The 22 Weirdest Military Weapons

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Quantum stealth

quantum stealth

(Image credit: Hyperstealth Biotechnology Corp.)

If you thought camouflage was hard to see, imagine a technology that actually bends light waves around a soldier's uniform, making them seem invisible. That's the idea behind quantum stealth, a technology still in development.

The pictures currently shown are pretty mind-boggling, with people blending into multiple types of backgrounds, but they are still "mock-ups," so it's not clear exactly how well the technology will work when it's put on the battlefield

Gyrojet carbine

gyrojet carbine

(Image credit: The Washington Times/Zuma)

Why shoot at enemies with regular old air-propelled projectiles when you can use rocket fuel instead?

That was the premise behind the gyrojet carbine, which made its debut in the 1960s. Instead of regular pressurized gas, which his what ordinary projectile firing devices use, the gyrojet could be made lighter because it didn't require compressor cartridges for pressurizing gas, according to Forgottenweapons.com. Instead, the gyrojet would launch rockets that burned their fuel as they traveled down the barrel, meaning they were actually at their fastest once they had left the barrel, according to forgottenweapons.com

However, the guns were woefully inaccurate, and very few of them got made before the makers, MB Associates, went out of business.

Tia Ghose
Tia Ghose
Editor-in-Chief (Premium)

Tia is the editor-in-chief (premium) and was formerly managing editor and senior writer for Live Science. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, Wired.com, Science News and other outlets. She holds a master's degree in bioengineering from the University of Washington, a graduate certificate in science writing from UC Santa Cruz and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Tia was part of a team at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that published the Empty Cradles series on preterm births, which won multiple awards, including the 2012 Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism.