History AwesomeButImpractical / Military

*** It's been in continuous service now for almost 50 years all over the world, and the basic concepts (lighter round, polymers, selective-fire) have all become standard for modern rifles. The Vietnam version was also [[{{Nerf}} nerfed]], both unintentionally and deliberately, as a result of InterserviceRivalry.

** Some of the firing drawbacks of the gyrojet were solved with a small charge that kicked it out of the gun at a reasonable speed with negligible recoil, and a more modern multi-stage propellant design; although it still remained ineffective at very close range. Some experimental designs have also been produced to compensate for transition turbulence and improve accuracy. However, the minimum effective size of the rocket means that it's over the maximum size and weight for a civilian weapon under United States law; and the military just isn't interested, since the only advantage it has over conventional rifle or pistor rounds is lack of recoil and flatter trajectory.

** Some of the firing drawbacks of the gyrojet were solved with a small charge that kicked it out of the gun at a reasonable speed with negligible recoil, and a more modern multi-stage propellant design; although it still remained ineffective at very close range. Some experimental designs have also been produced to compensate for transition turbulence and improve accuracy. However, the minimum effective size of the rocket means that it's over the maximum size and weight for a civilian weapon under United States law, and the military just isn't interested.

* The Gyrojet gun. Essentially a gun that fired rocket propelled bullets. The problems mainly stemmed from the fact that the bullet was rocket propelled meaning that rather than starting fast and slowing down, it started slow and built up speed. This mean that within a certain range, a bullet would not be moving fast enough to harm someone - at point blank range, the bullet could very well simply bounce harmlessly off someone. Or, worse yet, the bullet might not even have enough speed to travel resulting it falling out of the barrel or simply failing to push back the hammer of the weapon. It also doesn't exactly help that they were both more difficult to manufacture and significantly more costly then a conventional bullet.

* The real life U.S.S ''Enterprise'': ''Six. Nuclear. Reactors.'' They figured this one out before they built another one, fortunately.

** The reason the "Big E" had six reactors is due to not making the paradigm jump. The old diesel burning beast had six boilers, and it did not click in that a reactor was not the same thing as a boiler and that six reactors is a tad overkill.

** The criticism of both the F-22 and the F-35 is not driven by how combat effective they are but how Cost Effective they are. The first of an Air Force on arrival is to take and keep control of the skies above the battlefield, most imprtantly taking out the opposing Air Force and Air Defenses. After that is achieved, then you can safely move in the Bombers.
We have not had a contested airspace since Vietnam, which was the last time we made the mistake of marginalizing Air to Air Warfare. Most of the critics of the F-22 and the F-35 come from two camps, the first believe that we will never enter a contested Airspace again and that dropping bombs will be the primary mission of combat aircraft, and the second (which includes Secretary Gates) who believe UCAVs can perform Air to Air combat and that the F-22 and the F-35 will be the last manned fighters we will field.

* The PSG-1, yeah its so accurate that you can shoot a penny out of someone's fingers at 600 meters without even grazing said fingers. Unfortunately it ejects casings with such force that they land ''10 meters away from the user'' which makes policing brass [[{{Understatement}} Problematic]] to say the least. Not to mention this gives the sniper's position away, making it a life or death issue and rendering it useless for military purposes. then again most of these issues are rendered moot due to the fact that it was designed for use by Law Enforcement and counter terrorism (at the request of the GSG-9 following the Munich massacre).

** This is mainly because Germany was pushing the envelope in tank design, and the designs were incomplete and very, very new. Normally designs get prototyped and tested and bugfixed more thoroughly, but when there's a war on, corners get cut. Had the Panther been a more mature design and were more factories specially tooled to produce it earlier it would have mitigated the above problem somewhat. The Tiger, though, was practically CompensatingForSomething, the tank version. (The Tiger II was even worse.)

*** [[BoringButPractical Took away funds and reources for more practical tanks]] - Check ([[WallBanger they only cost Germany the war]])

*** This troper has heard that most brass regard nukes to be bargaining chips and not weapons at all. What you do, is you build some, set one off so everybody knows you really have them, then agree to dismantle some of them in exchange for some concession.

** Just because its impractical today doesn't mean much twenty years from now...

** Additionally, the radar-absorbent stealth coating often deteriorated in rain.

*** And then the US spent a fortune to build the F-15 to counter the [=MiG=]-25 "superplane" the Soviets had.
* The Gyrojet gun. Essentially a gun that fired rocket propelled bullets. The problems mainly stemmed from the fact that the bullet was rocket propelled meaning that rather than starting fast and slowing down, it started slow and built up speed. This mean that within a certain range, a bullet would not be moving fast enough to harm someone - at point blank range, the bullet could very well simply bounce harmlessly off someone. Or, worse yet, the bullet might not even have enough speed to travel resulting it falling out of the barrel or simply failing to push back the hammer of the weapon.

** Speaking of supersonic heavy bombers... the [[http://www.merkle.com/pluto/pluto.html [=SLAM=]]]. Imagine a locomotive. Now, imagine that locomotive with a ''nuclear'' ramjet engine, flying at three times the speed of sound at low level, lobbing nuclear bombs at things. Even without the nuclear bombs, the shockwave, exhaust, unshielded reactor, and fission fragments would destroy, kill and irradiate whatever it flew over. Unfortunately, the problem with building a weapon that spews nuclear waste everywhere is that nobody will give you permission to test-fly it, and your allies might disapprove of it flying over their countries to get to the USSR.

* The Nock Volley Gun. This thing was designed for use in naval warfare. It has ''seven barrels''. Unfortunately, it turned out most men weren't big or built enough to fire it without a) being thrown violently backwards by the recoil, b) falling off whatever high place they were firing it from, c) having their shoulder shattered. Shame.