The Stupidest Ideas in Warfare

I began this post thinking that I was going to focus on one specific example of a nation attempting to use animals in warfare. Any students of psych may have even heard of my original idea: project pigeon. However, as I began researching, I found a lot more examples of extraordinarily stupid projects to use animals in warfare. For some reason, it seems that many of the largest, most advanced governments on the planet have funded a project to strap explosives to animals as a tactic in war. Even stranger: every single example was conceived during World War II. I couldn’t pick one because they were all idioic to the point of hilarity. Enjoy… (Anyone who is sensitive to animal violence or cruelty should avoid this post.)

Project Pigeon: 

Project Pigeon was behaviorist B.F. Skinner’s attempt to use pigeons as a missile guidance system. Skinner, commonly known in psychology as the father of operant conditioning, developed a system to train and reinforce pigeons to recognize enemy ships. At this point, Skinner and his team planned for the pigeon to be placed in a special missile containing a capsule for the pigeon with a screen in front of it. The screen would show the view from in front of the missile, and the pigeons were trained to peck at the ship on the screen. These pecks would be used to adjust and guide the missile to the ship. The missile could even readjust at any point as the pigeons kept pecking at the ship. The project was eventually scrapped in 1944 and in 1953 the U.S. developed reliable electronic guidance systems.

Bat Bombs: 

The most interesting part of the bat bomb idea, besides the ridiculousness of the idea itself, is the man who first came up with the idea: Lytle Adams. Adams, instead of being a military strategist or engineer, was a dental surgeon from Irwin, PA. His amazing idea was to invent a bomb which would house hundreds of bats. These bats would all be strapped with incendiary devices which were times to ignite at once. The bomb was planned to be dropped over mainland Japan which contained mainly wood and paper constructions. The bats would be released in the air where they would fly out and nest in eaves and attics around the city. Then, all the incendiaries would ignite setting the city ablaze. However, the idea never made it to fruition.

Explosive Rats:

This idea came straight from the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). Their grand plan was to fill rat corpses with plastic explosives and drop them near German boiler rooms. The Germans would think little of the rats, and they would hopefully dispose of them by burning. Once the rats were thrown into the boilers, they would explode and cripple the structure. The SOE even tried to implement their tactic; however, the first shipment of rats was intercepted and the idea was foiled. Despite the failure, the German army would, throughout the rest of the war, spend so many resources checking for more boobie trapped rats that the operation was declared a success. 

Anti-tank Dogs:

The idea of anti-tank dogs originated in the USSR. Dogs would be strapped with explosives and trained to carry them to German tanks to cripple them. Originally, the dogs were trained to drop the explosives off and run. Unfortunately, this routine was determined to be too inefficient, and eventually it was replaced with an impact-detonation. Unlike the other ideas, anti-tank dogs were actually used by the Soviet Union between 1941 and 1942. However, the idea did not go exactly as planned. The dogs, even after training, were very hesitant to run up to the large, intimidating tanks. Dogs would also sometimes run back to the trenches in fear and explode on the Soviet troops. Eventually, the use declined, yet Russia kept training anti-tank dogs until 1996.