| 9 Absolutely Insane Weapons Of War |
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| ::darkshadows:: (blood@thirsty.net) |
2008/01/28 18:33 |
9 Absolutely Insane Weapons of War
Published on 11/19/2007
Gay bombs:
Strong aphrodisiacs to cause "homosexual behavior"
"Gay bomb" is an informal name for a theoretical non-lethal chemical
weapon, which a United States Air Force research laboratory speculated
about producing.
In 1994 the Wright Laboratory in Ohio produced a three-page proposal
of a variety of possible non lethal chemical weapons, which was later
Project through a Freedom of Information Act request. In one sentence
of the document it was suggested that a strong aphrodisiac could be
dropped on enemy troops, ideally one which would also cause
"homosexual behavior". The aphrodisiac weapon was described as
"distasteful but completely non-lethal". In its "New Discoveries
Needed" section, the document implicitly acknowledges that no such
chemicals are actually known.
The document also included many other off-beat ideas, such as spraying
enemy troops with bee pheromones and then hiding numerous beehives in
the combat area, and a chemical weapon that would give the enemy bad
breath.
Bat bombs:
Incendiary bombs attached to bats
Bat bombs were tiny incendiary bombs attached to bats, that were
developed by the United States during World War II with the hope of
attacking mainland Japan. Four biological factors gave promise to this
plan. First, bats occur in large numbers (four caves in Texas are each
occupied by several million bats). Second, bats can carry more than
twins). Third, bats hibernate, and while dormant they do not require
food or complicated maintenance. Fourth, bats fly in darkness, then
find secretive places (such as flammable buildings) to hide during
daylight.
The plan was to release bomb-laden bats at night over Japanese
industrial targets. The flying bats would disperse widely, then at
dawn they would hide in buildings and shortly thereafter built-in
timers would ignite the bombs, causing widespread fires and chaos. The
bat bomb idea was conceived by dental surgeon Lytle S. Adams, who
submitted it to the White House in January, 1942, where it was
subsequently approved by President Roosevelt. Adams was recruited to
research and obtain a suitable supply of bats.
Who, Me?:
A bad odor weapon to humiliate the enemy
Who Me? was a top secret sulfurous stench weapon developed by the
American Office of Strategic Services during World War II to be used
by the French Resistance against German officers. Who Me? smelled
strongly of fecal matter, and was issued in pocket atomizers intended
to be unobtrusively sprayed on a German officer, humiliating him and,
by extension, demoralizing the occupying German forces.
The experiment was very short-lived, however. Who Me? had a high
concentration of extremely volatile sulfur compounds that were very
difficult to control: more often than not the person who did the
spraying ended up smelling as bad as the sprayed. After only two weeks
it was concluded that Who Me? was a dismal failure. It remains unclear
whether there was a successful Who Me? attack.
Pam Dalton, a cognitive psychologist at the Monell Chemical Senses
Center in Philadelphia, describes the smell of Who Me? as resembling
"the worst garbage dumpster left in the street for a long time in the
middle of the hottest summer ever". A recipe for a kilogram (2.2 lb)
of the same or equivalent substance in circulation on the Internet
specifies 919 g (32.4 oz) of white mineral oil as an inert carrier,
and 20 g (0.7 oz) of skatole, 20 g (0.7 oz) of n-butanoic acid, 20 g
(0.7 oz) of n-pentanoic acid, 20 g (0.7 oz) of n-hexanoic acid and 1 g
(0.04 oz) of pentanethiol as the active ingredients.
Anti-tank dogs:
Hungry dogs with explosives
Anti-tank dogs, also known as dog bombs or dog mines, were hungry dogs
with explosives harnessed to their backs and trained to seek food
under tanks and armoured vehicles. By doing so, a detonator (usually a
small wooden lever) would go off, triggering the explosives and
damaging or destroying the military vehicle.
The dogs were employed by the Soviet Union during World War II for use
against German tanks. The dogs were kept without food for a few days,
then trained to find food under a tank. The dogs quickly learned that
once released from their pens, food could be found under tracked
vehicles. Once trained, the dogs were fitted with an explosive charge
and set loose into a field of oncoming German tanks and other tracked
According to Soviet sources, the anti-tank dogs were successful at
disabling a reported three hundred German tanks. They were enough of a
problem to the Nazi advance that the Germans were compelled to take
measures against them. An armoured vehicle's top-mounted machine gun
proved ineffective due to the relatively small size of the dogs and
the fact that they were low to the ground, fast, and hard to spot.
Orders were dispatched that commanded every German soldier to shoot
any dogs on sight. Eventually the Germans began using tank-mounted
flame-throwers to ward off the dogs. They were much more successful at
dissuading the attacks, but some dogs would not stop.
In 1942, one use of the anti-tank dogs went seriously awry when a
large contingent ran amok, endangering everyone in the battle and
forcing the retreat of an entire Soviet division. Soon afterward the
anti-tank dogs were withdrawn from service. Training of anti-tank dogs
continued until at least June 1996.
Fire balloons:
Incendiary hydrogen balloons
Fire balloons or balloon bombs where hydrogen balloons with a load
varying from a 12 kg (26 lb) incendiary to one 15 kg (33 lb)
antipersonnel bomb and four 5 kg (11 lb) incendiaries attached. They
were launched by Japan during World War II, designed to wreak havoc on
Canadian and American cities, forests, and farmlands. Launch sites
were located on the east coast of the main Japanese island of Honshu.
From the late 1944 until early 1945, the Japanese launched over 9,000
of these fire balloons, of which 300 were found or observed in the
U.S. Some guesswork gives the total number that made the trip at about
1,000. Despite the high hopes of their designers, the balloons were
relatively ineffective as weapons, causing only six deaths and a small
amount of damage, and they survive in memory mostly as an ingenious
and dangerous curiosity. The bombs caused little damage, but their
potential for destruction and fires was large. The bombs also had a
potential psychological effect on the American people. The U.S.
strategy was not to let Japan know of the balloon bombs'
effectiveness. Cooperating with the desires of the government, the
press did not publish any balloon bomb incidents. As a result, the
Japanese only learned of one bomb reaching Wyoming, landing and
failing to explode, so they stopped the launches after less than six
months.
Exploding rats:
Rat carcasses filled with plastic explosives
Exploding rats were a weapon developed by the British army in World
War II for use against Germany. Rat carcasses were filled with plastic
explosives, with the idea that when the rats were shovelled along with
coal into boilers, they would explode, causing significant damage.
However, the first shipment of carcasses was intercepted by the
Germans, and the plan was dropped. The Germans exhibited the rats at
top military schools, and conducted searches for further exploding
rats.
Killer Dolphins:
To seek and destroy submarines using kamikaze methods
A military dolphin is a cetacean trained for military uses. The United
States and Russian militaries have trained and employed oceanic
dolphins for several reasons. Such military dolphins have been trained
to rescue lost divers or to locate underwater mines.
The U.S. Navy openly trains dolphins and sea lions under the U.S. Navy
Marine Mammal Program, which is based in San Diego, California.
Military dolphins were used by the U.S. Navy during the First and
Second Gulf War. About 75 dolphins are in the Navy's marine mammal
program.
The Russian military is believed to have closed its marine mammal
program in the early 1990s. In 2000 the press reported that dolphins
trained to kill by the Soviet Navy had been sold to Iran.
Due to the secrecy of such practice, rumors of military dolphins
include training them to lay underwater mines, to kill enemy
combatants, or to seek and destroy submarines using kamikaze methods.
There has even been speculation about the potential development of
sophisticated equipment, such as poison darts, sonar jamming devices,
and so on for dolphins, and about combat between cetaceans of both
superpowers. The U.S. Navy denies ever having trained its marine
mammals to harm or injure humans in any fashion or to carry weapons to
destroy ships.
Project Pigeon:
A pigeon-guided missile
During World War II, Project Pigeon (or Project Orcon, for "organic
control") was American behaviorist B. F. Skinner's attempt to develop
a pigeon-guided missile.
The control system involved a lens at the front of the missile
projecting an image of the target to a screen inside, while a pigeon
trained (by operant conditioning) to recognize the target pecked at
it. As long as the pecks remained in the center of the screen, the
missile would fly straight, but pecks off-center would cause the
screen to tilt, which would then, via a connection to the missile's
flight controls, cause the missile to change course. Three pigeons
were to control the bomb's direction by majority rule.
Although skeptical of the idea, the National Defense Research
Committee nevertheless contributed $25,000 to the research. However,
Skinner's plans to use pigeons in Pelican missiles was apparently too
radical for the military establishment; although he had some success
with the training, he could not get his idea taken seriously. The
program was cancelled on October 8, 1944, because the military
believed that "further prosecution of this project would seriously
delay others which in the minds of the Division have more immediate
promise of combat application."
Project Orcon was revived in 1948 by the Navy and was finally canceled
in 1953.
Cat Bombs:
To sink German ships
The earliest examples of cats being used in warfare dates back to the
Ancient Egypt during a war against Persia. The Persians, fully aware
of the reverance that Egyptians paid to their felines, rounded up as
many cats as they could find and set them loose on the battlefield.
When the Egyptians were faced with either harming the cats or
surrendering, they chose the latter.
During World War I, cats were used in the trenches as an attempt to
keep the rat population down and some cats were used as poison gas
The most creative way to use a cat as a weapon happened in World War
II. The United States' OSS (Office of Strategic Services, the
precursor of the CIA) needed a way to guide bombs to sink German
ships. Somebody hit upon the inspiration that since cats have such a
strong disdain of getting wet and always land on their feet that if
you attached a cat to a bomb and drop it in the vicinity of a ship,
the cat's instinct to avoid the water would force it to guide the bomb
to the enemy's deck. It is unclear how the cat was supposed to
actually guide a bomb attached to it as it fell from the sky but the
plan never got past the testing stages since the cats had a bad habit
of becoming unconscious mid-drop.
Not to be outdone by its predecessor, the CIA also attempted to use
cats but this time as a bugging device during the Cold War. Although a
disaster as a guided bomb, the CIA thought that a cat would make the
perfect covert listening device in a project known as Operation
Acoustic Kitty. They attempted to surgically alter the cat by placing
a bugging device inside him and running an antenna through its tail.
The project took five years and $15 million dollars before the first
field test hit a slight snag when the bugged kitty was released near a
Russian compound in Washington and was immediately hit by a car while
crossing the street. The project was ended soon after.
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