(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
WunderWaffe 10 - the Wind Cannon & the Vortex Gun
Some of the more bizarre inventions and ideas developed by German scientists were
- the sun cannon
- the vortex gun
- the sound cannon
- and the wind cannon.
The sun cannon had a big sun-reflector intended for use against enemy aircraft. The Americans captured an experimental model of the cannon in 1945, but its unknown whether any tests were done after the war .
The vortex gun was designed to try and take advantage of the known fact that air turbulence could bring down large aircraft and break them into pieces. The vortex gun’s shells, containing coal-dust and a slow-burning explosive in the center, were supposed to create an artificial whirlwind or tornado, which would make enemy airplanes lose control and thus fall from the sky. During testing and under near perfect conditions this odd device seemed to work quite well. It wasn’t known if the air pressure would actually cause structural failure in a plane, but the pressure it put on the wings would probably be very high and that might be enough to down the aircraft. Fortunately for the Allies, the vortex gun was never put into practice.
The wind cannon was designed to shoot a powerful jet of compressed air, as effective as a small shell, against enemy aircraft.
In tests, such a blast could break a 25mm wooden board from over 600 feet away. However, the potential effect on a fast moving aircraft would obviously be very different than against a fixed target, so as intriguing as the wind cannon was, it was unlikely to have produced the desired results. Even so, a cannon was set up on at one on the Elbe bridges in the closing stages of the war, but didn’t succeed in bringing down any hostile planes.
The sound cannon was supposed to turn explosions of oxygen and methane into noise that could kill. A very high amplitude sound beam would be emitted at pressures exceeding 1000 milibars from a distance of around 150 feet, which would be fatal to a human exposed to it for 5 seconds. The sound cannon if used in point blank range may destroy human brains.
At a greater distance, a soldier would still suffer great pain and be seriously incapacitated for a considerable time afterwards. The sound weapon wasn’t used in combat or tested on people but it is thought that lab animals may have been used. Another acoustic device, which was said to resemble a large cannon, supposedly sent out a sonic boom shock wave with enough force to bring down a large bomber.