possibly real and effective weapons and strategies that were unexplored in real world

[Ming]

Airships also laid and swept mines. I don't know if they actually did it, but US navy airships were certainly capable of carrying acoustic homing torpedoes.

They were a very effective tool if you had the spare production to devote to them. By the way, the Russians also operated an airship during the war.

And as an aside, if as was brought up in the thread you wanted an intercontinental weapon platform for something like guided missiles you couldn't do it with conventional craft in the 1940s but you could do it with 1940s airships.

 

[Narwhal]

Ekranoplanes equiped with missiles instead of, well, ships and carrier-based aircrafts - this could totally been a thing in closed seas.

Come on imagine this sending missiles at your fleet :

That's GIJoe vs COBRA material here guys.

 

[Kovax]

The phenomenal range of airships up until post-WWII was unmatched by conventional aircraft. In one WWI instance, an airship was dispatched directly from Germany to deliver essential supplies to a cut-off garrison in North Africa. By the time the Zeppelin arrived, the garrison had surrendered, so the airship turned around and returned to base. Round trip to North Africa and back with no refueling or resupply....in WWI. By WWII, trans-continental flights were becoming a regular thing, until the Hindenburg burned and soured the market for such flights.

It is claimed (not sure if it's true) that no convoy in WWII ever lost a ship to submarine action while a USN blimp was on patrol overhead.

Then there were studies done with dolphin-delivered anti-ship mines.....

 

[Ming]

Ekranoplanes equiped with missiles instead of, well, ships and carrier-based aircrafts - this could totally been a thing in closed seas.

That's GIJoe vs COBRA material here guys.

Ekranoplanes and other ground effect vehicles might be a stretch for world war 2, (They understood the ground effect but Nobody had serious projects in the timeframe if I understand.)

However, you could definitely have had hydrofoil warships in world war 2. I think the Canadians even had a working one.
Hydrofoil fast attack craft would be seriously mean raiders or sub chasers.

 

[Narwhal]

The OP did not specify WW2. Also, it would have been cool stuff in the Yellow Sea during the Korean War, and technologically doable.

 

[Ming]

Even then, I don't think they are impossible for ww2, you just need somebody to believe in a project and go for it.

I do think Hydrofoils would be easier to get a deployable system in a useful timeframe.

 

[yamato2cz]

well. i am looking to enhance the time of the game, while maintaining challenge in it. so any actual scrapped projects and experimental stuff can be thrown at me.

 

[stevieji]

examples could be "push-pull" twin engines. Dornier 335 used two engines

Yes, it was an interesting design, which had some obvious aerodynamic advantages over the usual twin-engined structure. Basically overtaken by jet engine technology.

last example-US nuclear powered aircraft project

There was also a variant on the Russian TU95 'Bear'. Virtually unlimited range and endurance was the idea, I think.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95LAL

In general, I think the answer to your question is no - the military leaves no stone unturned in its efforts to gain a competitive advantage - and anything viable, that offers a tactical or strategic advance, will be adopted. The latter example, nuclear bombers, simply didn't offer enough of a strategic advantage to be worth pursuing.

 

[yamato2cz]

Yes, it was an interesting design, which had some obvious aerodynamic advantages over the usual twin-engined structure. Basically overtaken by jet engine technology.


There was also a variant on the Russian TU95 'Bear'. Virtually unlimited range and endurance was the idea, I think.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95LAL

In general, I think the answer to your question is no - the military leaves no stone unturned in its efforts to gain a competitive advantage - and anything viable, that offers a tactical or strategic advance, will be adopted. The latter example, nuclear bombers, simply didn't offer enough of a strategic advantage to be worth pursuing.

hoi3 vanilla gives player ability to build super heavy tanks. or super heavy bettleships. too pretty damn worthless. but its a game. i search for more such dead end technologies so i can spice shit up a little. i know why they werent pursued. no need to explain it.

 

[dragoon9105]

Hey Superheavy battleships and Tanks make great propaganda pieces! Sometimes that is enough effectiveness all on their own look at the sheer amount of resources the british committed to killing the Bismark and Tirpitz. Or the insane Paranoia Allied tank crews had for the Tiger.

 

[yamato2cz]

Hey Superheavy battleships and Tanks make great propaganda pieces! Sometimes that is enough effectiveness all on their own look at the sheer amount of resources the british committed to killing the Bismark and Tirpitz. Or the insane Paranoia Allied tank crews had for the Tiger.

tiger wasnt super heavy, nor was bismark super heavy. and dont tell me that if steel airship with dozen or so auto cannon turrets deflecting small arms fire like nothing and not going down after numerous hits from flak wont too be extremely effective fear weapon.

 

[stevieji]

hoi3 vanilla gives player ability to build super heavy tanks. or super heavy bettleships. too pretty damn worthless. but its a game. i search for more such dead end technologies so i can spice shit up a little. i know why they werent pursued. no need to explain it.

Well excuse me. I thought this was the history forum.
Didn't realise you were talking about a game and didn't know what 'hoi' is - never played it.

 

[yerm]

Rail guns and other oversized artillery were incredibly cool and unfortunately were rendered quite useless since bombers both delivered oversized payloads more easily and were less vulnerable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_gun

Or, this DaVinci idea:

Spoiler

 

[Ming]

Along similar sounding but completely unrelated lines, the Germans also had a railgun project and the Luftwaffe thought it promising enough to issue a specification for an electromagnetic flak gun.

After the war the Americans figured out that the gun would have worked as advertised but required enough electricity to power half of Chicago.
Y'know Just in case you get those pocket nuclear reactors going as well. ;-)

 

[Xeorm]

Why turrets haven't made a return to bomber and CAS aircraft with the advent of computer guidance is an interesting question. In theory a CAS Jet with a turret under the nose could keep fire on target without being forced to make a predictable attack run like a helicopter can while still having the speed of a Jet fighter.

Turrets are heavy, which leads into weight problems, and the gun itself for a CAS role is...pretty beefy relative to the craft's thrust and weight. It's quite likely that firing orthogonal to the craft's thrust would produce some very crazy problems.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

Tactical Nuclear launchers.

 

[stevieji]

Tactical Nuclear launchers.

Surely not.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

Surely not.

Surely yes. It never went beyond the prototype stage.

 

[stevieji]

Surely yes. It never went beyond the prototype stage.

It just looks way too small for a nuclear warhead. What is that, an American army uniform?

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

It just looks way too small for a nuclear warhead. What is that, an American army uniform?

It is a nuclear warhead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)