Real life

Some types of C4 plastic explosive are designed to be safe to eat, and have been disguised as biscuits.


In 204 B.C, Hannibal of Carthage had clay pots filled with venomous snakes and instructed his soldiers to throw the pots onto the decks of Pergamene ships.

• But for one particularly crazy example, the Taser XREP, which is miniaturized taser fitted within 12 gauge shell for long distance wireless delivery of electric shocks.
• Add in a few circuits and you can make the things explode in mid-air.

The SPP-1 pistol and the APS underwater assault rifle ...err... smoothbore are specially designed underwater weapons with their own underwater ammunition — long and slim bullets. Yeah, it's a real nailgun. Modern ADS uses both standard issue ammo for AK-74 (in the air) and new underwater cartridge that looks like the same 5.45x39 — but its bullet continues all the way to the bottom.

During the Battle of Tora Bora in 2001, British special forces who stormed the cave complex used special frangible bullets that rather than beeing made out of conventional metal, were made from brittle ceramic. The idea of this was that when a stray bullet hit a cave wall it would disintigrate, rather than ricochet dangerously. It also had the added benefit of instantly fragmenting upon entering a target causing massive injury, yet still being (kind of) legal under the Hague Convention.

Beehive rounds used to be popular for tanks that expected they would have to deal with footsoldiers. It worked like a shotgun except that it used thin rods rather than balls. Because they were moving so fast the rods flexed in the air which caused them to slash targets like thousands of tiny knives.

This may be a regional thing or a familial idiosyncrasy, but some families celebrate New Year's by going outside at midnight and banging on pots and pans to make as much noise as humanly possible.

Gruffydd ap Llywelyn Fawr, son of one of the last ruling princes of independent Wales, was imprisoned by the King of England in the Tower of London. He attempted to escape in the night using a rope of knotted clothes and bedsheets, but the rope broke and he fell almost a hundred feet to his death. He was found the following morning with his head rammed into his neck cavity.

During a particular Mac Guyver-ish escape attempt from Dannemora prison, and inmate carved the keys he needed from observing the guard's keyring, built a dummy, then tried to climb over the wall with a rope made from bedsheets and clothes. He wasn't, however, bulletproof.

Suffice it to say that armoured fighting vehicle crews refer to infantry as "Crunchies" for a reason.

sword cane http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ3oaXAzDxw&feature=related

Hawaiian swords (a wooden paddle with shark teeth along the edges). Similarly, Aztec swords were set with blade segments of obsidian.

• The latter were actually very deadly - they were called "Macuahuitl", and you really didn't want to get hit by them. Obsidian (a type of volcanic glass) is incrediblysharp due to lacking crystalline structures, on the order of molecular thinness. We're talking sharp enough to easily decapitate you. Obsidian was also used for arrowheads and tools, amongst other things.
• Obsidian may replace steel in surgical instruments since it can hold a much finer edge.

The yo-yo was invented as an Aboriginal hunting weapon. Originally it was just a smooth rock on a string.

Bartitsu and La Canne are two martial arts devoted to defending yourself with your walking stick. When so many gentlemen carry around a wooden club with a weighted metal head, it's only natural that they tend to get used in brawls.

Ice itself would make a good murder weapon; the evidence just melts away.

• During World War Two spies were taught to make a dagger by repeatedly folding a newspaper into a small square and thrusting the point into the throat of an enemy.
• Some prison inmates harden sheets of toilet paper using toothpaste, and file them into shivs.

The most famous swordmaster in all of history, Miyamoto Musashi, became so disgusted with constant duels from people wanting to best him and become number one, that he gave up swords entirely, and chose to fight with a bokken (wooden sword). If the prospective duelist wasn't too insulted and still demanded to fight him, he would soundly defeat them with the bokken, forever shaming them if he didn't outright kill them. In his most famous fight, he arrived at the appointed lakeside dueling place very late and very drunk, and without even his bokken. All he had on him was the wooden oar of the boat he got there in. Outraged, his opponent, Sasaki Kojiro, demanded he produce something to fight with. He proceeded to whittle the boat oar into a makeshift bokken, and handily defeat and kill his opponent with it.

• And he in turn allegedly lost only once - to an elderly monk wielding a hoe.

Pipe bombs. As their name suggests, made from a short length of metal or PVC pipe packed with explosive material. The Unabomber was famous for making ones with nails. One person killed himself with a pipe bomb stuffed with shredded playing cards.

Perhaps one of the most infamous and iconic improvised weapons in the real world is the Molotov Cocktail, a weapon which has such ordinary components as gasoline / petrol, a glass bottle, and some sort of wick or fuse (often a cloth rag). It was successfully used by the Finnish against intruding Russians.

• The original recipe was literally a cocktail, in that components were mixed and shaken up, particularly, a small amount of tar was added to the gasoline to make it stick to the target. Leslie Thomas gives the full recipe in one of his stories where a Spanish Civil War veteran is teaching British Home Guards in World War Two how to make them, tanks, for the disabling of.

The term "platik" in the Philippines refers to both improvised firearms created in back-alley workshops and homemade guns. According to The Other Wiki, the term originated late in the Philippine-American War when guns and ammunition had become scarce. The most common form of the weapon was a gas pipe attached to a rifle stock. Wire was usually wrapped around the barrel to keep the pipe from expanding when the gun is fired. It was muzzle-loaded and fired a medium sized bullet or musket ball. A small hole at the breach end of the barrel accommodated a cigarette or match that was used to ignite the primer, making aiming difficult. This also gave rise to the nickname, "Cigarette Gun". Modern paltik guns can range from crude constructs of pipe and metal to functional copies of real guns. The construction of such weapons was so common in the Danao city area that the government just decided to legalize the clandestine gun-makers rather than go through the headache of trying to clear out all of them.

This Troper works at a grocery store. We sell cans of insect spray, conveniently placed on a shelf right next to the register. That stuff works better than mace or pepper spray and can spray up to 40 feet! Good luck trying to hold up our store without a gun. You could be blinded for the rest of your life in worst-case scenario.

This troper used to do this to "impress" his friends. But now that I know the dangers... I'll be careful.

• The dangers are most certainly exaggerated; have you ever heard of one single instance of an ignited spray exploding the can? Much like the "lit cigarette exploding the gas pump" myth, it doesn't happen in reality. The escaping spray is too cool to transfer heat back from the point where enough oxygen mixes for combustion, a good couple inches forward from the spray nozzle.

Anchors Away (melee weapon???) lol

• The Millwall brick, a club made out of newspaper.
• Discovery Channel had a convict mentioning the combat potential of newspapers folded and/or rolled up tightly enough... Spears... Hammers... keep in mind that paper used to be wood, and only its thinness and flexibility separates it from that mechanically. High density cardboard (which tightly enough rolled newspaper could approximate) doesn't hold a candle to steel for ability to apply bludgeoning force, but it is a lot better than bare hands for reach.