I stopped in there on my way from Philadelphia to Baltimore--and it was well worth the trip. Sorry about the picture quality--I was using the cheap Photosmart E427, and under low light conditions, when you aren't close enough for the flash to fully illuminate the target, the results are something a bit disappointing.
I would have to say that this is the dumbest idea in the history of warfare--the nuclear mortar.
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Here's the explanatory display:
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I just love the warning labels on the warhead:
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Yes, I suppose that you would handle with care!
I think that I have mentioned the Liberator single shot pistol before--one of those ideas that sounds like something out of a gun nut fantasy--drop cheap, single shot pistols over France, and the Resistance will use them to kill a German soldier, take his rifle or submachine gun, and repeat.
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In practice, it didn't work this way. The barrels weren't rifled, so they were very inaccurate, and the French Resistance was courageous--not stupid! It wasn't easy to get close enough to a single German soldier to kill him with one of these, and if there were two German soldiers, shooting the first just got you killed by the second, while you were frantically trying to reload.
Here's the infamously ugly M3 grease gun. These were made by GM's Guide Lamp Division during World War II because they were largely metal stampings--something that Guide Lamp Division knew how to do well.
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It isn't apparent from the picture, but one of the barrels is the curved version, intended for shooting around corners, or from inside tanks without sticking your head up. I didn't realize until I saw this display that it wasn't just the Germans who came up with ideas this strange.
This picture looks like a bunch of older rifles, right?
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Except in person, you can see that these are huge rifles, rather like the Barrett Light .50 of their day.
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A point that doesn't get made enough is that the American System (as it was known in Britain, ironically, since we only improved on the British System) or sometimes the Armory Practice, plays a major part in creating the modern world of inexpensive, high quality mass produced stuff. I was pleased to see the Ordnance Museum display on this point:
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Not quite as silly as the nuclear mortar, is the Atomic Cannon:
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They have an astonishing number of tanks and similar armored vehicles outside in all directions, but it was cold, covered in snow, and in places, slippery with ice, so I didn't walk out there.
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Oh, and here's the big brother to the Atomic Cannon, and it looks the part:
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