Forgotten Weapons @lemmy.world FireTower @lemmy.world 8mo ago

Shitotsubakurai Lunge Mine (1940s)

This Japanese weapon employed a high explosive anti-tank (or HEAT) charge to disable tanks.

15 comments

What was the survival rate amongst the lungers?
- 7lbs of TNT, 6' long stick, 14lbs total weight...
  
  The 7lbs of kablooey is a shaped charge, but firing it into a steel armor plate means you get a refund, and even a modest refund on that amount puts you solidly in a Ziploc baggie.
  
  There's also that newton guys laws... Which takes the 7 lbs that isn't TNT and hurls it back at you, with way more yeet than it needs to very thoroughly aerate the fuck out of whatever sort of paste like substance the kablooey transmogrified you into...
  
  It would be surprising to me if the operators were the only casualties. Bound to have been a few collaterals, not counting the intended targets. This is a dozen grenades worth of fuckemup, on a fucking pokey stick... The survival rate is a soft chuckle.
  
  This person absolutely must be a scientist.
  
  Edit: or not - but certainly a poet.
- I don't have hard numbers but Wikipedia calls it a suicide anti-tank weapon and that's a pretty short stick.
  
  They tried longer sticks but it resulted in too much cheating at pole vaulting.
I want an alt history where Poland defeats the German invasion in WW2 by making longer versions of these and reviving the winged hussars as an active military unit
https://cdn3.whatculture.com/images/2018/01/eb96e3fed86e5828-600x338.jpg
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totokia
I wonder why they didn't make them hammers instead of spears
- Because Mexico beat them to it.
  
  Wow that's really cool. Sounds like Mexico honors their folk heros better than we do up here in the US. John Henry only got a Johnny Cash song and probably a statue somewhere.
The Russians had an identical device at the time.

15 comments