Humanity has spent almost its entire run as a species trying to figure out the optimal way to murder each other. Ever since the first guy sharpened a stick and pointed it threateningly at another guy’s groin, someone has thought, “what if I put some buffalo poop on the end of that stick?”
Nowadays, we rarely need buffalo poop to get our point across, as we have weaponry that can literally turn a person into a pink stain. Here’s our list of the ten most terrifying weapons man has at his disposal.
10. Hollow Point Rounds
Hollow point rounds are basically bullets with a hollow point instead of a lead one, in case you were wondering. Though taking something out of a bullet seems like an odd way to make the more dangerous, this small change turns them into something so dangerous, they’re banned in actual warfare. This is because, unlike rounds which are designed to leave clean trails through a human torso, hollow point rounds refuse to wipe their feet, drink all your booze, and don’t flush your toilet the second they’re invited into your body.
The bullets, rather than quietly lodge themselves somewhere and wait to be removed, explode and fragment, leaving an exit wound that look like Bruce Lee’s
9. AC 130 Spectre
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVXBHNvpTcg
The AC-130 Spectre (that big-ass plane from the Call of Duty games) probably isn’t going to be a new piece of technology to most of the people reading this, due to its aforementioned inclusion in a popular video game series. However, it’s the sheer amount of fire-power this thing possesses, combined with how little any given person can do about it, which we think will be surprising to people.
If you’ve played the games, you no doubt know that the AC-130 gunship is able to rain down death from a mile in the sky, literally hitting enemies through windows, and even when they’re within spitting distance of a friendly combatant. Along with this frankly insane amount of firepower it has at its disposal, the AC-130 also packs something colloquially known as “Angel Flares,” a combination of chaff and flares with make the AC-130 all but invincible to all known lock-on technology.
But here’s the worst part: they’re known as angel flares because, as you can see, they form the image of a huge fiery angel when they’re released. Which means that, at one point in time, it’s entirely likely a guy once looked up, saw the image of an angel in the sky, and was hit in the face with a cannon a second later. So yeah, unless your day is “exploded by God” bad, you now know that there’s someone out there who has definitely had a worse day than you.
8. Dragon’s Breath Rounds
With a names like “dragon’s breath,” this already sounds like something you’d rather not be on the wrong end of but, as with all weapons, it’s way more dangerous than it sounds. Dragons Breath rounds are shotgun shells that, rather than being filled with buckshot, are filled with magnesium shards which, upon hitting air, immediately set on fire. This means that someone out there looked at a shotgun, a device capable of turning your face into raw meat, and decided that it needed the ability to shoot fire.
Dragon’s breath rounds are understandably illegal as hell, and have seen virtually no use in combat. As such, we’ve no idea what they’d actually do to the human body, though this YouTube video gives us a pretty good idea:
Then again, we can’t imagine being hit with fiery shards of white hot metal is good for the complexion, so we’re going to assume that these things are fairly dangerous.
7. Metal Storm
Metal Storm, along with being a badass band name, is the name given to perhaps one of the most terrifying weapons systems ever developed. Why? Well, Metal Storm is capable of firing a million rounds per minute. That’s 16,000 rounds, per second!
If that in itself isn’t scary enough, the Metal Storm system fires so many bullets in such a brief amount of time, into the exact same location, that it’s likened to firing a javelin. A javelin made of bullets. This gives the system superior armor-piercing potential, since if one bullet isn’t enough to break through, the other 16,000 probably will. Because sometimes, you just need to make sure something is dead.
6. Depleted Uranium Rounds
Depleted uranium rounds sound exactly like the kind of thing you’d want to stay right the hell away form. Even with the “depleted” bit thrown in there, these things still sound worse than wasps made of anthrax.
In a nutshell, depleted uranium rounds are exactly what you’d expect: rounds with a small amount of uranium crammed in them, because the pointy metal thing that flew at you at 400 MPH wasn’t dangerous enough. It’s not what these rounds do the human body that makes them terrifying though; it’s what they do to armor. When depleted uranium rounds are in the hands of your enemy, the last place you’d want to be is inside of a tank. This is because it’s “self-sharpening,” which means when the round hits a hard target, it immediately hardens and burns through anything stupid enough to get in the way; the second it hits air, the round instantly catches fire and then explodes.
When such a round hits a tank or APC, the vehicle’s fuel, and even its ammo, all catch fire and explode too, usually killing the crew at the same time. Because apparently, the world needed a bullet capable of exploding other bullets.
5. AA-12
The AA-12 is a shotgun, but not just any shotgun: it’s a fully-automatic shotgun. As in, it fires shotgun rounds at a rate of 300 per minute. If being hit by a shotgun isn’t a scary enough thought as is, imagine being hit by six shotguns, all within the space of a second. That’s essentially what an AA-12 is.
But here’s where things get silly as, with all shotguns, the AA-12 is able to accept multiple ammo types, ranging from buckshot all the way up to high-explosive grenades. In case your eyes glossed over to avoid the insanity of that last sentence, the AA-12 is a shotgun, that can fire grenades. 300 of them, in a minute. We don’t think we need to describe what such a weapon is capable of doing to the human body, since we’re pretty sure everyone reading this has already seen a puddle.
4. Barrett M-82
The Barrett M-82 anti-material rifle, AKA the Barrett 50 Cal, is a sniper rifle that fires bullets bigger than a standard battery faster than the speed of sound, because someone out there needed to show the Duracell Bunny how things are really done. Now, sniper rifles aren’t anything new, but it’s the sheer range of the Barrett that earns it a place on this list, since the weapon is easily capable of taking your head clean off from a mile away, through a solid concrete wall.
Neither of those two things is in anyway hyperbole; for one, the Barrett has an effective range of 1800 meters. And two, the sheer size and speed of the projectile gives it enough kinetic energy to literally rip apart a human being. For a second, imagine talking to your friend, only to see his head literally explode. Then a few seconds later, you hear a gunshot. Imagine the fear you’d feel knowing that you were fighting an enemy who possessed the ability to make people’s heads explode from a mile away, through walls. We’re pretty sure there’s not even a member of the X-Men who can do that. So yeah, step it up, comic books.
3. WP Grenades
WP grenades, also known as white phosphorus grenades, are grenades that funnily enough, throw out a cloud of white phosphorus, which is really, really bad, in case you weren’t sure. How bad? Well a single fleck of burning phosphorus is easily able to burn not only through a person’s skin, but it’ll continue burning until it reaches the bone itself where — you guessed it — that sucker will keep burning until you crap out your own spine to end the pain. No wonder this stuff is banned; anything that metal should be limited to Iron Maiden album covers and Bloodstock only.
The worst part? The grenade has an effective range of 35 meters. The average human can throw a grenade 30 meters, meaning this grenade, by design, could melt the bones of the person throwing it.
2. Kinetic Bombardment
Kinetic bombardment is what you get when you ask scientists to create a device capable of making Mother Earth miss a period. The appropriately named “Rods from God” are envisioned as several foot-long tungsten rods that could, theoretically, be dropped anywhere on Earth by an orbiting satellite.
Now we’re gonna drop some science. Kinetic bombardment, as the name suggests, uses no explosives. It uses only the kinetic energy achieved by the rods falling to Earth. Despite this, the weapons theoretically could have a payload equal to that of a nuclear bomb, without any of the nasty nuclear fallout, since they’d be able to reach speeds upwards of Mach 10.
Though this device is largely theoretical, don’t you feel safer knowing that somewhere out there, a scientist on the taxpayer’s dime worked out an equation about what would happen if he dropped a telephone pole-sized rod of metal from space onto someone’s melon? Presumably, he fist-pumped the air when he realized how radical the results would be.
1. Thermobaric Weapons
Right off the bat, thermobaric weapons are probably one of the most powerful things we humans have at our command. A single bomb has the capability to vaporize an entire city block, but it’s what happens to the people outside of that range that makes this weapon really scary.
To the unlucky people who are near a thermobaric weapon when it goes off, but not close enough to be immediately incinerated, they’re destined for one of the most painful deaths imaginable. You see, along with producing an insane amount of heat, thermobaric weapons also produce a massive shockwave that, upon hitting a human being, can cause their lungs to explode! We’re just going to quote this part because:
“What kills is the pressure wave, and more importantly, the subsequent rarefaction [vacuum], which ruptures the lungs. If the fuel deflagrates but does not detonate, victims will be severely burned and will probably also inhale the burning fuel. shock and pressure waves cause minimal damage to brain tissue… it is possible that victims of FAEs are not rendered unconscious by the blast, but instead suffer for several seconds or minutes while they suffocate.”
We’re pretty sure if they called these weapons “lung exploders,” we’d end war overnight, out of pure fear.
17 Comments
you forgot the scariest so far … autonomous AI-based, self-piloting drones carrying a small explosive round/charge designed to find and execute an individual based on facial recognition and/or other data, then unleashed on unwitting cities by the hundreds of thousands from strategic, long-range bombers… they say there is NO KNOWN DEFENCE! let that sink in… guess ya missed that one… youtube that sh*t…
The most dangerous weapon is a well educated person. One who can build and devise on his own what he needs to achieve his objective. As I am always saying after watching some ISIS terrorist who shoots or drives a truck into a crowd…..”Wait till they learn a little chemistry or microbiology.”
Stupid creations of men. Create things that would wipe their own ass out. Waste of of precious federal taxes and money. Lot’s of people needs to be fed with food — not bullets. Stupid!
#2 is on the new GI Joe movie… when i was watching the movie i thought that it was complete bull shit… now seeing it here I don’t know…
I think he doesn’t listed nukes because they are boring.
You drop/launch a big fat bomb and seconds after it touches ground a whole city disappears.
Maybe a top ten weapons of mass destruction would suffice?
I don’t know why ammunition was listed even before nuclear weapons. Even #2 attests that this theoretical weapon is similar to a nuclear weapon “without any of the nasty nuclear fallout”, wouldn’t that make a nuclear weapon worse?
FYI, it’s “Anti-Materiel” even though may it looks like it’s wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-materiel_rifle
“…even though it may look like it’s wrong.” #corrections =p
Preacher Dave Roever was hit by a sniper in Vietnam as well as forever scared by a phosphorus grenade.
Wheres the Nukes? AA-12 Is my Favorite Shotgun, but I wouldnt have put it on this list. Perhaps on a list of versatile guns you can take anywhere, get sand in it, water dont matter the AA-12 kicks ass! This list is pretty weak by all means, not trying to stir ya up but you listed ammunition? Dangerous weapons, Cannons, or how abou Misuse oft Politics, that’s a pretty dangerous weapon aimed at screwing the people
I would think that the A-10 Warthog (Thuinderbolt is a by far a more lethal and terrifying war machine. The A-10 Thunderbolt II has excellent maneuverability at low air speeds and altitude, and is a highly accurate and survivable weapons-delivery platform.The Thunderbolt II can employ a wide variety of conventional munitions, including general purpose bombs, cluster bomb units, laser guided bombs, joint direct attack munitions or JDAM, wind corrected munitions dispenser or WCMD, AGM-65 Maverick and AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles, rockets, illumination flares, and the GAU-8/A 30mm cannon, capable of firing 3,900 rounds per minute to defeat a wide variety of targets including tanks.
The chaff and flare is just counter measures and most military aircraft have them.
I guarantee you that any plane I pilot is more dangerous than any plane that’s been listed here.
Mostly because I can’t fly…
A halberd? The weapon that killed Richard III? You should see what it did to our late Kings skull. My God.. And we think war today is bad! And why ARE there weapons like this? is the Military Industrial Complex a conspiracy theory or what?
For number 3, look up ‘Spec Ops The line White Phos’ on youtube. In the game you use it to take out loads of enemies and then have to face the consequences of what you did. A horrible weapon.
Oh, good Lord… This list is absolutely terrible and pretty darned misinformed.
10. Hollow Point Bullets. These rounds are NOT “horrifyingly dangerous”. They are simply designed, as you stated, to vent their force on impact, rather than carrying through the target and risking the life of people behind it. They are dangerous, but I would argue that they’re actually safer than a standard FMJ round, and considering that 95% of people who get shot survive the experience… I’m pretty sure this doesn’t belong anywhere close to this list.
8. Dragon’s Breath rounds are not “illegal as hell”. They are currently illegal only in New York City; Marin, Napa, Ventura and Yolo counties, CA; Cook County, IL; D.C.; MA; all of Alaska; Florida; and Hawaii.
6. The description of DU shells behavior looks to be missing a few points. The shell does not “instantly catch fire and then explode” the second it hits air. Instead, the depleted uranium rod fractures upon impact, and the force of the impact causes ignition of the scattering dust. It’s the impact, not the mere existence of DU.
5. The AA-12 is no more dangerous than any other automatic weapon. Plus, it’s awesome.
4. The M-82 is no more dangerous than any other long-range weapon.
3. No argument here.
2. I’m not sure I’d list a weapon that’s theoretical.
And now I have to ask the question: Of all of these super-dangerous weapons… where are nukes? How about chemical weapons? Biological weapons? Cannons? Hell, there’s some bladed weapons I’d consider more dangerous than hollow point rounds. I’d argue that the old canister and grapeshot rounds fired out of 18th and 19th century cannons were far more dangerous than some cheap novelty shotgun round like dragon’s breath.
Hear, hear, well said my good man.
And three of these “weapons” are not weapons at all but are actually types of ammunition. #10, #8 and #6 are loaded into the weapon that fires them, and #6 is a material used in the manufacture of ammunition.
Depleted uranium is not used simply because it is uranium but because it is far more dense than steel, tungsten or lead. By volume, DU has more mass than almost any other metal known to man. Why does this matter? Because good ol’ Mr. Newton says so! A super dense DU slug propelled by an explosive charge maintains its kinetic energy a lot better than any other material. The net effect is that less material gets far more bang for the buck.
Dragon’s breath rounds are awesome, but they are also good for starting fires and signalling for rescue. Flare guns do just as well to be honest.
Hollow points are great for actually killing people too, rather than leaving them to lay around, bleeding and suffering. They are also great for not exiting people or passing through some types of walls. So, yeah, hollow points should not really be on this list.
Seriously? No nukes, chemical weapons, biological weapons, swords made from shark’s teeth, homemade pistols or pits filled with poisonous snakes? This list is a display of simple
ignorance.
go check out the Obrez, a modified version of the Mosin-Nagant line of rifles:
http://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=30857