Buzz
An effective weapon should strike fear into the enemy while remaining entirely safe for the user. Yet, throughout history, numerous weapons have been marred by design flaws or poor execution, achieving the opposite of their intended purpose. Some were ahead of their time, while others were simply engineering disasters. A few even bordered on being outright foolish.
10. The Nambu Type 94 Pistol
Japan's Imperial military produced some remarkable weapons, from the durable Arisaka rifle to the agile A6M2 Zero fighter. This, however, was not one of them. In fact, the Nambu Type 94 is widely regarded as one of the worst service handguns in history.
First introduced in 1934, the Type 94 was plagued with design flaws that would be considered embarrassing even for the cheapest of handguns. It used a weak, underpowered cartridge, and was limited to holding only six rounds. It also lacked precision and suffered from a slide that was hard to operate in damp conditions (such as the jungles of Southeast Asia) and nearly impossible to use with gloves (which were necessary in the harsh winters of Manchuria). The grip was uncomfortable, and the weapon's top-heavy design resulted in more recoil than expected from such a low-powered round.
The Type 94’s most dangerous flaw was its exposed trigger bar along the left side of the frame. If accidentally pressed while a round was chambered, it would cause the weapon to fire, as demonstrated in the video above. Surprisingly, the quality of the gun deteriorated further during the war, when craftsmanship suffered and quality materials became harder to obtain.
9. The T-64 Tank
For years, NATO commanders feared the potential advance of Warsaw Pact tanks and mechanized infantry through Germany’s Fulda Gap. At the forefront of this imagined assault was the T-64, a main battle tank that seemed highly formidable on paper. Standing at just 2.17 meters (7 ft) tall, the T-64 was relatively lightweight (allowing it to easily cross muddy fields and fragile bridges), featured composite armor, and was equipped with a smoothbore 125mm gun capable of firing guided missiles. Additionally, its autoloader system reduced the crew to just three, much like the famous Soviet Armored Guards anthem, “Tri Tankista.”
In practice, the T-64 proved to be a complete failure. Its advanced suspension and transmission systems were fragile and broke down far more frequently than the more durable T-62. The autoloader, too, was prone to malfunction, and the turret was not designed for manual loading in case of a breakdown. The greatest risk, however, was when the autoloader actually worked: it was so poorly designed that it could trap the gunner’s limbs, causing severe injuries or even death. A sleeve caught in the mechanism could drag the gunner’s arm into the breech, often necessitating amputation. Until the conflict in Ukraine last year, more people had been injured or killed operating the T-64 than by enemy fire. Its combat effectiveness is now poor, easily outclassed by modern anti-tank missiles and artillery.
8. The Century Series Fighters
During the 1950s and 1960s, the US Tactical Air Command set its sights on developing fast aircraft with a high rate of climb, designed to act as interceptors or high-speed fighter-bombers, with maneuverability being a secondary concern. The planes were to be equipped with air-to-air missiles, some even nuclear-tipped, in place of traditional guns. This led to the creation of the Century Series: the F-100 Super Sabre, the F-101 Voodoo, the F-102 Delta Dagger, the F-104 Starfighter (shown above), the F-105 Thunderchief, and the F-106 Delta Dart (a development of the F-102).
The Century Series fighters were incredibly fast, outrageously expensive, and almost entirely ineffective for anything other than their designed role. This was particularly unfortunate, as the F-104 was marketed as a multi-role fighter, despite its disastrous performance in ground attack missions, which required low-speed, low-altitude flying. Lockheed pushed the sales of the F-104 with generous bribes to foreign officials like Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. The F-104 soon gained infamous monikers like “Lawn Dart,” “the Flying Coffin,” “Widowmaker,” and “Missile With A Man In It.” The early-model F-104 ejection seat, which launched downward, only added to the peril, leading to the Luftwaffe losing 116 pilots in crashes.
Among all of Lockheed's European customers, Spain stood out as the only nation that didn't lose any pilots in the F-104. This was because the Ejercito del Aire used the plane exclusively for its intended purpose as a high-altitude interceptor, engaging in “zoom-and-boom” tactics. In contrast, the combat performance of Pakistani F-104s was underwhelming, offering no clear advantage over the more affordable MiG-21. The USAF ultimately relied on the safer F-4 Phantom, which had originally been a Navy aircraft.
7. The Mark 14 Torpedo
The Navy isn't immune to poor weapon design either. At the start of World War II, many navies faced challenges with their torpedo systems (only the Japanese had an exceptional design with the Long Lance), but the Americans earned the distinction of making the most significant blunders. In 1942 alone, Navy submarines launched over 1,400 torpedoes but only succeeded in sinking a meager 109 Japanese ships, totaling just under 42,000 tons.
Developed on a shoestring budget during the Great Depression, the Mark 14 Torpedo and its Mark VI Magnetic Exploder earned the reputation of being “reliably unreliable.” A woeful testing phase missed the fact that the depth gauge malfunctioned, causing many torpedoes to sail beneath their targets. The magnetic trigger was meant to detect when a ship was directly above and detonate the torpedo, but this mechanism, along with the secondary impact trigger, often failed. Many submarine crews were left frustrated as their perfectly aimed torpedoes simply failed to explode.
However, the crews were lucky compared to others—the torpedoes had a nasty habit of running in circles, often returning toward the submarine that launched them. This flaw caused the sinking of the USS Tullibee and nearly claimed the USS Sargo as well. It took a determined effort led by Rear Admiral Charles Lockwood to force the Bureau of Ordnance to address its mistakes and redesign the Mark 14. Once corrected, the torpedo remained reliable enough to serve until the 1970s.
6. The Glisenti M1910 Handgun
Italy is renowned for producing high-quality handguns, with Beretta 92 variants currently serving as the standard sidearm for several NATO forces (including the US M9). However, there's always an exception to the rule, and the Glisenti M1910 stands as a formidable contender for the title of worst service handgun ever, alongside the Nambu 94.
The M1910, one of the earliest semi-automatic handguns to be adopted for frontline use, was introduced in 1910. It saw service during World War I and the Italian colonial wars in Libya and Somalia. Although its 9mm ammunition was similar to the superior German 9mm Parabellum, it had to be made significantly weaker. This was due to the fact that Glisenti engineers prioritized easy disassembly, which made the gun structurally weak. With heavy use, the frame and receiver would loosen, causing the gun to fall apart in the user’s hands. If the shooter mistakenly used the more powerful Parabellum rounds, the weapon could even 'explode.' Though there were attempts to improve the design, the military eventually replaced it with the Beretta M1934.
5. The Breda M1930 Machine Gun
The end of the Glisenti didn't signify the end of Italy's habit of producing elegant but fragile weapons. The Breda M1930 suffered from a lack of a basic primary extraction mechanism found in other machine guns. As a result, an internal oiler had to be installed in the feeding mechanism to ensure the spent cartridges were ejected. While this did achieve the goal of ejecting the cartridges, it led to the formation of a sticky sludge in even mildly dusty environments. This gunk clogged the mechanism of the Breda, which was not built to withstand such conditions. The weapon's performance in Italy’s campaigns in Ethiopia and North Africa was predictable, and no mass-produced firearm has used oiled cartridges since.
Breda's engineers also had the idea to make the magazine an integral part of the weapon, which meant reloading took much longer than simply swapping magazines. The M1930 also had excessive recoil for its caliber and was prone to overheating—two factors that were problematic for Italy’s desert campaigns.
4. The Heinkel He-177 Greif
The He-177 should have been called the 'Grief,' for it was an example of how technical innovation could be overridden by the whims of those in charge. Nazi Germany's top brass often made decisions based on desires rather than practicality, and the He-177 was one of the prime examples. The concept was sound: a bomber capable of matching the range and payload of the Allied Lancasters and Flying Fortresses, but faster and able to fly higher.
However, the Germans didn't have an engine powerful enough for such a long-range bomber. Instead, they used two Daimler DB-601 engines, which had been successful in the Messerschmitt Bf-109. This allowed them to reduce the number of propellers from four to two, decreasing drag. But a significant downside was that the engines ran so hot they frequently burst into flames. Even during normal operations, the intense heat caused the wing spars to weaken.
The heat issues were bad enough during high-altitude bombing missions, where the wing assembly faced little stress. But it was disastrous when the He-177 was used as a dive bomber, a task that led to the death of many test pilots. Despite the Germans producing thousands of He-177s, they had little impact on the war other than to squander valuable resources and personnel. The British had attempted something similar with the Avro Manchester, but they wisely abandoned the coupled engines and transformed the design into the highly successful four-engine Avro Lancaster.
3. The SA-80 Rifle
When it comes to ideas that seemed great on paper but didn’t deliver in practice, the British offer a prime example. The SA-80, also known as the L-85, is their current standard-issue rifle, and while it has eventually become a combat-worthy tool, it had a rocky start. Officially rolled out in 1987, the SA-80 features a 'bull-pup' design, meaning that its receiver and magazine are located behind the trigger and grip, making the overall length shorter while maintaining the same weight and barrel length. The British had earlier toyed with a similar idea in the 1950s with the EM-2 rifle, but after some trials, they opted for the more conventional and highly reliable FN FAL instead.
The idea was revived in the 1980s after the Thatcher government boosted defense spending. However, the bull-pup design comes with a significant drawback—it’s not ambidextrous, meaning it’s only effective for right-handed shooters. Upon adoption, the SA-80 quickly gained a reputation for frequent jamming, with its reliability being so poor that over 100 parts had to be replaced after its disastrous performance during the First Gulf War (most assault rifles only have around 50 parts). To this day, it still jams relatively easily in dusty conditions.
The SA-80 was designed for a theoretical conflict that never materialized (the Fulda Gap breach), and as such, it’s poorly suited for the real-world situations it encounters—mainly peacekeeping in desert regions. There’s also the added issue that assembly workers were informed they would be laid off after completing their work on the rifles, which led to a serious drop in production quality. Up to 90 percent of the rifles produced after this point had their receivers forcibly squeezed in a vice just to make them fit together.
2. The V-2 Missile
The V-2 was the world’s first ballistic missile, a groundbreaking achievement in 1944. Engineered by Nazi Germany under Wernher von Braun, who would later become a prominent figure at NASA, this single-stage missile had a range of 320 kilometers (200 miles) and was powered by a blend of ethanol and oxygen. Initially referred to as the Aggregat-4, the Nazis rebranded it as Vergeltungswaffe-2, or the 'Second Vengeance Weapon,' following the V-1 flying bomb, also known as the 'doodlebug.'
The Nazis launched the V-2 rockets against Allied cities, mainly London, during the later stages of World War II. Though the missiles claimed around 2,700 civilian lives (roughly two deaths per rocket), their inaccuracy made them more dangerous to the workers building them than to the enemy. These workers, many of whom were enslaved, suffered horrendous conditions, with life expectancies often only a few weeks due to malnutrition, and the threat of death from either exploding rockets or Allied bombings. In the war’s final stages, the Nazis moved the production to the underground Dora-Mittelbau complex, but still, an estimated 20,000 workers died in the process—making the V-2 almost ten times deadlier for the workforce than for the enemy. The cost of its development exceeded even that of the Manhattan Project.
1. The LaGG-1 And LaGG-3 Fighters
The Nazis weren’t the only ones to produce poor aircraft due to political interference. The Soviet Union, their fierce adversary, arguably surpassed them with the LaGG-1 and LaGG-3. Named after the initials of their designers—Semyon Lavochkin, Vladimir Gorbunov, and Mikhail Gudkov—the LaGG was constructed around a sleek but highly flammable wooden fuselage. Soviet pilots humorously dubbed it the 'Lakirovannii Garantirovannii Grob,' meaning 'Varnished Guaranteed Coffin.'
Due to shortages, the planes were fitted with surplus Klimov M-105 engines, which were so underpowered that even the lightweight wooden frames couldn’t compensate. As a result, the planes were sluggish in the air—and that’s if they even managed to get off the ground at all. Despite the issues exposed during testing, the planes were rushed into production.
Outraged by the failure, Lavochkin parted ways with Gudkov, and later with Gorbunov, to redesign the aircraft himself. The result was the impressive La-5/La-7 series, now equipped with the more powerful Shvetsov M-82 radial engine. Most Soviet aces during World War II flew these models, which proved themselves more than capable of taking on German Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs.
