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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

18. An Inability to Stick to Tanks Was a Problem With This Anti-Tank Bomb

Weapon - Illustration of a British soldier using a Sticky Bomb against a German tank — Illustration of a British soldier using a Sticky Bomb against a German tank. The Telegraph

The Sticky Bomb’s first problem, and it was a major one, was that the adhesive had trouble sticking to dusty, muddy, or wet surfaces. That was bad, because dusty, muddy, or wet surfaces are “a customary condition of tanks“, as Churchill’s chief military adviser pointed out. A second problem, also major, was that failing to stick to what it should, the Sticky Bomb often stuck to what it should not: the user. In cartoon-like fashion, the adhesive tended to leak and glue the bomb to its thrower’s hand or uniform.

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.