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Comment by patio11 | Hacker News Reader

Not to mention the aircraft carriers made out of ice, the campaign to firebomb Japanese cities using bats with incendiaries tied to them, or the brilliant idea to starve out Japanese island garrisons by airdropping pigs onto them in the hope that the pigs would eat the grains before the Japanese ate the pigs (failed).

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My favorite messed up weapons from WW II.

The Americans came up with an anti-tank grenade that was really sticky so that it would stay to the tank it was thrown at. Discontinued due to an unfortunate tendency to remain in the thrower's hand.

The Russians (land of Pavlov and all that) came up with the idea of dogs with bombs strapped to their backs that had learned to associate the under side of tanks with food. Great idea, and it might have worked, if the Russian trainers had access to German tanks for the training. Unfortunately when first deployed the dogs proved able to tell Russian tanks apart from German ones, and immediately put the Russians in full retreat.

(I found these in a book of world's worsts that I read many, many years ago.)

(You meant "The Russians (land of Pavlov...", right?)

Thanks, corrected.

The wikipedia article about the sticky bomb - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_bomb - notes that it was made by the British for use in the event of a German invasion, and so only saw limited front-line use in North Africa and by the French Resistance.

There is also info about the Soviet anti-tank dog program at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog#Deployment_by_the...

You missed my favorite one. B.F. Skinner had a WWII weapons program that trained pigeons for use as the guidance system of bombs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon ). From a video I saw (but now cannot find) the pigeons were trained to peck at the shape of a warship. Then they would peck at video of a ship which worked to keep the bomb centered on the warship as it fell by directing the fins to where the pigeon pecked.

What about bombs bouncing on water or giant weaponized Catherine Wheels:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panjandrum

Wow, never heard about that one. Did they never duct-tape bottle rockets together as kids? Might have taught them a little humility and saved some time.

Duct tape, IIRC, was only invented in World War II, so no :-)

There were actually successful attacks with water-skipping bombs. In some cases it was the only way to get the bombs to the target due to the low angle needed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise

The technology was innovative, but the results were mixed. Almost half the aircrews died, and the main casualties of the resulting floods were forced laborers and POWs.

Developed largely by engineer (and later famous novelist) Nevil Shute.

The history of the Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development is incredible. Their exploits make an episode of the A-Team look plausible.

http://www.uboat.net/books/reviews.html/title/2349

If anyone is interested in the "aircraft carrier made out of ice", you can find out more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete

Mythbusters had an episode about it http://mythbustersresults.com/alaska-special-2

> aircraft carriers made out of ice

Pykrete, really - a combination of wood and ice. And the idea had merit - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk for lots of interesting details.

Someone should do a post or web comic about pig projectiles in warfare.

Also bats with firebombs attached to them. Surely that's almost as good as sharks with laser beams on their heads.

"Bats with frickin Napalm!"

Pig projectiles?

What about nukes kept warm by live chickens:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peacock

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