Could you imagine Puckle in something like World of Warships: So what kind of ammo you want to fire, High Explosive? Armor Piercing? Semi-armor Piercing? Puckle: Anti Turk!
In all fairness the AR-18, like the puckle gun, was not adopted by any major military but it’s design elements influenced pretty much all subsequent designs. Not seeing service or working on the first try doesn’t mean it was a flop, especially when it can influence men like Gatling…who’s design lives on in the Vulcan cannon used by most western fighters. The Puckle is like the great great great granddad of a weapon still in service.
Depending on who you believe, the Puckle Gun was actually the influence for the Colt 45. Of course, Americans refuse to believe their great gun god stole the idea from someone else and instead insist that he thought of the idea all by himself. This is the same chap who funded his gun by selling soft drugs.
The gun at the start is only bizarre in its use of square ammunition. Given development it had potential considering the time of its inception and the progress of firearms up-to today.
Square projectiles are really cool. They make a reappearance every few years in trials because they are superior at supersonic speeds. But they can’t form a gas seal without secondary manufacturing processes or a carrier of some kind. Discarding carriers add a lot of weight and reduce portable quantities of ammunition. Heckler & Koch had an experimental rectilinear round that used a driving band for the seal, like tiny naval rounds. But they had all kinds of problems.
Octopi are maybe the most intelligent species of aquaritc life , equal to whales, dolphins , and porpoises . They have eight prehensile tentacles capabile of manipulating tools and weapons .
The Panjendrum is right up there with whatever loony designed an armor plated pogo stick to cross minefields. Does make for one of the best "Dads Army" episodes though.
When I was in San Diego in the Navy in the 90s, one of the San Diego bases had a dolphin pen and trainers, and it wasn’t any particular secret. Have no idea if they could actually do anything, but the Navy didn’t go to the expense of keeping Dolphins on the base just for entertainment.
I know of two unclassified programs involving dolphins. The first was to locate stricken submarines. It failed because the dolphins couldn’t dive to the depth a submarine would be. The second was to locate underwater mines. This had the problem of once to mine was located, the dolphin had no way to communicate it’s location. It was suggested the planting of a transmitter, but that would involve the dolphin actually touching the mine (BOOM!). In the end, underwater drones proved more expedient. And dolphins are smart enough to know a raw deal when they see it.
@@andrewgillis3073 yeah, but remember that program for dolphin mine detection predates the availability of (semi) autonomous UUVs by several decades. For the longest time the only way to detect mines under water was to blast active sonar from your ship or submarine and hope you get a ping, then send in a diver to disable the thing. If a dolphin could both detect the mine AND plant a demolition charge on or near it that'd be so much more handy.
@@jwenting True. The use of UUVs was a huge step forward for underwater mine detection, and logistically a lot easier. I hope who ever came up with the idea got some credit.
The Soviets designed and built a tank-mounted laser cannon. It was indended to destroy enemy missiles, radar equipment and similar. The lasers were focused by 30 kilograms of artificial rubies, a.k.a. a metric arseload of money. The project was scrapped when they realized that the heavy, cumbersome and expensive tank can be destroyed by any conventional anti-tank weapon.
7:00 The Iron Horde from World of Warcraft used these things. Good fun. The aliens from the _Battleship_ movie used a drone version, one programmed not to kill noncombatants. _(Yeah._ It was the _Battleship_ movie, what did you expect?!)
That second contraption reminded me, to an extent, of Leonardo Da Vinci innovations. It could have had a motor, like an electric motor, instead of rockets.
The problem was that bombing wasn’t very accurate until the mosquitoe. It would take a flight of a hundred planes to destroy one factory. The fact that the ‘dam busters’ required weeks of training shows this.
@@chrisyanover1777 For WW II, I'm not aware of that happening. There were cases of pilots and crew chiefs strapping unauthorized weapons to airplanes. In the case of the de Havilland Mosquito, the co-pilot/navigator released the bomb most of the time. One of the reasons that 613 squadron so effective was that they kept the aircrews together as much as they could. The airmen of this unit specialized in low level precision bombing. This was also true of 617 squadron, who flew Lancaster bombers.
Not sure why there is a question regarding whether dolphin programs existed or not. The U.S. Navy has very openly discussed its marine mammal program in recent years. There were multiple news features done on dolphins deployed to Iraq in 2003 that were trained to "sniff out" mines. They were most notably used in a southern port where the Royal Marines secured the surrounding city, then held it until the U.S. Navy dolphins could sweep the waterways before USN/RN vessels could access it.
Bucyrus = pronounced "buuh -ceye - russ". Another mega projects video of Bucyrus Erie making the largest earth moving drag-line shovel called Big Muskie. The bucket was big enough to fit two Grey Hound buses.
hmmm... the first use for those militarized dolphins i could think of was in fact finding and clearing out enemy underwater minefields.... wouldn't that have been easier than all the other applications? X_x
As well as the already mentioned pigeon-guided bomb (yes, they existed though few took the idea seriously) there's also the anti-tank dogs - possibly inspired by ancient stories of war pigs being used as a countermeasure to war elephants. The war pigs didn't explode, they made the elephants panic and trample anyone stood near them. Then there's bat bombs (Project X-Ray). These did work as intended but were never deployed as the USA chose to use nuclear weapons instead. Explosive rats - similar concept to the coal torpedo. Perhaps the downright strangest animal related weapon was the British project Blue Peacock. This was a chicken powered nuclear bomb (developed 1954, cancelled 1958).
The French had minefield clearing dogs. There’s a lot of original footage around if you’re into that kind of thing. However, I already made that mistake and can assure you the dogs worked and the outcome is exactly what you’d think.
The Great Panjandrum DID have another effect that lasted well after the War. One of the 'drivers' on the trials was Lt. Neville Shute Norway RNVR - better know as the author Neville Shute. He operated a brake on a steering cable attached to the side of the device (one each side) and one of the spectacular capsizes was due to the cable drum seizing. You also missed one of the better film (video) clips from the trials of the terrier (pet of one of the brass hats) chasing flying rockets up and down the beach (40 pounds of cordite in a cast iron rocket casing).
The creator was Nevil Shute, author of 'on the beach' and many aviation novels, and a highly respected aviation engineer. The project was apparently started before the nature of the 'atlantic wall' was known. it was thought the Germans would build a physical, continuous concrete wall along the coast.
@@mikemullen5563 and it could probably have been made to work using wider wheels and a different propulsion system that didn't rely on rockets that'd fizzle when they got soaking wet from being submerged in sea water.
Pretty sure they never made a puckle that actually fired the square bullets....not sure where he's getting the info on the square bullets being more accurate......
Dolphins certainy were, and are used for all kinds of nefarious military uses!!! ... but I wonder what each might say to the other when they accidentally met!!!
The Puckle gun's problem, as absurd as it sounds, was the fact it was ahead of its time. With better metallurgy and machining it would have worked a lot better as we see with the Gatling gun and Colt revolver.
The US Navy Marine Mammal Program is ongoing, has been udeclassified since the 1990s, and have deployed them to combat zones since Vietnam (including clearing harbors by detecting mines in Iraq in 2003), and the US Navy openly runs the program in San Diego.
Simon they are using dolphins and similar creatures to this DAY. Do you not remember the news from a few years ago when the beluga wearing some sort of harness rolled up to a boat and it was theorized to be a russian project?
The US program was shut down, but it was found the animals couldn't survive in the wild so they're still cared for by humans (I think some ended up in places like Seaworld, others not). Who knows what the Russians and Chinese are up to... Probably nothing good of course.
I found Simons channel a bit over a year ago, or was it two? Damn pandemic messing with my sense of time. But it was a random find nonetheless. Instantly hooked. Simon seems like a good guy, videos are well made, edited and easy to watch on a Lunch break or while cooking good. Awesome stuff on each of his channel. Never disappoints. So yes, beardblaze order for xmas. For myself, a friend or my father. Just want to support this guy.
@@ferociousgumby no no we're absolutely in After Pandemic lol and have been for quite some time. Despite the best efforts of folks in power to scare everyone into believing we're staring extinction in the face : p
Yeah sure the videos are well made in almost every single way except one : whenever the script requires Simon to go look up how certain words/names are pronounced. Which you know is pretty important if all you have to do is read a fkn script properly.
@@Shad0wBoxxer Thermal nuclear rather than thermo nuclear. Hey someone has to keep it at or above room temperature. You' have just been voluntold. cluck cluck cluck. is chickin for well at least I don't need to try to get the Chieftain to start again.
Ok, so what about the bat-bombs, and the tidal-wave bomb? - New Zealand attempted to develop using tidal waves/tsunamis as a weapon - the idea being to clear areas/beach heads of military positions and installations prior to an assault.
The bat bombs actually worked. They escaped and burned down the buildings of the airfield they were being tested at. As far as the Tsunami bomb is concerned that exists too. All you need is a line of conventional nukes detonated at the right point a few miles offshore.
Flipper actually "rehabilitated" his female trainer, quite often. In fact, it was because she was caught with him "rehabilitating" that they canceled the TV series... And yes, she aggressively defended her actions in being "rehabilitated"... Well, you've got to remember this was the 1960s.
@@rogersheddy6414 Can you provide a source for this? Based on everything I could find, the main dolphin who played Flipper was a female and her trainer was a man. I think Jacob L is right, you seem to be confusing Peter with the one who played Flipper.
I think they’re referencing a psychology experiment where a female psychologist waterproofed her house and lived with a male dolphin in an attempt to see if she can teach it to understand human language. It became a huge ethical nightmare after she was caught pleasuring it - I learnt about it during undergrad
@@ericasarat1834 crimes committed while drunk would be the biggest history book ever. He'll you could fill a large magazine just covering the 35 years I've been alive
The Panjandrum looks startling on the film clip which is probably why it's remembered. Anybody with even basic mechanical knowledge can see this will never work. It's amazing it is was actually built. Desperate times; maybe.
Far more plausible it was a maskirovka intended to lull the Germans into a false sense of security. I mean, the Allies had no problems finding beaches that *weren't* teeming with civilians for pretty much every *pther* test involving a coastline.
So just how in the hell did they expect to have the ability to set up their ridiculous contraption in combat? If you have to have the wheel lined up Directly in line with your target and all the other stupidity associated with those things, you'll probably end up dead somewhere in the process... What the Hell, People?!
The people in charge of this had an idea that out of ten ideas, one would work. They did invent a lot of useful equipment and weapons. It was also noted that they had several ‘shadow’ projects that were there just to fool or confuse the enemy. The myth about carrots improving night vision is a good example. It was started to hide the fact that the British had radar on its night fighters.
How is it that I already knew everything this video has to say about the Puckle gun *except* for the fact that it never saw service? How did that (fairly significant) fact about it completely slip past me until now?
Hate to say this but there are 100% military dolphins in service. The north Korean program was not mentioned. American and Russian tho are not "attack" dolphins. Mine detection and marking are their key roles
Beard blaze, oh I love mine, such beauty in us mens tranquility! 😍😍 Only emphasised futher! Nice! 👍 But puckle gun lay the foundations for the modern machine gun didn't it? Samuel colt borrowed or STOLE that idea for his iconic revolver
In my opinion the moneys spent on this project would have been better utilized in making steel shields for the men who were in the 1st 3 rows of the landing vehicles, they then could have formed a shield wall and proceeded with minimal casualties and Thousands and thousands would have been saved! And I believe that That option was evaluated and the Top Brass(those Not in the line of fire) deemed that it would lead to cowardice! Fools! For why was the shield wall of such strategic importance for....well Forever! My thought being that you form your troops into a flying wedge formation, shield wall in semi-tortiouse formation and then with your mates behind you, run like the Dickens' and then kill the Nazis! I think that this was an idea put forth, but was rejected for fear that the troops would just hide behind their shields. I'm of the conviction that a soldier with the Extra security of having a shield would make them be More likely to push forward and be More courageous and brave, than being totally naked and likely dead if they move.
Simon, you forgot one drawback of not having a tight seal on firearms with revolving cylinders: A face-full of powder flash. Which is also the reason revolvers and rifles never had offspring.
Colt had a revolving rifle and shotgun and Remington long barrelled and stocked version of their revolver (something not too uncommon in the 19th and early 20th centuries.) You can buy reproductions today. What killed the design's advantages is the self-contained cartridge: for long arms, lever-, slide-, and eventually auto-loading actions just were better. And you don't get a face full of powder or bullet shavings from a badly timed cylinder.
@@davidhanson4909 TIMED? No. But, you certainly can, from misadjusted Cylinder Gap. And in the Days of the rifles you mention, guess what was common? It doesn't take a face-full of powder to take an eye out. I shot one of those recreations. The friend who bought it, promptly sold it. He was not impressed. Having my face sit ON the cylinder gap was not comforting. Imnsho, THEY ARE A CUTE TOY. But, for any caliber you might want a Revolver Rifle for, I myself would much prefer as a Pump-Action. Or Lever.
The rolling explosive wheels were an interesting idea... but really hard to make it work back in the 1940s. Today we might have been able to make it work... but its way easier to just launch cruise missiles.
You missed the “Pigeon-driven Smart Bombs!” (Those actually seemed to work-not sure why the project was cancelled.). Yankee Doodle Pigeon as an action hero. 😉
I worked for a company in San Diego that made all sorts of things out of plastic - trash cans, TV housings, and weapons (of sorts) for military dolphins. They were plastic sort of harness things that fit around their heads/upper bodies. I saw the dolphin head models in the design department, asked what they were for, and that was the story - they made parts for dolphin deployed weapons - contracted by the US military. It was...odd.
There was a show I watched as a kid on Saturday mornings back in the "70's" called "Flipper", and one episode was about this exact subject. Dolphins can be trained to do just about anything that can be done in the water. GOD blessed them with quite the I.Q.!
The Cultivator 6 stands as testioment to British ingenuity. But like most of our inventions, it was largely useless. But still. What a machine and concept. I'm imagining an alternate timeline where WW2 dragged on and machines like that were very much needed for any kind of forward momentum. There was a video game I only ever played the demo of, back when you could get game demo discs on magazines, and it was a ww1 game except it was the 1960s and the trench nightmare had never ended. The lines had only ever gotten bigger and the guns in tandem. That one taste of a "futuristic" ww1 trench warfare was pretty lasting.
I was in the U.S. Navy in the early 1980s and remember seeing a film on the Navy's dolphin training project as part of a training course. As I recall they were primarily talking about training the Dolphins to attach Limpet mines to enemy shipping. I also seem to recall being told set it was pretty much a dead end program as a dolphins just didn't want to cooper.ate. it's been quite a while so I may have some of the specific details confused.
The russians have dolphin pens near Chrimea, I understand they are there to counter frogmen. They also protect their arctic ports with trained whales, one even defected to norway during the cold war.
Simon, you should do your own "grooming/beauty" show, you know like all the other youtubers! Hahaha!! The show should just be a 10-15 minute bit about amazing/famous facial hair from history, the history of grooming ones facial hair, the history of barbers/groomers, the tools and techniques of facial hair grooming, and things like that, ALL WHILE, Simon shaves his head and grooms his beard and mustache for the day! Call it "BEARD BLAZE" after his line of grooming products! It's perfect!!!
