Talk:Wonder weapon

Untitled
Are Wonder Weapons solely a phenomenon of recent history? Wasn't the Longbow a Wonder Weapon at Agincourt? But in that case, it was not a sudden phenomenon, because it's power wasn't taken seriously by the French for a generation. Henry's father certainly used its power against the French, and the English put resources into it, as I recall, allowing only men armed with longbows to hunt in the King's forests.

Or Archemides' contraptions- or the Byzantinne's Liquid fire. Weren't these all wonder weapons?

I am working at a definition here- doesn't a Wonder Weapon carry some romanticism with it- like, here is the Deus ex Machina- the thing that will deliver the big victory in swift order?

-Mak Thorpe 16:28, 25 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I think Greek fire was certainly a wonder weapon. Tom Harrison Talk 14:07, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

"I am working at a definition here" - indeed, this article seems more like someone's blog post or original research than actual based-on-citations info. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.230.177.44 (talk) 00:28, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Me-262 ?
I'd reconsider the Me-262 jet fighter as a 'wonder weapon' in the sense most people think of, for the purposes of this article. It was a successful design (the first practical - and operational - jet fighter) and it had its successful points. Its problem was the age-old one of "too late": rapidly declining industrial capability, lack of fuel and trained (think experienced) pilots in replacement numbers, etc etc, all impacted its success....To me, the 'wonder weapon' moniker denotes a rather more fanciful weapon idea that always remains just out of reach; jet technology was not...Any thoughts? Or sources for definitions? Engr105th (talk) 23:03, 2 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Heres one source that offers a definition of wonder weapon (although not fully stated up-front; you have to sort of dig to get it) See http://wunder2.greyfalcon.us/German%20wonder%20weapons.htm ...Engr105th (talk) 02:22, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Article clarity
I attempted a few changes (without materially changing the information) to make the article flow a bit better (ex: I moved the "calque" wunderwaffen part to the first paragraph)...several items of the article need direct references; I'll attempt to tag them...Engr105th (talk) 03:24, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Possible merge ?
1) Please disregard my post above about the Me 262 - it is referenced extensively as a wonder weapon.

2) I've looked at a number of sites by searching 'wonder weapon' and 95% of them refer to Germany in WW2, with the occasional reference to Japanese WWW2 and Cold War Soviet weapons. I do not see where the term Wonder Weapon pre-dates WW2. Obviously, there are earlier weapons that could be considered wonder weapons in the context of their time (such as the tanks, dreadnoughts, etc listed in this article; or even the Confederate submarine Hunley in the American Civil War), but the term itself seems to be limited to Nazi weapons. Maybe this article ought to stick to that?

3) Wiki has a more extensive article that supports this; see "Wunderwaffe". Should these articles be merged? At the least I think they should be linked, on both sides...Engr105th (talk) 19:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Oops, Wunderwaffen is linked in this article, first para. But it's not on the See Also list.Engr105th (talk) 22:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)