Every year the military throws millions of dollars at research it develop new and more advanced weaponry. But the world of military science is not all lasers and guided missiles. Sometimes, just sometimes, the highly educated military scientists will forego the use of sophisticated weapon technology, and just strap bombs to various critters instead.
Bat bombs weren’t bombs that looked like bats, or a clever name that soldiers gave to mini-bombs dropped in the night. Bat bombs were literally live bats with incendiary bombs attached to them. Back in World War 2, they were still pretty creative with their military tactics, and by creative we mean they just strapped bombs to everything. Back then, everything was about the war, and people couldn’t help but wonder about the combat-application of everything they saw.
What an adorable little… bomb.
The idea was conceived by a dental surgeon, not a soldier, not a military scientist, a civilian. A civilian that clearly had a distaste for flying nocturnal mammals. The idea was that since bats can carry more than their own weight, they fly around at night, hide in crevices of buildings during the day, and require no maintenance, they could be the perfect bomb carriers.
The experiments proved very successful – the experimental bats caused a mock japanese village to burst into flames. However, the project was scrapped because well, the atomic bomb did its thing.
In World War 2, many dogs were trained to search for food under tank-like vehicles. These unlucky pups were employed by the Soviet Union for use against German tanks. However, if I were paid in Soviet dog food, I would not consider myself employed.
Worst. Job. Ever.
The poor dogs were outfitted with a bomb vest that would be triggered by a lever once under a tank or vehicle. The project was cancelled when one particular horde of bomb dogs decided they just wanted to be make friends with the alliance soldiers and cuddle. Which as you can imagine caused some chaos.
