Best weapons of WW2

[Mikey]

Not really.

[Captain Seafort]

I disagree with your choice of tank. The Italian models became obsolete very quickly, but they were well-built, and superior a lot of other early war designs. Especially the Japanese ones that made the SMLE an effective a/t rifle.

SMG: Sten Mk II.
Anti-tank: Northover Projector.

[Mikey]

I'm not familiar with the Northover - was it really worse than the Boyse or the panzerbuchses?

[Captain Seafort]

I'm not familiar with the Northover - was it really worse than the Boyse or the panzerbuchses?

It was one of the various Heath Robinson contraptions that half the world and his brother was submitting to the War Office in May/June 1940. The theory was that since tankies really don't like fire, and Molotov cocktails can be fairly effective a/t weapons if they hit the right spot, a gunpowder-propelled Molotov mortor would be a great idea. The tendency of the bottles to break inside the breach made it somewhat less than universally loved.

[Mikey]

That would actually be a great idea if it weren't so stupid.

[Deepcrush]

Compressed air would have been better then gunpowder.

[Mikey]

Compressed air would have been better then gunpowder.

It still would have burned a lot of users.

[Deepcrush]

Hard to say, I made more then one PVC naplam styled launcher growing up. We had a fun "burn the Quasimoto doll" game once at summer camp when I was in boyscouts. We easily got fifty feet on some of our shots.

[Mikey]

Hard to say, I made more then one PVC naplam styled launcher growing up. We had a fun "burn the Quasimoto doll" game once at summer camp when I was in boyscouts. We easily got fifty feet on some of our shots.

Were you shooting scored glass bottles, though? Like I said, it could have been a great idea if it weren't so stupid. It doesn't seem that the "designers" of this Northover put as much thought into their design as you did one afternoon at scout camp.

[Deepcrush]

Well I think it was more then one day, I'm pretty sure, and we started using paper cups and duct tape for container. Its impressive what you can do with foam and fuel with some sparking material...

[Mikey]

I'm not familiar with the Northover - was it really worse than the Boyse or the panzerbuchses?

It was one of the various Heath Robinson contraptions that half the world and his brother was submitting to the War Office in May/June 1940. The theory was that since tankies really don't like fire, and Molotov cocktails can be fairly effective a/t weapons if they hit the right spot, a gunpowder-propelled Molotov mortor would be a great idea. The tendency of the bottles to break inside the breach made it somewhat less than universally loved.

I was doing a little digging, and now I'm forced to ask - was that really worse than the Smith Gun? Granted, a bottle of Willy Pete breaking in your breach while you're trying to fire it with black powder and a percussion cap isn't a great prospect; but the Smith Gun had, according to S. P. Mackenzie in The Home Guard: A Military and Political History, a "terrifying reputation for killing its crew."

[Captain Seafort]

I was doing a little digging, and now I'm forced to ask - was that really worse than the Smith Gun?

Ouch. On the whole I'd have to call it a tie, on the grounds that a well-made Molotov is as nasty as WP. Overall, almost all the Home Guard's Heath Robinsons could be classified as "immobile", "ineffective", "lethal to the operators" or all three.

[Mikey]

The WP was a reference to the Northover; from what I read, it used a molotov-style WP grenade (the Home Guard not being able to procure much in the way of metal) as well as being able to fire bog-standard rifle grenades. The Smith Gun fired a more-or-less standard type of anti-tank cannon round, but was still described as terrifyingly lethal to its operators.

[Captain Seafort]

The WP was a reference to the Northover; from what I read, it used a molotov-style WP grenade

Where did you get that from? From what I've read of it it used a bog-standard Molotov, not WP.

[Mikey]

The WP was a reference to the Northover; from what I read, it used a molotov-style WP grenade

Where did you get that from? From what I've read of it it used a bog-standard Molotov, not WP.

The aforementioned S. P. Mackenzie, as well as the War Office's Military Training Manual No. 42, referencing the "No. 76 Special Incendiary Grenade."