This week was the 50th anniversary of Lego, the building blocks which kept many of us occupied for hours on end while we were growing up. I know Lego is not the most obvious subject for a post on a military history blog, especially as throughout its history Lego has maintained its distance from 'realistic' military subjects. But that didn't stop me from building ridiculously over the top tanks etc when I was a kid. And their pirates were cool.
Now, while I may have grown out of Lego, some people obviously did not. In fact, some of them have taken the boyish weapon building to extremes. Take a look at these machines made out of Lego - simply awesome, if somewhat scary.
However, that is nothing compared to this - a Lego Gatling gun, which fires hundreds a elastic bands!
Here is a great video of it in action...
And here is a montage of other Lego-based weapons, including an excellent trebuchet.
I still have all of my old Lego stashed away somewhere. I haven't used it for years, but somehow cant quite bring myself to bin it, and having seen that trebuchet in action, my fingers seem to be itching...I wonder how far it could throw a tennis ball?