What Were They Thinking

Alright, the premise of this thread is that you find some tidbit of history, be it a battle, a gun, whatever floats your boat, that was so strange and with seemingly no explanation that you can't help but ask yourself, "what were they thinking?", and perhaps through someone else's insight, find out what made them think it was a good idea.

I'll start:

This is the M3 Lee, perhaps one of the most poorly designed tanks the U.S. has ever put into service. It's main cannon (a 75mm low velocity) is in a corner, with a limited traverse, it's secondary cannon (a 37mm high velocity) is on top of the tank, and a gunner's nest for a machine gun is on top of that. Also, it's smooth tracks allow for little friction (making it hard to get moving and difficult to traverse over off road terrain). Overall it has limited cannon traverse, a very high profile, low maneuverability, weakly armored flanks. What were they thinking?

i think it was meant to be more as an infantry supporting armored car than anything. And from my men of war experience some of the russian armored vehicles were the stupidest looking things ever. Also Hitler tried to turn the Me-262 into a bomber which it obviously did not have the capabilities for

http://www.cracked.com/article_19233_the-6-most-ill-conceived-weapons-ever-built.html

=P

What were they thinking here, by putting a huge turret with extremely thick armour on the chassis from a tank that couldn't handle the weight combined with an engine that wasn't powerful enough, and the turret was fixed.

what was he thinking he came off looking like a clown. This entire photoshoot blew up in his face

Used by the French during Vietnam, this vehicle was put together when the French military was lacking the money to provide more sophisticated equipment. They used what they had and often had to improvise in order to try to keep the military equipped. The scooter-mounted cannon was a scooter like vehicle that held a 75mm cannon. The vehicle was mainly used by paratroopers during the 1950s. However, it’s safe to say that this didn’t last long, as it surely offered no type of protection or even stability during war.

source: http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-failed-military-inventions.php

That's one mean-ass Vespa though...

the bob semple tank was a joke

The main reason was actually that the British needed Tanks right the f*ck now and all the US had were sh*tty little M2's Light and M2's Medium. (both outdated as VHS)
But hey! They already had a hull design, the gun and production line set up so they had a chat with the British changed a few things here and there, et voila!

Picker can't be choosers afterall.

nvm i was thinking of the stuart

lol, what were they thinking?

:lol: shame i mised that episode

Cat guided bomb.

The Sinclair C5.

In WW2 the soviets trained dogs to run under tanks. They then did that in battle but with mines on their backs. Sadly, for soviet tank crews, the dogs had trained on Soviet tanks, and well...

wait dogs running under tanks? why? :?: :?: :?: :?: :?: :?: :?: :?: :?: :?: :?: :?: :?: :?

The British planned to make an aircraft carrier out of ice to save steel. They were gonna do it but the refrigeration facilities cost more steel than the ship