In a covert operation, the life of a secret service officer depends on the kind of weapons he/she has. Contrary to the common perception, intelligence officers do not just need handguns, but rather need disguised weapons that enemies cannot comprehend. In an effort to save the lives of these brave individuals, weapon designers have come up with a plethora of spy weapons that hide their true ability under a humble camouflage. Here are some of the best real life spy weapons that are designed to protect a brave officer from his/her enemies.
Exploding Rats
During World War II, the British intelligence came up with a brilliant idea of exploding rats to prevent Nazi Party from accomplishing their rule. The idea first came up in 1941, when allies needed a way to get explosives to destroy factories of the Germans. The method that was used to design this gadget was to take a rat skin, fill it with plastic explosives, and then mix the corpses into coal supply, which caused an explosion.
The Bulgurian Poison Umbrella
The most famous real –life spy gadget is the Poison Umbrella that was first used by Bulgarian secret services and was developed by KGB technician for the killing of Georgi Mrkov. The Poison Umbrella consisted of a tiny gun that shot a pellet without producing any sound and was filled with a deadly toxin, dubbed ricin, which could kill a person in seconds.
Stinger
Originally, Stinger is the pen gun model of the OSS. The original model of the device had a drawback as it was designed for close range use and was a single shot weapon that couldn’t be reloaded, hence to overcome this set back, stingers were remodeled as pen guns, which had the ability to reload and fold.
Flamethrower glove
Designed by Patrick Priebe, is a hand-mounted weapon, consisting of four lithium batteries, a NE555 circuit board and butane. A transformer is fitted to the glove, which is used to fire a shot right from the palm.
Pistol in form of keychain
Keychain pistol is an incredibly small weapon designed by the Bulgarian Secret Services for covert operations but was made available for public. The pistol designed in the form of keychain, consisting of a .32 caliber bullet or a compressed gas shell. The main drawback of this pistol is that the shot is only accurate at close range and requires ton of recoil. Therefore, they were categorized as handguns by ATF that could only be purchased with legal documents.
Summary
Real spy weapons mentioned here are designed with the aim to help the spy in the most effective way. These weapons are very realistic far from your imagination that you see in the movies, as these weapons are designed for deadly purposes they are really dangerous with many advantages and disadvantages. Some of these weapons were banned and some were never launched.