10 Insane Plans You Won't Believe The Military Tried

4. The Time Russia Tried To Build A Flying Tank

The introduction of the plane to the theatre of battle changed warfare immeasurably, with conflicts previously fought on the ground now having to adapt to account for honking great metal birds raining fiery death from the sky. Dropping bombs from planes isn't a particularly precise art, but it can cause a lot of damage to enemy combatants.

People nowadays can't but theorise what the reasons behind the Antonov A-40 were. Did the Russians want to get better aim with their air-borne weaponry? Did they have a lot of spare tank parts lying around? Did Stalin just love flying?

Regardless of the reasoning, there was very much a period in the forties where the USSR worked on a flying tank. Actually, the idea was that they could both use the tanks in the air but also deliver them onto the battlefield from a plane €“ rather than waiting for them to roll up slowly after being brought to shore aboard a ship along with the rest of the ground forces.

Surprisingly, neither dropping a huge machine from the sky or tying a parachute to it actually worked.