Hello everyone,
I received a PM yesterday about a weird weapon someone saw on the history channel. This got me thinking not only about weird weapons, but creative and novel ways people have conducted war in general.
One of the instances of creative warfare which comes to mind off the top of my head was thought up by the Mongols. They are most likely responsible for the first use of biological war in history, at the siege of Caffa. In true Mongol fashion, they wanted to leave none alive and with the plague decimating their army, well...
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It is probable that the Mongols and merchant caravans inadvertently brought the plague from central Asia to the Middle East and Europe. The plague was reported in the trading cities of Constantinople and Trebizond in 1347. In that same year, the Genoese possession of Caffa, a great trade emporium on the Crimean peninsula, came under siege by an army of Mongol warriors under the command of Janibeg, backed by Venetian forces. After a protracted siege during which the Mongol army was reportedly withering from the disease, they might have decided to use the infected corpses as a biological weapon. The corpses were catapulted over the city walls, infecting the inhabitants.[4] The Genoese traders fled, transferring the plague via their ships into the south of Europe, whence it rapidly spread. According to accounts, so many died in Caffa that the survivors had little time to bury them and bodies were stacked like cords of firewood against the city walls.
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From
my favorate encyclopedia.
So, feel free to post your favorites or your own creative ideas. Go.