During World War II, the Nazis tinkered with a slew of wacky experimental weapons, ranging from rocket‑armed submarines to gigantic mirrors that could scorch the Earth. Many of these designs never saw combat, but they still showcase the bizarre ingenuity of the era.
Wacky Experimental Weaponry of the Third Reich
10 Heinkel He 162
Designed and launched in a frantic three‑month sprint in 1944, the He 162 won the Volksjäger (“People’s Fighter”) competition, which was meant to churn out a cheap, easily built jet for a beleaguered Luftwaffe. The concept was to let novice pilots—perhaps even members of the Hitler Youth—fly the aircraft, but the reality was far more chaotic. Its wooden wings and metal fuselage made it surprisingly fragile; the first prototype even snapped a wing on its maiden flight. Still, production rolled on, and roughly 116 units were completed, though only a handful ever took off successfully.
9 Panzer VIII Maus
The Panzer VIII Maus was a veritable behemoth of armored steel, holding the title of the largest fully enclosed fighting vehicle ever built. Designed by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, it stretched 50 percent longer than the next biggest German tank and weighed more than three times as much. Its sheer mass meant that most bridges would crumble under it, so engineers even toyed with the idea of a submerged crossing—capable of diving to over 13 metres. In practice, the monster was too unwieldy to field, and it never saw combat; incomplete hulls were captured by Allied forces after the war.
8 Junkers Ju 322 Mammut
When wood became the material of choice for a new cargo aircraft, Junkers answered with the Ju 322 “Mammut.” This colossal glider looked like a single, gigantic wing and boasted a staggering 60‑metre (200‑ft) wingspan. Its maiden flight in April 1941 was a disaster: the aircraft was wildly unstable, and it took nearly two weeks of towing to bring it back to the airfield. Even worse, its cargo hold proved laughably weak—a Panzer III tank simply fell through the floor during a test. The program was axed a month later, and the prototypes were shredded for fuel.
7 Rocket U‑Boat
One of the most outlandish schemes was the Rocket U‑boat—a submarine fitted with rocket launchers. The first testbed, U‑511, received a pair of rockets, but the unguided missiles proved a nightmare to steer and made underwater navigation a nightmare. By 1943, designers tried to hitch three V‑2 rockets to a Type XXI submarine, planning to tow them to a launch point and fire them remotely. Neither the launch tubes nor the specialized U‑boat were finished before the war ended, leaving the concept forever underwater.
6 Fieseler Fi 103R
SS officer Otto Skorzeny was fascinated by the high failure rate of the V‑1 “buzz bomb” and commissioned a piloted version, the Fi 103R “Reichenberg.” The idea was that a pilot could steer the rocket toward a target and bail out at the last second. In practice, the parachute canopy struggled to open against the rocket’s ferocious slipstream, and several test pilots lost their lives. About 70 units were built and roughly 100 volunteers signed up as “Self‑Sacrifice Men,” but the aircraft never saw combat, as Nazi leadership deemed it inconsistent with their martial ethos.
5 Fliegerfaust
Developed in the twilight of the war, the Fliegerfaust (literally “pilot’s fist”) was a handheld, ground‑to‑air rocket launcher. With a modest range of just 460 metres (1,500 ft), it was only effective against aircraft that dared to swoop low. The Germans ordered over 10 000 units, but production never caught up to demand; only about 80 were recovered in Berlin’s rubble in April 1945. Pictures of the abandoned launchers still pepper the city’s post‑war landscape.
4 Zeppelin Rammer
In November 1944, engineers sketched the Zeppelin Rammer—a fighter meant to be towed aloft by another aircraft, released near Allied bomber formations, then ignited by a rocket engine. The pilot would unleash a volley of rockets on the first pass and, on the second, slam the reinforced wings straight into an enemy bomber. After the fuel burned out, the plane would glide to a friendly field for refueling and another sortie. The factory housing the prototypes was obliterated by Allied bombing, and the rammer never left the drawing board.
3 Taifun
The Taifun (“Typhoon”) was a surface‑to‑air rocket conceived by Klaus Heinrich Scheufelen in 1944 as a cheap answer to Allied bomber raids. Soldiers would fire groups of unguided rockets equipped with contact fuses that also featured a timer in case they missed their mark. Though the German high command ordered two million of them, only about 600 were ever produced, and the rockets never reached the battlefield.
2 Krummlauf
The Krummlauf was a clever rifle attachment that let soldiers fire around corners. Available in 30°, 45°, and 90° configurations, the device featured a mirrored sight for infantry and a simple barrel plug for tanks. In 1944, the Nazis ordered 10 000 units, but the tank version didn’t finish production until 1945, and only a handful were ever made. The infantry version was intended to let troops engage enemies without exposing themselves, while the tank variant was meant to deter close‑quarters attacks on armored hulls.
1 The Sun Gun
Back in 1923, rocket pioneer Hermann Oberth imagined a “Sun Gun” that would sit in geosynchronous orbit with a mirror over 1.5 kilometres (one mile) wide. The plan was to concentrate sunlight onto Earth’s surface to boil oceans and incinerate cities. The Nazis took the idea seriously, estimating a fifteen‑year development timeline and a price tag of three million marks. In reality, the concept was fundamentally flawed—light cannot be focused without an already‑focused source—so the Sun Gun remained a dazzling fantasy.