← Back to the front page

Atrocious Historic Weapon Designs That Left a Lot to be Desired

Khalid Elhassan February 6, 2025 16 min

Weapon - An American general with a captured Krummlauf — An American general with a captured Krummlauf. Sandboxx

10. A Weapon That Had the Unfortunate Tendency to Set Its User on Fire

The lantern shield’s lamp had an oil storage compartment to allow extended use for hours on end. When the lamp was jostled – and affixed to a shield it was often jostled, since a shield’s purpose is to absorb blows when used defensively, and to bash opponents when used offensively – the oil could leak out or spill uncontrollably. With the lantern’s fuel compartment affixed to the shield, there was a high risk that the user’s shield-bearing arm, face, or body, would get drenched in flammable oil and catch fire if that oil came in contact with the lantern’s flame. As a result, lantern shields tended to turn their users into human torches every now and then.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.