The term "wunderwaffe" (wunderwaffe, wonder weapon) originated in Nazi Germany as a designation of a fundamentally new weapon, or weapon, significantly superior in characteristics to anything previously created and capable of bringing significant changes to the battlefield.
Later, the term "wunderwaffe" became widespread in relation to weapons, not only created by Nazi Germany, but also by other countries, both before and after World War II.
Some weapons that fall under the definition of "wunderwaffe" were the fruit of gigantomania - an attempt to maximize the characteristics of existing weapons in order to obtain weapons that are absolutely superior to anything the enemy could have.
A classic example of such a "wunderwaffe" is the project of the German Panzerkampfwagen VIII "Maus" tank, supposed to weigh over 180 tons. Tank "Maus" was created on the basis of advanced technologies of the German industry, including the electric propulsion system, and was supposed to become an indestructible breakthrough weapon. The rapidly deteriorating position of Nazi Germany and the overload of industry with urgent projects did not give this weapon a chance to appear.
While the Maus tank had practically no chance of development, another example of German gigantomania, the Royal Tiger tank, was produced in a series of almost 500 vehicles. Its mass was almost twice the mass of most heavy tanks of the time.
The Germans alone cannot be blamed for gigantomania. In different periods of the development of tanks, there were a significant number of projects of tanks weighing 100-200 tons, developed by French, British, American, and Soviet designers. Obviously, even the failures of their predecessors to create heavy and super-heavy tanks did not allow us to conclude that this type of armored vehicle was unambiguously futile.
At the same time, the mass of some modern main battle tanks has approached, or has already surpassed the 70-ton mark. In particular, this applies to the Israeli tank "Merkava-4", the American M1A2SEP3 "Abrams", the British "Challenger Mk 2" and the German "Leopard 2A7 +".
If it were not for the problems with transportation and crossing bridges, the projects of super-heavy tanks would probably have been tried again to be resurrected at a new technological level. And perhaps they will still be implemented, for example, in the form of articulated combat vehicles.
Battleships are another example of gigantomania. Starting with the British battleship Dreadnought, their displacement increased continuously until it exceeded 70,000 tons for the Japanese battleship Yamato. In addition to increasing the size and displacement of ships, the caliber and number of artillery pieces of battleships also increased.
The staggering cost made battleships more of a political tool than an effective tool for warfare. And the rapid development of aviation and submarines has turned these huge ships into floating targets.
You can see a direct analogy between the giant mania in the field of armored vehicles and the giant mania in the field of building surface ships, but the projects of super heavy tanks are viewed as a curiosity and an example of a waste of money, and battleships are considered one of the most significant milestones in the evolution of the surface fleet.
During World War II, the gloomy German genius gave birth to yet another "wunderwaffe" - the super-heavy 807-mm Dora railway artillery gun. A gun weighing 1,350 tons, placed on a railway platform, was intended for firing shells weighing 4, 8-7 tons at a distance of 38-48 km.
The cost of the Dora gun is comparable to the cost of 250 149 mm howitzers. On the one hand, howitzers are practical, and they are guaranteed to bring Germany more benefit in the war than Dora, but on the other hand, 250 additional howitzers would hardly have decided the outcome of the war in Germany's favor.
The project of a giant cannon was attempted by the Canadian engineer Gerald Bull. Initially, the project was intended for civilian use - launching small-sized cargo into low orbit at the price of a 200-kg satellite into orbit at a price of about $ 600 per kilogram. Not finding understanding in his homeland, Gerald Bull began working with the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein on the Babylon project.
The Babylon supercannon project, based on the principle of a multi-chamber artillery gun, was launched in Iraq in the 1980s. In addition to the usual propellant charge located in the breech chamber, there was also an elongated propellant charge attached to the projectile, which moved with the projectile as it moved along the barrel, thereby maintaining constant pressure in the barrel. Nine tons of a special propellant charge of a super-gun could provide fire with 1000 mm caliber shells and a mass of 600 kg at a distance of up to 1000 kilometers.
After it became known about the beginning of the creation of the super-gun for the Babylon project, the parts of the super-gun were confiscated during transportation in Europe. In March 1990, Gerald Bull died suddenly of an overabundance of lead in his body, presumably not without the involvement of the Israeli intelligence "Mossad", which apparently took the attempt to create an artillery "wunderwaffe" quite seriously.
In our time, the United States is actively making an attempt to create a weapon of a fundamentally new type - the railgun. Projects for the creation of rail guns have been considered since the First World War. Despite the fact that the principle of their creation is quite clear, in practice the developers are faced with a number of problems, as a result of which the prototypes of railguns have not yet come out of the walls of laboratories.
Developers in the United States plan to gradually increase the capabilities of railguns with a gradual improvement in parameters - an increase in the projectile acceleration speed from 2000 to 3000 m / s, firing range from 80-160 to 400-440 km, projectile muzzle energy from 32 to 124 MJ, projectile weight from 2 -3 to 18-20 kg, rate of fire from 2-3 rounds per minute to 8-12, power sources from 15 MW to 40-45 MW, barrel resource from intermediate 100 rounds by 2018 to 1000 rounds by 2025, length trunk from the initial 6 m to the final 10 m.
The lack of combat models of railguns makes many think of them as an attempt to create a "wunderwaffe", with one goal - the development of funds. However, attempts to create rail weapons are being made in other countries - China, Turkey; on a smaller scale, work on weapons of this type is being carried out in Russia. Ultimately, there is no doubt that rail weapons will be created, and will occupy their niche on warships (in the first place), contrary to the opinion of skeptics.
Another example of the "wunderwaffe" is often called attempts to create a new type of weapon, to use technologies that the enemy does not have.
The history of ballistic and cruise missiles in service with the world's leading armies began in the 1940s with the German FAU-1 and FAU-2 missiles. The absence at that time of technologies for precise targeting made this weapon essentially useless, but at the same time quite resource-intensive.
From the position of "strong in hindsight", one can put forward the assumption that it would be more profitable for Nazi Germany not to implement these "wunderwaffe", but to focus on the production of vital fighters and attack aircraft for the front. But then the question arises, at what point to start development? How do you know that the technologies needed to turn the Wunderwaffe into an effective weapons complex have already appeared? Obviously, this can only be understood experimentally, i.e. on the basis of actually completed work - implemented (and possibly closed) projects of missiles, railguns, lasers …
Regarding Nazi Germany, the Germans start working on the atomic bomb earlier, and the FAU-1 / FAU-2 could turn into a terrible weapon by 1944-1945 that could change the course of the war.
Nowadays, the USA is the main supplier of the Wunderwaffe. In parallel, a huge number of projects are underway to develop weapons based on new physical principles, ground, air and sea combat vehicles for various purposes and configurations.
In reproach to the United States, many talk about the senseless spending of budgetary funds, but why count other people's money? In the USSR, a significant number of research and development work (R&D) was also carried out to create completely new types of weapons, many of which stopped at the stage of creating prototypes or small-scale models. It was these R&D projects, some of which may look like an attempt to create a "wunderwaffe", that allowed the USSR to be at the peak of scientific and technological progress and lead in the field of weapons. Russia uses the fruits of these R&D projects to this day.
To hope that the United States will go bankrupt because of the construction of a "wunderwaffe" is as naive as to think that the USSR collapsed due to the arms race.
Take, for example, the American project of the promising destroyer "Zumwalt", which only the lazy did not kick Russia. They say it is expensive, and it does not have the promised lasers and railguns, and generally breaks down. But it cannot be denied that this is a new generation combat ship, with high coefficients of technical novelty. Here and the maximum implemented stealth technology, and full electric propulsion, and a high degree of automation (the crew of the destroyer "Zumwalt" is 148 people, while the destroyer "Arleigh Burke" - 380 people).
There is no doubt that the experience gained in the development, construction and operation of Zumwalt class destroyers will be actively used in the creation of new and modernization of existing projects of warships. In particular, according to some reports, in the course of further modernization of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, they plan to switch to full electric propulsion, including in order to provide power for advanced weapons based on new physical principles. In the newest British destroyer Daring, the technology of full electric propulsion is not satisfactory.
In Russia, the project of the nuclear destroyer "Leader" is often criticized, which in its parameters is more like a cruiser. Obviously, the Russian economy will not cope with the large-scale construction of ships of this dimension, and the frigate of increased dimension of project 22350M looks much more promising from the point of view of mass construction.
On the other hand, the construction of ships of the type of the nuclear destroyer-cruiser "Leader" is necessary at least in order to restore / preserve / develop the competence of the domestic industry to create ships of this class. Moreover, knowing that the Leader series of ships will definitely be small - 2-4 ships, perhaps it makes sense when designing to lay the maximum coefficient of technical novelty - electric propulsion, weapons based on new physical principles, maximum automation. There is no doubt that the first ship will be guaranteed to be problematic, but in the process of debugging invaluable experience will be gained, which will allow building the most modern military equipment in the future.
And let the ships of projects 22350 / 22350M be the workhorses of the fleet.
In 2018, Russian President V. V. Putin, among other things, announced the imminent adoption of the Poseidon and Burevestnik weapons systems, which were immediately categorized by many as useless "wunderwaffe".
Despite the fact that the prospects for using these complexes as effective weapons are questionable, the technologies implemented in the course of their development can revolutionize the creation of other types of weapons, for example, small-sized nuclear submarines and unmanned aerial vehicles with a long flight duration.
And sometimes weapons get "floating" status. For example, let's take the Armata platform. If the project develops without significant problems, then no one will doubt the correctness of the decisions made and the need to create it. But if problems arise during the implementation of the Armata project, then there will again be talks that there was no point in creating a fundamentally new platform - the "wunderwaffe", with a large number of innovations, but it was necessary to follow a reasonable path of further modernization ruler T-72 / T-80.
What can be said in conclusion? The fact that, within reasonable limits, the creation of a "wunderwaffe" is necessary in order to go beyond the existing capabilities, to obtain new technologies for creating weapons that can radically change the ways of conducting combat operations.
It is often impossible to predict in advance which R&D will bring a positive result in the form of a serial product, and which will only allow gaining experience, including negative one. The existence of a modern, dynamically developing military-industrial complex is impossible without R&D with a high coefficient of technical novelty.
Obviously, it is necessary to maintain a certain balance between the rational modernization of existing weapons, the creation of new types of weapons with a minimum amount of innovation, and the implementation of breakthrough high-risk projects.
In this context, one should not be too skeptical about the fact that potential opponents have a large number of projects that did not lead to the appearance of serial products. One can only guess what results were obtained in the course of their elaboration and where they will be applied in the future.
