The WWII gun attachment that destroyed its own bullets

A closer look

Shooting around corners sounds like a brilliant video game mechanic, but the real-world physics are an absolute nightmare. In WWII, desperate German engineers created the Krummerlauf, a curved barrel attachment for the StG 44 assault rifle meant to let soldiers fire from behind cover or from inside tanks. The reality? Forcing a supersonic projectile to take a 30-degree turn exerts insane friction. The attachment essentially acted as a blender: bullets routinely shattered into useless, unpredictable shrapnel, and the intense stress warped or blew up the attachment after a mere 300 rounds. Turns out, trying to cheat basic ballistics just gives you a really expensive, self-destructing metal tube.