Weird Weapons of the Vietnam War

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will carve out the experience of your warriors and help you rule the world use our link in the description to download the game join the event and have the chance to win awards such as an iphone 13 or airpod pro download rise of kingdoms to support our work channel and content weird weapons of the vietnam war throughout its history the united states armed forces has hardly experienced a more challenging campaign than the war in vietnam from 1955 to 1975. the united states fought a technically inferior enemy but one that was determined to fight to the end unlike previous wars the americans were forced to fight unconventional warfare on difficult terrain and in a harsh environment the jungle warfare in vietnam was a challenge that the u.s armed forces commanders had to deal with during all 19 years of the war their vast armament often proved useless and inadequate in the fight against the unconventional enemy and the americans and their allies had to resort to unconventional methods tactical tree crusher the most challenging aspect of the vietnam war for the us military was the vietnamese jungle the vietcong fighters were skillfully using its features both to hide from their enemies as well as to make surprise ambushes on them fighting the jungle was therefore one of the priorities for the americans for this task they mainly used a defoliant component called agent orange however once dropped it took several days for it to become effective and was often diluted and washed away by heavy rains as an alternative in reducing the jungle the army used specialized bulldozers that were nicknamed rome plows these were effective in clearing the forest but not as quickly as the army required in 1967 the first logistical command came up with an idea to use civilian monster tree crushers for the task they contacted the heavy machinery manufacturer laterno corporation from texas asking for the price of the vehicles since each street crusher was three hundred thousand dollars the army decided to lease two crushers for a period of six months in july 1967 two tactical tree crushers arrived at the port of saigon they were immediately put into action to clear land around long bean post the tactical tree crusher was an enormous tractor weighing 97 tons at the front it had pusher bars installed for toppling trees two cleated drums at the front and one at the rear were used to chew up the fallen trees even trees three feet in diameter and 50 feet tall were no obstacle to this monstrous machine the capacity of the tactical tree crusher was impressive a single unit could sweep 32 acres of jungle in one working day in comparison the rome plow could flatten less than seven acres in the same time that was however only in theory in practice the tactical tree crusher was proving to be unsuitable for the environment due to its immense weight the machine often got stuck in the vietnamese swampy terrain once stuck extracting a 97 ton machine from the mud became a real challenge the engines were also prone to failure in these jungle conditions its water cooling system and electrical components were failing far too often so that the tree crushers were spending more time in the workshop than they did in action finally the high profile of the machine made it an ideal target for the vc fighters the vehicle itself had no armor protection at all the engineers ultimately proposed a list of modifications including multi-section wheels a lower frame and armed protection with a 50 caliber machine gun turret on top and claymore mines attached to the side of the vehicle convinced that any investment in the tactical tree crushers would be a waste of time and money the army gave up on them after the lease expired the machines were returned to the united states the daisy cutter the importance of the task to clear large areas of the jungle became paramount in fighting the vcs after the unsuccessful venture with the tree crushers the u.s air force provided the army with a new solution to clear large areas of jungle primarily for purposes of creating helicopter landing zones and artillery emplacement sites it was quite smaller and simpler in operation what the air force had in mind was to use air-dropped bombs to create clearings in the jungle the trials began in 1967 with the world war ii era m118 bombs which showed good initial results the air force expanded the exercise by dropping large 10 000 pound m-121 bombs from c-130 transport planes once the stocks of m-121 were exhausted they developed the blu-82b c-130 weapon system bomb live unit 82b was essentially a thin container filled with 12 600 pounds for 5700 kilograms of a mixture called gsx which was a slurry consisting of ammonium nitrate aluminum powder and polystyrene bombs were dropped attached to parachutes from c-130 hercules airplanes each bomb was armed with two types of fuses the first was an impact fuse connected to a propeller extension the second one was set off by a timer which was activated once the parachute deployed if everything went right the first fuse would detonate the bomb before it stuck in the ground thus avoiding creating the crater when it exploded the bomb produced an overpressure of a thousand pounds per square inch clearing all trees and undergrowth within a radius of 260 feet just enough for a helicopter to land safely the soldiers on the ground nicknamed it the daisy cutter it was also dispatched using the ch-54 target skycrane helicopter which would probably allow for more accurate dropping as the helicopter could hover over the intended target before releasing the bomb the first blu-82b was dropped in vietnam on march 22 1970 during campaign 139 throughout the war the air force used it frequently for creating instant landing zones because of the bomb's devastating power it was also used against enemy troops and building infrastructures lazy dog the arsenal of bombs the u.s air force used against the enemy was huge more than 7.5 million bombs were dropped on vietnam laos and cambodia the airstrikes were conducted with guided and unguided high explosive bombs chemical bombs incendiary bombs and even bombs without explosives because they were not armed with explosives lazy dogs weren't technically bombs still this concept better described as free-fall kinetic missiles was equally lethal this was a secret program of the air force armament laboratory based on similar designs from the two previous world wars the main idea was to spray the enemy with thousands of small projectiles when dropped from great heights the projectiles would produce a kinetic force three times larger than standard air burst bombs in the early 1950s the air force conducted tests with projectiles of various sizes and shapes each of them basically consisted of a pointed steel body and an after body with stabilizing fins the most effective were shape number five and shape number two projectiles that had enough force to penetrate 24 inches and 12 inches of packed sand respectively the far east air force was the first to get their hands on this unusual weapon the design was improved by introducing a dispenser lazy dogs were dropped from an aircraft packed inside the mark 44 cluster adapter equipped with a time fuse the adapter would open at the designated height and release up to 17 500 lazy dog projectiles it's estimated that the projectiles reached a speed of 480 miles per hour or 772 kilometers per hour before hitting the target on the ground a rain of lazy dog projectiles had a devastating effect on troops vehicles and buildings during the vietnam war the air force used them frequently against enemy positions concealed in the jungle it was quite an effective weapon especially because it was both invisible and silent the enemy would only be aware of incoming projectiles when they started penetrating through the foliage by that time it would be too late to take cover from them it was precisely for these reasons that the weapon was eventually withdrawn from use as lazy dogs were deemed to be indiscriminate weapons of destruction xm3 people sniffer fighting the enemy in the jungle was not as difficult as actually finding them vietcong fighters were true masters of concealment in the jungle locating their hideouts and tunnel entrances was almost an impossible mission in order to ease the task of locating the enemy the army had designed a special piece of equipment called the personnel detector the device was essentially a chemical detector that was capable of detecting effluents found in human urine and sweat the program for developing personnel detectors was carried out by the chemical core in cooperation with engineers from general electric the result was the xm2 personnel detector backpack the set comprised a sensor mounted in a backpack with an intake tube attached to a rifle xm2 was used by soldiers in patrols but proved to be very problematic since the soldier carrying the xm2 was also sweating it was obvious that the detector would often react to his presence rather than that of the concealed enemy soldiers also hated these people sniffers because they emitted a distinct sound which revealed their position to the enemy another version of the people sniffer was the xm3 airborne personnel detector xm3 detectors were used mounted in pairs on board helicopters a group of sniffer helicopters would fly at an altitude of 50 feet and locate the presence of humans on the ground in order to obtain the best results a series of conditions had to be met though such as wind speed under 10 miles per hour a neutral temperature gradient and if possible without the presence of smoke and other battlefield effluents sniffers also worked much better on the open ground than in the jungle even with these limitations xm3 detectors proved to be very reliable in locating an enemy presence especially when it came to detecting smoke from cooking fires still the vietcong managed to find a way to fool the sniffers by hanging buckets filled with urine throughout the jungle and setting off small fires to confuse the detectors nevertheless these operation snoopy missions were conducted almost on a daily basis and provided valuable data about the location of the enemy on the ground fake poop gathering data about the enemy's location was one of the most important tasks for the american troops in vietnam one way to detect the enemy movement was by installing motion detectors in the area that they were known to be active in the only problem was the enemy would destroy the detectors if they found them the army therefore had to find a way to conceal the detectors the solution was to place the motion detector inside fake dog or monkey poop the fake poop detector was developed around 1970 by military intelligence and they were placed all along the ho chi minh trail inside the false body molded in the shape of an animal's feces was the t1151 dog do transmitter once the enemy had passed by lumps of this on the trail the transmitter would send out a morse code signal and thus help the air force pinpoint the enemy's location for airstrikes since the transmitter was packed inside the poop the vcs would often pass right by it without paying any attention to it you

Channel: Simple History

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Keywords: simple history, animated history, educational, education, Weird Weapons of Vietnam War, us army, Agent Orange, Rome Plows, Tactical Tree Crusher, VC, vietcong, nva, army, The Daisy Cutter, BLU-82B, C-130, M-121, M-118, Unit 82B, GSX, Air Force, CH-54 Tarhe Skycrane, Lazy Dog, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Air Force Armament Laboratory, Far East Air Force, XM-3 People sniffer, XM-2 personnel detector Backpack, urine, Operation Snoopy, Fake Poop, Ho Chi Minh Trail, T-1151 Dog Doo Transmitter

Id: 9xOnlcVGH0U

Length: 13min 21sec (801 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 24 2021