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Bad ideas in military history

HansMustermann said:
While you do make a good case, I'll tend to give a pass to ideas that existed only on a drawing board or as a test prototype and then cancelled. Sometimes you have to go empirical and actually do the full scale experiment before you know for sure that it doesn't work.

That's why I went with things like the Volksjäger program that actually got put into mass production, and actually got thousands of kids killed when, yeah, it came unglued in the air or some control surface just flew off.
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I'd agree And also class the following as more like a prototype and not a bad idea, because it had the chance of a large effect....at least according to the knowledge available to the Japanese at the time.

jimbob said:
Was that actually that bad an idea, or was it something that used minimal resources and achieved almost nothing?
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HansMustermann said:
It used up resources, and achieved absolutely nothing, is good enough for me to count it as a bad idea. Maybe not as bad as some of the others, but yeah.
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I'm finding it rather amusing that a "new posts" search a few minutes ago resulted in:
Bad Ideas in Military History
The Russian Invasion of Ukraine
in that order.
 
jimbob said:
I'd agree And also class the following as more like a prototype and not a bad idea, because it had the chance of a large effect....at least according to the knowledge available to the Japanese at the time.
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Not really, no. Unless you count wishful thinking as knowledge.

Here's why: even assuming that 100% will land in the western USA (which is unrealistic, but let's file that under "knowledge available" anyway for the scope of the exercise), you only need to look at how much of it is just empty land.

Additionally, let's look at the following factors:

- when were they launched? Basically end of 1944 and 1945. Realistically, is it going to make the USA sue for peace or anything? At that point? And what knowledge would such an expectation be based on, since they already saw first hand that the US doesn't just give up when sucker punched, but just get meaner.

- with what payload? We're not talking block buster bombs there, but tiny charges. We're talking a mix of 11 pound bombs, 26 pound bombs and 33 pound bombs. By way of comparison THE absolute smallest bomb for aircraft use in WW2 was the German 50 kilo (about 110 pounds for you imperial barstards;)) For the US even the Tiny Tim rocket had about 150 pounds worth of warhead. And both of those were supposed to be used by the thousands. Japan's bombs, even if one landed in a town, exactly how much damage was it supposed to DO?

- where did they land? Well, also in Mexico. Do you really want to start an extra diplomatic incident at that point?
 
Also, just to clarify: I will count something as a prototype if you built and tested ONE. Maybe TWO. Hell, even single digits. Something where actually 9000 were built and actually launched as war weapons is no longer a prototype.
 
Trebuchet said:
I'm finding it rather amusing that a "new posts" search a few minutes ago resulted in:
Bad Ideas in Military History
The Russian Invasion of Ukraine
in that order.
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Yeah, well, that invasion definitely counts as such.

Maybe Putin should let the head of the army decide on such things. I mean, he knows how much he stole and if the rest is actually enough to do anything in a war.

Hell, just let the army head in charge.

We could call it a Shoigunate ;)
 
HansMustermann said:
Yeah, well, that invasion definitely counts as such.

Maybe Putin should let the head of the army decide on such things. I mean, he knows how much he stole and if the rest is actually enough to do anything in a war.

Hell, just let the army head in charge.

We could call it a Shoigunate ;)
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<Rolls eyes but reluctantly applauds>

Actually, given that Shoigu seems to be being set up as the fall guy, that would also probably count as a bad idea
 
Another one.

US logistics in the Spanish American war.

Not flashy like a bad weapon. But had much the same result. Sort of like the crappy job Russia has done in Ukraine except the situation was more complex and Spain weak enough that it did not make a difference.

Things that went wrong:

New national guard units from the north sent south to encampments near southern swamps where they got exposed to malaria.

Units created for the war and sent south never getting to Cuba. Those that did get there suffered long delays.

Cavalry units being sent to Cuba and into battle without their horses.

Results:

US army war college gets created so officers are trained on more than tactics.

US army transportation corps starts buying ships. There are still soldiers who are sailors.
 
Doubt said:
Another one.

US logistics in the Spanish American war.

Not flashy like a bad weapon. But had much the same result. Sort of like the crappy job Russia has done in Ukraine except the situation was more complex and Spain weak enough that it did not make a difference.

Things that went wrong:

New national guard units from the north sent south to encampments near southern swamps where they got exposed to malaria.

Units created for the war and sent south never getting to Cuba. Those that did get there suffered long delays.

Cavalry units being sent to Cuba and into battle without their horses.

Results:

US army war college gets created so officers are trained on more than tactics.

US army transportation corps starts buying ships. There are still soldiers who are sailors.
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Yes it laid the grounds for subsequent US military success by painfully demonstrating what happens when you get it wrong
 
Mark 14 torpedoes anyone?
US east coast cities not blacking out, making US cargo ships easy targets for German subs?
 
theprestige said:
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What's wrong with the Mark 14 torpedo?
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Seriously? Pretty much everything, from 1941 to 1943.
Wouldn't run straight.
Wouldn't hold depth.
Magnetic exploder didn't work.
Neither did the contact exploder.
And most of all, BuOrd's refusal to even consider that there might be a problem. For two years.
Sure, at the end of the war it was working well. But Americans died because of BuOrd stupidity.
And the destroyer version Mk 15 was no better.

Our opponent at the time, Japan, had torpedoes that ran farther, faster, straighter, with a bigger warhead, and actually exploded when they got there.

Edited to add linky.
 
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The torpedo was even worse, in that because it could go in a circle, it could and occasionally did destroy the sub launching it instead of the enemy. Well, assuming that either detonator actually worked. Usually you'd get saved by the other mode of failure.

But really... THE #1 real problem was the insistence that nope, it's working just fine, all those captains are just idiots.

To put it into context, everyone had problems with their torpedoes at first, and ESPECIALLY with the magnetic detonators. Germany had a problem too at first. Plus other problems like battery problems for the German electric torpedoes. The reason being that pretty much everyone tested theirs in one location. (Well... the US never tested theirs at all, but bear with me:p) And then discovered the hard way that when you use them a quarter of the way across the globe, well, the magnetic field is different (which messed with magnetic detonators big time) or the water is much colder (which messed with the Germans' batteries) or generally SOMETHING is different.

And everyone but the USA then just went back to the drawing board to figure out WTH is causing the problems. And fixed their torpedoes.

The USA was the only one that insisted that nope, they work just fine. It really was that stupid.
 
And just to make it clear: how bad an effect this had? I wrote a bit before about it, but basically I would say it prolonged the war by a year. (But, disclaimer: I'm not a real historian, so I might be off.)

Reason being that Japan at first was utterly unprepared to deal with the US submarines, and routinely got caught with their pants down and torpedoed. Even capital ship like those incredibly important carriers occasionally got caught by some sub and... got away because the torpedoes didn't work.

And it wasn't just the sub torpedoes, mind you. All the same problems were also present verbatim in the Mark XIII aerial torpedo. Making torpedo bombers just about useless for a while.

Anyway, the USA had a window of opportunity to inflict some HUGE damage on the IJN with impunity. Again, including those all important carriers. IMHO it could have brought Japan more or less to the same point as it was after Midway, except months before that. The borked torpedoes are THE reason why it failed to exploit this window of opportunity.
 
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If you have half an hour there's a rather good Drachinifel video about the sorry tale of the Mk.14 torpedo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ5Ru7Zu_1I

It's a frustrating story of the high cost and slow rate of production curtailing testing and the heartbreaking consequences of submariners launching attacks with weapons which didn't function and then being attacked in turn by the ships they should have sunk.
 
And again, that's when they didn't outright get sunk by their own torpedo, which went into a circle.
 
Doubt said:
Around the same time they were also publishing articles from people claiming the blitzkrieg was a myth.
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I think there's some defensible version of that statement, anyway. You know, but "every legend has a grain of truth" and that...

As far as military blunders, I would also add...making the ME262 a ground attack aircraft, and then just the allied strategic bombing campaign itself, at least arguably. NB, I am not married to the last one.
 
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