two things i did not know when i thought i knew it all

[pitts duncan]

apparently the oss made a hand grenade that was designed to explode on impact. 40 or 50 made and a few people killed testing them. round like a baseball, screw in fuse and smooth outside. even a good idea today if they could perfect that ignition source. Second thing i did not know is the japanese had a submarine that had a hanger built into the conning tower. it housed two or three small bombers., actually a fighter bomber. we captured one at wars end but scuttled it to keep the russians from sharing. pretty wild stuff. i always wondered why the navy had no submersible carriers. i bet bill grist has a grenade but don't think even he has a sub

[Johnny Peppers]

The airplanes were of limited offensive use, and were more of a reconnaissance role as it has to be a seaplane (or capable of landing on a very short deck).

[Ronnie Fry]

The only surviving plane is at the Udvar-Hazy location of the Smithsonian.

r

[Gerard/Relic Hunter]

Someone has been watching "Pawn Stars".

[Gene]

Did you know some U-boats had tethered helicopters used for observation?

http://www.suite101.com/content/the-...at-kite-a65336

[pitts duncan]

it's interesting to compare weapons and such to cars. when i was in the car business years ago, i had a book that had all the options listed , such as electric windows, air conditioning and defogging mirrors etc. i can't recall a single option that wasn't invented and appeared on an old vintage car. even some i swore were new were thought of years ago. i guess the weapons business is the same way.

[pitts duncan]

yep a great way to learn makes me wanna be a broker

[Josh Beckett]

it's interesting to compare weapons and such to cars. when i was in the car business years ago, i had a book that had all the options listed , such as electric windows, air conditioning and defogging mirrors etc. i can't recall a single option that wasn't invented and appeared on an old vintage car. even some i swore were new were thought of years ago. i guess the weapons business is the same way.

We took two of the carrier subs and two fast attack subs (the fastest sub from WWII) and took them to pearl harbor. We scuttled all four of them. Divers have recently found the two carrier subs and a fast attack sub and they are in remarkably good condition. They arent even rusted. The Japanese paint is still on it. They thought about raising them (I think they should, we have no surviving Japanese ships from WWII and its not a grave site) We raised the CSS Hunley (gravesite), we can raise a captured japanese sub.

[robcox1]

it's interesting to compare weapons and such to cars. when i was in the car business years ago, i had a book that had all the options listed , such as electric windows, air conditioning and defogging mirrors etc. i can't recall a single option that wasn't invented and appeared on an old vintage car. even some i swore were new were thought of years ago. i guess the weapons business is the same way.

Indeed, the OSS hand grenade that exploded on contact mentioned at the beginning of this thread was not a new idea either. The same thing was used during the American Civil War. If the OSS had researched it they would have found that the idea was abandoned because it proved to be too dangerous to the thrower. It was essentially an iron ball filled with black powder with nipples covering the outside of it so that it looked sort of like a blow-fish. Percussion caps were placed on the nipples and then the whole thing was placed inside of another iron ball so that no matter how it landed at least one of the percussion caps would be crushed and set it off.