Creative Ways to Conduct War

[Blarg]

The bat bomb thing is pretty funky and cool.

There was an article I was just able to bring up on Yahoo about the Navy training dolphins for war, but my browser crashed before I could read it. They've worked with dolphins before, attaching magnetic bombs to their backs to stick to ships with, and training some to attack divers.

[Josem]

HU4Countries?

[LeapFrog]

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The bat bomb thing is pretty funky and cool.

There was an article I was just able to bring up on Yahoo about the Navy training dolphins for war, but my browser crashed before I could read it. They've worked with dolphins before, attaching magnetic bombs to their backs to stick to ships with, and training some to attack divers.

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I remember reading something about this as well. A quick google search yielded this:

http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sandiego/...s/animals.html

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The development, training, veterinary care, and research facility that supports today's Navy Marine Mammal Program is centered in the Biosciences Division of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center San Diego (SSC San Diego). However, the Navy's work with marine mammals has been going on for many years. It got its start in the late 1950s when the Navy began to study the unique attributes of marine mammals such as the hydrodynamics of the dolphin. By understanding how dolphins move in the water, perhaps the Navy could improve torpedo, ship, and submarine designs. Soon the Navy realized that dolphins would be valuable assistants to Navy divers working in the open ocean. Unlike human divers, dolphins are capable of making repeated deep dives without experiencing the bends or decompression sickness. They also found that dolphins and sea lions are highly reliable, adaptable, and trainable marine animals that could be conditioned to search for, detect, and mark the location of objects in the water.


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under mine hunting

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The MK 4 MMS uses dolphins for detecting and/or marking the location of sea mines that are tethered off the ocean bottom. These deep-water mines are easy targets for the dolphin's highly effective echolocation. The MK 4 MMS offers reliable and effective mine detection, classification, and marking capabilities in areas that are highly cluttered or where rough seabed, high marine growth, and other complex acoustic conditions hamper the performance of Navy hardware systems.


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I would be curious to hear Exsubmariner's thoughts on this.

[diebitter]

I do love the stories of how the Allies used all sorts of ingenious means to fight the Germans. Sometimes it was technical (like the bouncing bombs), but often it was misinformation, as already mentioned.

This is off the top of my head, so could be wrong in certain elements, but right in spirit. Wehn the Allies finally took North Africa, their next goal was invasion northwards. One of the most obvious points to do this from Africa was Sicily, but they knew the German strategists were no fools, and would know that was a prime point. So Operation Mincemeat (I think) was born, and the British searched from a man in his mid 30's who had just died of pneumonia. They needed a man of this age to represent a specific rank - too young or old wouldn't be believable, and this rank would be the correct one for carrying certain documents.... A person dying this way has the same appearance and features as a drowned man, which is what they needed.

They located a recently dead man, and asked his family for the body - permission was given, on the grounds he never be identified.

Anyway, the man was dressed in a specific rank, with a suitcase of documents handcuffed to him, and then the body was dropped at sea off the Spanish coast (in the Mediterranean). This was found an hour later by a Spanish fishing ship.

While Spain was neutral, it was pro-Fascist, and info gathered by the Spanish always got back to the Nazi high command. And so did these documents. They detailed plans of invasion via Sardinia and France, along with plans to create a misinformation campaign to make the Germans think Sicily would be the point of invasion.

The German moved troops, weapons and fortifications from Siclity to Sardinia, and even when Sicily was attacked, it took them 2 weeks to actually accept Sicily was indeed the invasion point - by which time it was too late for them.

Commentators believe this plan saved thousands of allied lives.

[katyseagull]

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this is the greatest Lounge post ever. I love that there were actually "bat-bombs" in the world.

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Cool! Glad someone else is as captivated with this concept as I am [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

If I get any free time at work today I plan to do some more reading on innovative weapons and warfare. I love this kind of historical stuff. Thanks for doing this thread, exsubmariner.

[AJW]

I watched the Documentary that accompanied the book and it did all appear to be above board The Men who stare at goats. In short the US Army is paying solders to try and stare goats to death. The whole thing seamed mad and I wonder if it isn’t some kind of elaborate misdirection by the US army.

[WhoIam]

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I watched the Documentary that accompanied the book and it did all appear to be above board The Men who stare at goats. In short the US Army is paying solders to try and stare goats to death. The whole thing seamed mad and I wonder if it isn’t some kind of elaborate misdirection by the US army.

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Highly recommended. The best part was the guy in charge of the program (colonel or general) talking about trying to walk through walls.

[entertainme]

A biblical example. Jehoshaphat sent out "those who were to sing to the Lord and praise him" before his army , 2 Chronicles 21-24:

21 And when he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the LORD and praise him in holy array, as they went before the army, and say, "Give thanks to the LORD, for his steadfast love endures for ever." 22 And when they began to sing and praise, the LORD set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Se'ir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed. 23 For the men of Ammon and Moab rose against the inhabitants of Mount Se'ir, destroying them utterly, and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Se'ir, they all helped to destroy one another. 24 When Judah came to the watchtower of the wilderness, they looked toward the multitude; and behold, they were dead bodies lying on the ground; none had escaped.

Imagine getting that assignment....

"So, I'm going to be on the front line?"
"Right."
"We'll be using swords, or maybe slingstones? "
"Actually we'll be giving you cymbals to play while you sing...."

[ChipWrecked]

Stargate Project

Remote viewing as researched by U.S. Army and the CIA.


I remember reading once about an operation during WWII where the U.S. tried to use a Japanese belief about seeing a glowing fox meaning you were about to die. Oddly enough, the only reference I could Google contained this:

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As weird as the bat bombs were, somebody in the US Department of Finding Obscure Ways to Win The War discovered a Japanese folk legend that, if you saw a glowing fox, it was an omen of death, and …

Foxes. Luminous paint. Submarine delivery. Do the math.

It’s not that we try to get animals to fight for us (war dogs go way back), it”s that we try to get militarized animals to do bizarre things.

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And of course, my all-time favorite 'creative way to conduct a war', The Philadelphia Experiment

[Exsubmariner]

Blarg,
Those "explosives" you are refering too were often times the carcasses of rotting pigs or other animals (but pigs were best). The Methane gas would be allowed to build up in the tunnel and then a fuse would be lit to detonate the gas. It would do wonders with the foundations.