Are There Secret Weapons?
first being strictly logical if there are secret weapons we would not know about them if we knew about them they wouldn't be secret but we can look to the past were there operational weapons in the past that were secret at the time and only later became public knowledge and also to look at the reason of weapons in the first place
now there are obviously several things a nation would want to keep secret in regards to defense things like the exact effective range of weapons, their top speed the exact manner and how they work, their characteristics, etc, for example the radar cross-section of an F-22 but the weapons himself are not secret we know of the F-22 what weapons it carries and alike, but having the weapon itself secret seems counterintuitive most people may not think about it but weapons are for more than just fighting wars you could say that's only half of their purpose the other half is deterrence it's saying to a potential enemy look what I have if you attack I can defend myself
this is why the U.S. releases endless images and video of their military and Russia is quick to release video of new weapons like the nuclear power cruise missile and hypersonic weapons they aren't keeping the secret they want the world to know of them and get the full value of these weapons even though most of them will likely never be used in combat, if the weapons are only meant for war then one could say that all the nuclear weapons in this example and most weapons in general that were built are a waste of money as they are not used if you have a secret weapon you completely lose half the value of that weapon
there are some platforms that are not necessarily weapons that might be kept secret those include things used in surveillance and reconnaissance examples could include things like U-2 spy plane the SR-71 and newer self drones such as The RQ-170 one exception to this could be the F-117 it became operational in 1983 and was not publicly announced until 1988 however during those years the aircraft were all kept at Tonopah test range arguably one could say still undergoing testing and evaluation the aircraft wasn't used in combat until after it was made public in Panama in 1989 and more famously in Iraq during the Gulf War a few years later which brings me to another point weapons and weapon platforms might be kept secret during development before they're operational this is common as you might not want the enemies know exactly what you are designing and give them time to develop a counter or in an extreme case in vain you before it's operational an obvious example of this would be nuclear weapons development if a potential enemy knows that you are working on nuclear weapons it could be more likely that they would attack you before those weapons are operational
one major issue I see with trying to keep a weapon secret is deploying them if it was an Air launched missile for example you'd have to have them ready for use that means maintenance crews would need to know about them the pilot would have to know all about them ground crews and on and on that's a lot of people especially over the years as service members or cycled through all of which you would need to keep quiet
going back to the F-117 there were reports of the aircraft that got out before it was made public now there is an exception to this and that is what I call illegal weapons those would be weapons that you are not supposed to have whether it is due to international law public perception etc this often includes things like nuclear biological and chemical weapons even offensive cyber weapons could be included here Israel is an example they are widely known to possess nuclear weapons but if not publicly confirmed this
there are likely many countries in the world that possess chemical and biological weapons and keep them secret however it could also at times include more conventional weapons one example could be Russia in regards to the INF treaty the US has for years claimed Russia is in violation of the treaty this however is more due to the exact range of these weapons being secret and not the weapon itself another one could include the X-37 and weaponization of space in general while not strictly illegal placing these weapons in space would definitely fall under that public perception part of my illegal weapons definition
