this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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Favourite weapons of war? (hexbear.net)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
27 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I know this sounds feddy, but bonus if they're improvised, cos that shits awesome.

One of my favourites is the PRIG - an IRA made grenade launcher that used a packet of biscuits to offset and quieten the backblast.

I also made a crossbow that fired nuts and bolts using wood and resistance bands. Not a weapon of war and would never be lethal, but also probably not very legal where I'm from. I just used it to plink cans in the back garden when I was bored. Was actually quite a scarily powerful and accurate device for how crude it was.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
  1. The Basilic Cannon

~3rd largest cannon ever made, Orban the Hungarian ironworker first approached Constantine XI with the plans and was turned down for it looking like an expensive project. So he goes and shows them to Sultan Mehmed II and now it's Istanbul not Constantinople.

  1. Ironclads

Ironclads are super cool to me because due to the rapid pace of change in technology basically every single one was outdated by the time they actually left the shipyards. It was the confluence of new and separate technologies: metal hulls, steam propulsion, and guns rather than cannons (in the traditional meaning of the word); that when combined wasn't really impactful enough in it's own right to be a dominant military technology, but would be the foundation for the next like 200 years of warship design.

  1. Khopesh

The Sword/Axe combo still looks fucking sick 4,500 years later

E) honorable mention to the Billhook, and I mean the sidearm hand-axe/machete not the wannabe halberd.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

  1. gotta have some love for the warwolf too then surely

  2. Ironclads are dope. Although it's probably not true, in True History of The Kelly Gang, Ned Kelly gets his armour inspiration from seeing blueprints to an Ironclad. Dope ass movie.

  3. yep shits badass Egyptian weapons looked so mythical

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

The Warwolf (and trebuchets in general) are absolutely dope; but what I love the most about the Basilic cannon is the historical contingency embodied by it. The fate of Eastern Rome was partially decided by sticker shock.