interviewer, like, I
43:17
Speaker 2: guess it's because it's close to anyone's coming to fly
43:19
Speaker 2: and cop it. It's all about the future, you know,
43:22
Speaker 2: it's all about magic and technology. It's great, but yeah,
43:26
Speaker 2: they don't go very high. They seem a little. The
43:28
Speaker 2: guy keeps talking about how easy it is to fly,
43:30
Speaker 2: but it just doesn't seem like you could really get
43:34
Speaker 2: it to go forward very quickly at all, or be
43:37
Speaker 2: very precise in your movements on it.
43:39
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, And it seems like the kind of
43:40
Speaker 3: thing where if as you're training people to use it,
43:43
Speaker 3: you would just break a lot of them. And I
43:45
Speaker 3: also wonder what the point of it is. I mean,
43:47
Speaker 3: if it doesn't go that high, it can't be used
43:49
Speaker 3: for reconnaissance. If it moves as you move, you probably
43:54
Speaker 3: can't use it like a heavy rifle, because then you might,
43:57
Speaker 3: you know, throw yourself off, and it'll be like you're
43:59
Speaker 3: in a round ship. Yeah, exactly. You could even sneeze, yeah,
44:03
Speaker 3: and just crash.
44:04
Speaker 1: So maybe it's more of a proof of concept because
44:08
Speaker 1: one would imagine there surely there would be ways to
44:12
Speaker 1: mitigate those issues. Even just fixing one of those issues
44:17
Speaker 1: would make it a more worthwhile investment by a military,
44:21
Speaker 1: that's right.
44:21
Speaker 2: And of course they did take them out of commission
44:23
Speaker 2: entirely by nineteen sixty three, but it did offer some
44:27
Speaker 2: pretty valuable information, of research wise, for technology they would
44:32
Speaker 2: later use for more practical vertical takeoff and landing planes,
44:35
Speaker 2: which which are a thing I don't thought that was
44:38
Speaker 2: kind of cool.
44:38
Speaker 3: I agree, Yeah, it's the kind of thing that reminds
44:40
Speaker 3: me too of technology you know, supposedly coming from Project
44:44
Speaker 3: Bluebook and that investigation into alien technology in Area fifty one.
44:48
Speaker 3: This weird flying saucer stuff, it kind of makes me
44:51
Speaker 3: think of that, and I know it's.
44:53
Speaker 2: Not real, but oh, I wish I'd done that. Maybe
44:55
Speaker 2: it could be.
44:57
Speaker 1: I was having such a tough time off the air
45:00
Speaker 1: preparing for this episode because there's an extensive list of
45:07
Speaker 1: ridiculous experiments but also very promising, somewhat space age stuff
45:13
Speaker 1: that militaries have gotten up to in secret. And I
45:18
Speaker 1: wanted to find one of the dumbest ideas, not one
45:21
Speaker 1: that has some promise, not one that's innovative.
45:24
Speaker 2: Let's try something new.
45:26
Speaker 1: The dumbest, a dumbest idea that I found is the
45:31
Speaker 1: ball tank. The ball tank, the ball tank, tell me
45:35
Speaker 1: more it We are a family show. It's a tank.
45:41
Speaker 1: It's been known alternately as the kugle Banzer or the
45:45
Speaker 1: tumbleweed tank. The thing about this is we'll start with
45:49
Speaker 1: one story. We'll start with the tumbleweed tank. There's an
45:52
Speaker 1: inventor in Texas.
45:53
Speaker 2: His name is A. J.
45:55
Speaker 1: Richardson, and in nineteen thirty six he says, you know,
46:00
Speaker 1: the First World War, which they just called the World
46:03
Speaker 1: War at that time, no war. Yeah, can you imagine
46:06
Speaker 1: calling that war the First World War. Back then it was.
46:09
Speaker 1: He said it was well. He was haunted frankly by
46:14
Speaker 1: the sheer mass of human suffering and carnage and death
46:18
Speaker 1: that occurred. And in his estimation, one of the reasons
46:23
Speaker 1: so many people died in World War One was because
46:27
Speaker 1: of trench warfare. People couldn't aim very well. They could
46:32
Speaker 1: just blindly throw mortars toward the enemy's trench and hope
46:36
Speaker 1: they hit someone who's a soldier rather than a civilian,
46:40
Speaker 1: rather than medical personnel and all this other stuff. So
46:43
Speaker 1: he said the best idea would be to send heavily armored,
46:49
Speaker 1: motorized bunkers across that no man's land that kills zone
46:53
Speaker 1: between the trenches, because again, I just want to emphasize
46:56
Speaker 1: this important. Later he thought the main problem was that
47:00
Speaker 1: you couldn't really see who you were firing at, and
47:04
Speaker 1: so he decided that he would invent this thing called
47:07
Speaker 1: the tumbleweed tank. It is a sphere. It has room
47:11
Speaker 1: for three people. It has each of the three people
47:15
Speaker 1: are manning one gun. I would like to show you, gentlemen,
47:19
Speaker 1: a picture of this of this design. I want you
47:24
Speaker 1: to get a look at it, because the guns you
47:28
Speaker 1: see the guns you see have a lot of random placement.
47:33
Speaker 1: There's one pointing toward the air, there's one pointing toward
47:36
Speaker 1: the ground, and then there's one just out there on
47:38
Speaker 1: the right, and the one on the right can swivel
47:40
Speaker 1: by the way.
47:41
Speaker 2: It sort of like cars in the newer Jurassic Park movies,
47:45
Speaker 2: I guess it is.
47:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because those are two seaters. That's two seaters,
47:49
Speaker 1: so this one is an uncomfortable three seater. And just
47:53
Speaker 1: from that initial picture you guys saw, the tumbleweed tank
47:57
Speaker 1: has some problems.
47:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is.
47:58
Speaker 3: The kind of thing that should be drawn and then
48:01
Speaker 3: immediately torn up.
48:04
Speaker 2: How is it going to roll if there's random guns
48:06
Speaker 2: poking out every which way? Do they collapse? It has
48:09
Speaker 2: a ring it is propelled by uh.
48:13
Speaker 3: Oh, so it only goes forward and back. Yeah, it
48:16
Speaker 3: doesn't roll in like, not even three hundred and sixty degrees,
48:19
Speaker 3: but the entire spherical gyroscopic motion, it just goes straight
48:23
Speaker 3: back and forward.
48:24
Speaker 1: Let me let me correct myself there in the diagram,
48:27
Speaker 1: from what we understand, the actual the sphere wherein the
48:32
Speaker 1: soldiers are located, that is enclosed within two rotating outer
48:37
Speaker 1: shells that are each like bowls round the thing, so
48:41
Speaker 1: it can it can turn a little bit in theory.
48:45
Speaker 3: So it's sort of like a deadly gerbil ball kind
48:48
Speaker 3: of yeah, hamster mechanism with guns, yep, and men.
48:53
Speaker 2: And it had some it had some good points.
48:55
Speaker 1: It could be very easily sealed against poison gas attacks.
48:59
Speaker 1: And Richardson also thought it would present a much smaller
49:02
Speaker 1: target for enemy shells and that they would glance off
49:05
Speaker 1: of the curved sides. But remember how we mentioned the
49:09
Speaker 1: part where his primary beef with World War One was
49:14
Speaker 1: that people were just blindly throwing.
49:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, you couldn't see people. So this was his way
49:19
Speaker 3: around that somehow.
49:20
Speaker 1: So the guys sealed inside this tank, Christopher frantically firing
49:25
Speaker 1: guns in all directions, could not see outside. They had
49:30
Speaker 1: no idea what was going on.
49:33
Speaker 3: So it would maybe work if you could somehow catapult
49:36
Speaker 3: one of these balls into the middle of your enemy
49:39
Speaker 3: and just shoot in willy nilly directions. This just sounds
49:44
Speaker 3: like a terrible, terrible idea.
49:45
Speaker 1: I mean, imagine, yeah, terrible is the right word. Imagine
49:48
Speaker 1: how terrifying this is for the operators they can't see outside,
49:52
Speaker 1: how terrifying it is for the enemy.
49:55
Speaker 2: What the hell is that?
49:56
Speaker 1: Are they even aiming for us? How terrifying it is
49:58
Speaker 1: for nearby troops who are like, hey, whoa, whoa, I'm
50:02
Speaker 1: on your side.
50:03
Speaker 3: The only way I could imagine this would be worse
50:05
Speaker 3: is if instead of a track, they all had to
50:08
Speaker 3: run inside to make it going. You know, like those
50:10
Speaker 3: big kind of translucent plastic balls you see on America's
50:13
Speaker 3: fundies home videos or whatever.
50:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorbian that's what what zorbian zeo or what are
50:17
Speaker 2: you saying? Is that like furries zorbian zo r B
50:22
Speaker 2: I n G So like a furbie. It's where you
50:24
Speaker 2: get inside that giant plastic ball sorbing zorbian Is that
50:27
Speaker 2: an acronym? And then they fight? Uh they fight? Yeah, yeah,
50:31
Speaker 2: they've they've fought.
50:32
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's I don't know if it's
50:35
Speaker 1: an acronym. I know it's it's meant to cite the
50:38
Speaker 1: fact that you're rolling downhill in an orb.
50:41
Speaker 3: So like maybe zero gravity or.
50:45
Speaker 2: I think there's but I think there's proper gravity. Yeah, yeah,
50:48
Speaker 2: well neither. Hell, I've also seen them on water. Yes,
50:53
Speaker 2: you can get inside those on water and just roll
50:55
Speaker 2: them around aquasorb aquasorbing, but I like that, but you
50:59
Speaker 2: can see through through those, which I think is key here.
51:02
Speaker 3: So aquasorbing, rotocopter, battle, rocket, chip, bullet failure, disaster war.
51:10
Speaker 3: That's what we're talking at right now.
51:11
Speaker 2: That's what we're talking Oh, there's one other point.
51:14
Speaker 1: We do know that there was at least one other
51:16
Speaker 1: group of people who thought this balltank idea was just
51:21
Speaker 1: the top notch military concept of the time. It was Germany.
51:25
Speaker 1: We know that during World War Two Germany designed that
51:31
Speaker 1: google poundcer the ball tank, and we don't know what
51:35
Speaker 1: they meant to do with it. We don't know how
51:39
Speaker 1: often it was used. Clearly not that much, but we
51:42
Speaker 1: haven't found any plans or documents about it. Only one
51:45
Speaker 1: survived the war. It was captured in Manchuria in nineteen
51:47
Speaker 1: forty five. You can go see it in the Kubinka
51:51
Speaker 1: Museum's collection of German vehicles. It was apparently used by
51:57
Speaker 1: some unfortunate German and the Germans, in their part did
52:02
Speaker 1: include a small visor or small slit so the operator
52:06
Speaker 1: could see what they were rolling.
52:07
Speaker 2: That's nice, that's thoughtful. Yeah, they learned from the tumbleweed tank.
52:11
Speaker 3: And that's what they learned is just let them look outside.
52:15
Speaker 2: Just see.
52:15
Speaker 3: It feels like there's a lot more lessons to be
52:17
Speaker 3: learned from the ball tank.
52:20
Speaker 1: This was such a cool idea for an episode. Thank
52:23
Speaker 1: you for bringing this to us.
52:24
Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah, always a pleasure to have you in the
52:27
Speaker 2: studio and kind of kick the ball tank around nice.
52:32
Speaker 3: Speaking of kicking, if any ridiculous historians want to kick
52:35
Speaker 3: it with me over on another show this week, you guys, okay,
52:39
Speaker 3: if I plug something.
52:40
Speaker 2: Oh please plug away.
52:41
Speaker 3: So ridiculous historians. If you're listening to this show, I
52:44
Speaker 3: know you like learning about stuff in the way back,
52:47
Speaker 3: So point your podcast machines over to This Day in
52:51
Speaker 3: History Class. It's one of our sister podcasts here on
52:54
Speaker 3: the House Stuff Works Network. It's a daily history show,
52:57
Speaker 3: just really quick, five minute tid bits of one thing
53:01
Speaker 3: that happened that day in history.
53:03
Speaker 2: Now.
53:04
Speaker 3: Normally the host is Tracy V. Wilson, who you probably
53:06
Speaker 3: know from stuff you missed in history class. She's out
53:09
Speaker 3: this week, So the week that you are listening to
53:11
Speaker 3: this in your podcast machine, I'm going to be guest
53:14
Speaker 3: hosting over on This Day in History Class. So head
53:16
Speaker 3: over that way and you can find all sorts of
53:18
Speaker 3: cool weird things that happen every single day of the year,
53:22
Speaker 3: day by day.
53:23
Speaker 1: Awesome, congratulations, and we are definitely going to check it out.
53:27
Speaker 1: We can also go ahead and maybe post a link
53:30
Speaker 1: to that, yeah, ridiculous Historians.
53:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll share that on the Facebook page. Ridiculous Historians
53:35
Speaker 3: will point you in that direction. It's a great show.
53:37
Speaker 3: I'm only on it for a week, but you should
53:39
Speaker 3: definitely take a listen. It'll be going through some cool
53:41
Speaker 3: changes in the coming year too. I think we're going
53:43
Speaker 3: to be getting a little more creative, but still a
53:45
Speaker 3: daily podcast kind of updating you just on the things
53:48
Speaker 3: you need to know about what's happened in the past
53:50
Speaker 3: and how that affects our days today.
53:52
Speaker 1: Awesome, and thank you so much for coming on the show.
53:56
Speaker 1: This is going to be one of a number of
53:59
Speaker 1: recurring appearances.
54:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna mean this's a regular thing.
54:02
Speaker 3: I'll be around.
54:03
Speaker 2: Fantastic. Well, let's as always thank our super producer, Casey Pegram.
54:09
Speaker 2: I think we've already thanked Christopher enough that I'm gonna
54:11
Speaker 2: do it one more time film for measure. Thank you, Christopher.
54:17
Speaker 2: Do I have a choice? Doesn't that sound like an
54:20
Speaker 2: alien overlord character?
54:21
Speaker 1: There is a Zorba the Great I think, oh wait,
54:27
Speaker 1: this works out with you?
54:28
Speaker 2: It does? Yeah, thanks to you as well, Ben Hey,
54:32
Speaker 2: thanks to you looking dapper as ever today, sir.
54:34
Speaker 1: And thanks to Alex Williams who composed our track. Thank
54:38
Speaker 1: you for checking out the show. We hope that you
54:41
Speaker 1: enjoyed it, and we hope that this is kindled a
54:44
Speaker 1: spark of inspiration. Let us know what strange military contraptions
54:49
Speaker 1: were otherwise ridiculous inventions you have run across.
54:54
Speaker 2: We will be all ears. We would love to hear
54:56
Speaker 2: this stuff.
54:57
Speaker 1: And you know, we're of course that should go out
54:59
Speaker 1: saying we're we're not really picking on these inventors. A
55:03
Speaker 1: lot of these ideas seem very promising, and the only
55:06
Speaker 1: way you can learn whether or not they're feasible is
55:09
Speaker 1: to test them, you know what I mean. Rocket Bullets
55:12
Speaker 1: sounds like a tremendous idea. It sounds really cool and.
55:15
Speaker 3: One of my favorite bands and.
55:16
Speaker 2: One of your favorite bands, Rocket Bullets. Sure, if they
55:21
Speaker 2: don't exist yet, they absolutely need to. So please come
55:25
Speaker 2: and hang out with us next time. When we talk
55:27
Speaker 2: about flowers as currency or you know, some sort of
55:31
Speaker 2: like the bitcoin bubble, we'll see you then for more
55:42
Speaker 2: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
55:46
Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.