Category:
Weapons

Reassuring news in the event of a nuclear war

The reassuring news, according to Dr. G.D. Kersley, was that if you've had one nuclear bomb dropped on you, you're unlikely to have another.

Kersley's article appeared in the Aug 9, 1958 issue of the British Medical Journal. You can read it here. The reassuring comments are on the final page, in the conclusions section.

Birmingham Post - Aug 8, 1958

Posted By: Alex - Mon Nov 06, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: War, Weapons, Atomic Power and Other Nuclear Matters, 1950s

Miss Missile

Between 1961 and 1965, a "Miss Missile" was chosen annually at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls. The contest was part of the Armed Forces Day celebrations.

The first winner was Nancy Mitchell, making her Miss Mitchell Miss Missile.

Wichita Falls Record - May 15, 1962



Wichita Falls Record - May 18, 1962



Wichita Falls Record - May 5, 1965



Wichita Falls Record - May 14, 1965

Posted By: Alex - Wed Sep 27, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, 1960s, Weapons

Death Sand

Radiological warfare is the use of radiation as a weapon. "Death Sand" is a variant of this — the use of irradiated sand as a weapon. Details from Popular Science, Feb 1951.

Prof. Hans Thirring of Vienna proposes drying a solution of the RW [radiological warfare] agent upon sand, or metal powder. Naming the preparation "death sand," he calls it "the lightest and most transportable of all weapons of mass destruction."

Airplanes for "death-sand" attacks could resemble those used for crop dusting and spreading fertilizer from the air. A British plane for the latter purpose has dropped five tons of chemicals in a single experimental flight.

To protect occupants from the cargo's radioactivity a death-sand plane would need heavy shielding. (After calculating its weight, one scientist suggested dropping the shielding instead of the RW agent on the enemy!) But shielding could be omitted if crewless planes, under radio control from accompanying aircraft, laid the sand.

Troops in an area sprinkles with death sand will have no choice but to get out. Those who remain will receive a fatal dose in anywhere from a few hours to several weeks, depending on the intensity of the radioactivity. Like victims of A-bomb radiation, they will suffer nausea, loss of hair, anemia, and hemorrhages. But those who flee at once will suffer no ill effects.





Posted By: Alex - Thu Sep 14, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: War, Weapons, Atomic Power and Other Nuclear Matters

Clipboard Gun

The justification for this clipboard gun was that it would allow police officers to approach stopped vehicles looking as if they were holding a clipboard, not a gun.

The problem that I see is that it wouldn't take long for the public to realize that the clipboards were actually guns. In which case, even if a police officer was genuinely only carrying a clipboard, everyone would assume it was a gun.

More info: Patent No. 4,016,666



Posted By: Alex - Tue Aug 29, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Police and Other Law Enforcement, Patents, 1970s, Weapons

Mystery Illustration 111

What's going on here?

The answer is at the link.

Or after the jump.



More in extended >>

Posted By: Paul - Sun Jul 16, 2023 - Comments (4)
Category: 1940s, Weapons

Hand Grenade Throwing as a College Sport

Lewis Omer’s Hand Grenade Throwing as a College Sport, published in 1918, appears in various lists of books with odd titles.

I was curious about the contents of the book, but I initially came up empty handed. The British Library blog reported that it was a nine-page booklet, but that no copies of the title seemed to remain in existence. The Library of Congress didn't have a copy, nor did any other libraries. And the British Library's own copy was destroyed during aerial bombing in World War II.

But after some searching I found what appears to be the text of Omer's booklet reproduced in the Spalding's Athletic Library Official Handbook, published in 1919, and viewable at archive.org.

So why hand-grenade throwing as a college sport? Because, at the time Omer wrote his book, young American men were being sent to fight in World War I, and some colleges had introduced grenade throwing as a sport, to prepare them for the war. Using dummy grenades, obviously, rather than live ones. Omer's booklet provided the official rules for the new sport.

Some more info about the history of grenade throwing as a sport can be found at the History Of The California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section.









Posted By: Alex - Thu Jun 22, 2023 - Comments (5)
Category: Sports, Books, 1910s, Weapons

Follies of the Madmen #566

Our syndicated TV show is comparable to the deadliest weapon known to mankind.

Posted By: Paul - Tue May 30, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Death, Destruction, Humor, Television, Advertising, Children, 1950s, Weapons

Food Bombs

I imagine this would have been the most expensive way possible to deliver humanitarian supplies. Though also the fastest.

Modesto Bee - May 30, 1992



Weekly World News - July 7, 1992

Posted By: Alex - Thu May 18, 2023 - Comments (5)
Category: Food, 1990s, Weapons

The Rigsby Electric Machinegun

Ahead of its time.






Posted By: Paul - Tue Feb 14, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Inventions, 1930s, Weapons

Plant Machete

A machete-wielding plant. From the website of David Bowen, its creator:

This installation enables a live plant to control a machete. plant machete has a control system that reads and utilizes the electrical noises found in a live philodendron. The system uses an open source micro-controller connected to the plant to read varying resistance signals across the plant’s leaves. Using custom software, these signals are mapped in real-time to the movements of the joints of the industrial robot holding a machete.

The Day of the Triffids would have been a gorier novel if the plants had machetes.





via WhatTheyTh!nk

Posted By: Alex - Mon Feb 13, 2023 - Comments (4)
Category: Art, Botany, Weapons

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