The World's Worst Weapons from Exploding Guns to Malfunctioning Missiles.

by Martin J. Dougherty

The World's Worst Weapons is an entertaining and informative guide to the small arms, artillery, tanks, ships, missiles, and aircraft that proved to be utter failures in ...

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Military Fiction, War, Military History, Reference

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Hailing from northeast England, Martin J Dougherty is a professional writer specialising in military history. He has been at times a games designer, an engineer, a self-protection instructor, a teacher and a defence analyst. Martin has published a range of books covering topics as diverse as self-protection, medieval warfare and space flight, and has addressed international conferences on anti-shipping missiles and homeland security issues.

Martin's interests include martial arts and fencing. He has coached Fencing, Ju-Jitsu, Self-Defence and Kickboxing for many years at the University of Sunderland, and has competed to national level as a fencer. As a martial artist he holds black belts in Combat Ju-Jitsu, Nihon Tai-Jitsu and Self-Defence. Martin is a Senior Assessor with the Self-Defence Federation and an IL1 instructor/assessor with the Britsh Federation for Historical Swordplay, specialising in the Military Sabre and the Smallsword.

Reviews

[Benjamin Uke · Rating 3 out of 5]

If the Darwin-Awards ran a weapons factory.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cousin of The World's Worst Cars, here's, well, you can guess from the title, right? I enjoyed this book a good bit - the sheer depth of weapons covered from throwing stars to nuclear howitzers kept it moving nicely. My one complaint is that there are some strange choices in here; Seeing the mighty Stuka included here is a bit strange, but what really takes the cake is the legendary AK-47 being inducted as one of the world's worst weapons. I know that this is just the author's opinion and that you can't subjectively say that it is wrong, but, it's wrong. Other than that, good book.

[Steve Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poorly edited, with contradictions in the text. At one point he listed a machine gun’s length as 22 inches. Maybe the barrel length was.

Some of the weapons the author listed did excellent service during their lifetime or were revolutionary prototypes.

Why he felt the need to list martial arts weapons in here is beyond me. Their purpose of use was beyond him.

[Abraham Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great collection of the worlds worst weapons ever made!

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exactly as the title says, this book is about the world's worst weapons. Each weapon gets its own two page spread with photos and/or drawings, a description of what made the weapon bad, information on its country of origin, and the year(s) in which it was developed or used. Several of the weapons are definitely worse than others, with some actually rising to the level of simple mediocrity. But the bad ones are truly bad (how could anyone have thought that a tank with only a few inches of ground clearance could possibly be adequate?). A wide variety of weapons are covered, ranging from ancient and medieval melee weapons to the Davy Crockett atomic recoilless gun with its suicidally short range.

Although a lot of good information is presented, the book has several typos and formatting errors. Each weapon has a data box which lists several categories such as date of use, weight, etc. On several pages the category header doesn't line up with the relevant data (e.g., the header says "weight" but instead gives you the weapon's range). A few times the flag used to show the nation of origin doesn't match the nation of origin as written in the text.

As an inexpensive book meant to provide entertainment for military history buffs, The World's Worst Weapons is a worthwhile read. It's unfortunate that an embarrassing number of obvious errors distract from the book's overall value.

[Petrow84 · Rating 2 out of 5]

The sheer fact that some of the world's best known, and highly successful weapons (in their time) were included in this book should deter anyone from buying that one. C'mon, AK47 is one of the most durable, and widely used autorifle in the whole world, 70 years after its invention!
The condemned M113 - though with some upgrades - are still used by the IDF, in one of the world's most recent hotspots.

Its only saving grace is that you can find some really, truly, unimaginably silly designs and ideas.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

A simple, throwaway book of less-than-successful weapons. Some of the entries in the book are questionable (like the AK-47, probably the world's most common weapon), but each entry is short and enjoyable.

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun overview of some of the terrible failures in the history of weaponry, as well as some better devices that still had notable flaws. It's not at all an in-depth look, but it makes good bathroom or waiting room reading.

[John Glass · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bathroom or coffee table type book. Reasonably entertaining. Apparently every weapon ever designed makes the worst weapon list for one reason or another. Words and rocks weren't mentioned though, so....

[Graham Clayton · Rating 3 out of 5]

The World's Worst Weapons is an entertaining and informative guide to the guns, tanks, ships, aircraft and weapons that proved to be utter failures. I enjoyed the book as I find failed weapons to be more interesting than successful weapons.

[Sadie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting enough, but really more of a coffee table book than a serious read.

[Martin Hensley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fun book with some goofy weapons and some that might surprise you. As others have said, it's a good bathroom read. I'd give it three stars if the type wasn't too small/fine to read.

[J. Bryce · Rating 2 out of 5]

A silly little book with some minor copy-editing problems, and the world's tiniest print outside one of those Bibles made for gnomes. But interesting and occasionally funny.

[Bill Sleeman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title says it all....pretty amazing, some stupid and some misguided so many it doesn't even seem possible that people would try them (flaming pigs, exploding dogs, the Osprey!).