"Weirdest ever use of animals in warfare" Topic

Thinking about historical stuff, not fantasy/sf.

I seem to remember that the US Navy tried to train dolphins to use nose-mounted pistols at one time, but this would not count, as it never was actually used in battle.

OTOH, IIUC, Genghis Khan once tied flaming torches to the tails of a bunch of house pets, and let the terrified animals run back into the Chinese city from which they came, to burn it down. This WOULD count, if it is not apocryphal.

So, let's hear it? Did the British ever mount cannons on hippopotamuses and send them to attack armored Mahdist War Flamingoes on the Nile?

Regards

The plan to drop incendiary bats over japan? (Not ever quite deployed… but reasnably well developed when cancelled and decidedly strange)

The flaming pigs used by the romans to combat Pyruss's elepants?

what about 'stampeeding sheep' thru a minefield etc????

I seem to recall something about some sort of burning bundles or whatever dragged behind horses or other fast, small animals….in some historical reference…. strapping dynamite on smaller animals…or a cat and setting tail on fire???

(hey, I never said I approved of this sort of thing!)…

throwing grain-bags via catapult with rats infected with fleas carrying plague etc?????

The Battle of Tanga in 1914 had swarms of wasps. They were impartial, though.

Alleged use of flaming camel carts against elephants by Tamerlane (sp) during invasion of north India.

Cattle to distract Greys and their desire to see what makes Earthlings tick?

They're already mentioned , but the Roman " flaming pigs " get my vote , imagine being the guy whose duty it is to "light 'em up " .

I read Hannibal flung poison snakes onto enemy ships via catapult in one naval battle.

LLC aka Ron

During the First Opium War, the Chinese decided an ideal way to counter the British warships threatening their littoral fortifications would be…firework monkeys. I know, you and I would have said "effective shore batteries" but then we're not 19thC Chinese mandarins.

Anyhoo, the idea was that stalwart crews would row their small boats very near the British ships. On board they would have the aforementioned simians, liberally festooned with fireworks. Following ignition, it was expected that the panicked primates would scurry up the side of the British vessels and seek refuge in the rigging, where the fiery nature of their burdens would wreak havoc.

The plan failed on several fronts. First, the crews were not too keen on rowing their very small boats anywhere near a British man-o-war, let alone under the chains. Second, the Royal Navy was still keen on small arms practice. Any tar or bootneck whose job was picking off French officers from the maintop during the concentrated hell of a fleet action was going to have a field day with a few Chinamen in a rowboat full of monkeys. Lastly, monkeys are uncooperative creatures at the best of times. Even a well trained animal, when burdened with incendiaries and then set alight, will not come around to your way of thinking.

All in all, a spectacular failure, and quite a come down for the people who gave us moveable type.

Supposedly, dolphins were used to protect nuke boats during the Cold War, so I think that should count, and they should all be given medals (just not ones you pin on them). Since there was some real shooting during the war, I think that counts, at least in my book.

Perhaps an extra ration of their favorite fish, and a new ball, or jellyfish to play with.

Pigeons, for carrying messages comes to mind.

I read an account that in WW2 Americans painted foxes with glow in the dark paint and released them to spook the Japanese.

During WW2 the Russians trained dogs with explosive devices attached to run under German tanks where the the device would ignite and blow up the tank – a sort of mobile mine field…..

regards
Thomas

Nevertheless, it still seems to me that sitting on them is weirdest.

I just read about a small battle in Afrca in WWI where german askaris shot down beehives hanging in the trees above the dug in english.

Unintentional, it seems, but still.

Nikola, sitting on dogs with explosives seems like a bad idea.

I seemed to remember something about dead rats being used to hide explosives, used by the British or French resistance to blow up German trains…

Psychologist B. F. Skinner had Pidgeons trained to fly and deliver explosives to precise targets during WW2 – by all accounts he trained them well and they had a good success rate. The Allies pulled the plug on the funding however as they found the concept 'too strange' !

Look for the story of the Firebulls of Jimo. The story happened during the Warring States period in China, 2nd or 3th Century AC :

"General Tian Dan believed the time is right for them to attack the army of Yan. He could not engage in one-to-one fight. He would lose the battle, since he had about five thousands soldiers, and the enemy had more than ten times the number of soldiers.

General Tian Dan gathered a thousand oxen. He ordered his men to dress up the oxen to give them the "dragon" looks. He ordered his men to tie sharp daggers to the horns of the oxen, tied the dried woods to the back of the oxen.

In the middle of the night, the army of Qi opened the city wall of Ji Mo city. They released the oxen in the direction of the Yan army camp. They set fire to the dried woods tied on the back of the oxen. The angry oxen charged into the Yan camp, aroused the sleeping soldiers, and set the camp on fire.

In the darkness of the night, the burning oxen looked like dragons descending from heaven.

General Tian Dan led his five thousands soldiers to attack the Yan army. Numerous Yan soldiers perished in the battle.

General Tian Dan won the battle of Ji Mo. He went on to lead the Qi army to restore all the seventy cities that the State of Yan had captured."

And yet, Hendrix, the Soviets have always strived for robustness – picture

The Finns used reindeer. Scouts rode them during the Middle Ages and in the Russo-Finnish War of 1940 they were still used as pack animals.

Wow – scouts riding reindeer, how cool a set of minis would that be?

Mr. Pumblechook, it was the Japanese that planned to drop incendiary bats over the US.

And, while yes, the Russians did train mine dogs, in actual combat, the dogs attacked Russians tanks – that's what they were trained to do, so that's what they did as far as the dogs were concerned. The use of mine dogs was swiftly curtailed…

And flaming pigs are my favorite idea – scare the heck out of the enemy and get some barbeque in the process…

The scouts riding reindeer is a pure myth, as anyone who has stood beside a reindeer can testify.
They can be used to pull sleighs, though.

(The same goes for elk cavalry, though it's not the size that's the main problem. I've heard that it was briefly contemplated when sweden had an awful shortage of horses, but dismissed without being tested.
Elks are awkward animals, quick to anger, and probably impossible to tame. (They are solitary animals.))

I had read somewhere that elk (moose) were tested in Finland, found to be tameable and rideable, but unlike horses they are largely solitary animals so don't stick together in stressful situations. So instead of doing a massed cavalry charge towards noisy, dangerous things like their riders wanted them to do, the moose scattered in all directions.

Mr. Pumblechook, it was the Japanese that planned to drop incendiary bats over the US.

No, Project X-ray was an American project, not Japanese:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb

-Will

Well there's always the war rhinos used by the Persians…

Damon.

The Japanese used small balloons with incendiary devices. IIRC, only one was successful, starting a small forest fire in the Pacific Northwest that was quickly extinguished.

Jim

In WWII, the U.S. used American soldiers of Japanese descent to train dogs to attack Japanese men on sight (or smell). The idea was to release the dogs on Pacific islands occupied by Japanese troops. Thankfully, the project was deemed unsuccessful* and abandoned.

*(Not to mention cruel to both dogs and men.)

It's a myth, Stronty Girl.
It makes a good story, but it's a myth.

(And if it was in Finland before 1809 it was in Sweden. The eastern half of the country. ;-) )

Here's a BBC story about russians trying to tame elk enough to milk them
link

Their back isn't suited to carrying heavy loads.
After all the horse has had many thousand years of domestication to get to the usable state they are in.

link

The Viet Cong hung poisonous snakes from the ceilings of their tunnels.

Pigeons were trained to fly into propellers as an anti-bomber defense in WW2.

But flaming Roman pigs is probably the winner.

Andrew

Anyhoo, the idea was that stalwart crews would row their small boats very near the British ships. On board they would have the aforementioned simians, liberally festooned with fireworks. Following ignition, it was expected that the panicked primates would scurry up the side of the British vessels and seek refuge in the rigging, where the fiery nature of their burdens would wreak havoc.

I find myself waiting for Les Nessman's WKRP on-scene report of this event.

Cattle stampede at Rourke's Drift.

It is believed that during the Trojan War (assuming that the fortified city they found in modern-day Turkey is Troy), the Trojans filled large urns with scorpions, and then catapulted them into the greek lines. The scorpions, who wouldn't be happy after flying several hundred+ feet per second through the air, would emerge from the broken crockery and then proceed to sting anything within sight.

I like this one:

link

Not particularly strange, mind, but cool.

"…trained pigeons to fly into propellers…"?

Hmmm, I'm intrigued by that.

It seems to me that the first training session would end in almost certain death for the pigeons, unless they were flying very, very quickly, and were lucky enough to fly between the rotating blades.

I recall hearing a story where the CIA had operatives in Cuba and wanted to disrupt it's economy by ruining the sugar cane crops.

They rounded up stray cats, tied oily rags to their tails and lit them and set them loose in the the fields.

In the 12th century, King Henry I of England ordered his men to launch 'nest bombs' into the middle of the Duke of Lorraine's marauding army in Normandy.I am sure a WAB Roman player mentioned insects being hurled at Roman soldiers during a siege too.This probably led on to the famous 'holy hand grenade'

At Ascalon the crusader army as it advanced to attack the Fatimid camp was joined by the herds of animals surrounding the camp; it made the crusader army appear bigger than it was, and according to some accounts the animals stampeded at the same time as the crusader cavalry charge, thus augmenting it. None of this was intentional but it worked to wreak greater havoc on the Fatimid defense….

I seem to recall a story of a castle besieged by the First Crusade being manned only by sheep, the garrison having disappeared during the night.

Cattle stampedes at Cinco de Mayo.

I stand corrected. I can't remember where I read about that now, but I thought for sure it was t'other way around!

Well I've seen photographic proof of Finnish troops using pack reindeer in the Winter War so they can carry some sort of load.
And the Medieval use was SCOUTS not cavalry. So if you mounted a small man or boy with minimal armament ( a few javelins maybe) then youp've got a pair of eyes on some extra legs for mobility. No mention of cavalry charges at all.
And yeah, they do make cool minis. I've got a friend with a taste for the off the wall subjects and converting figures.

Henrix – a myth? There goes my idea for a moose cavalry re-enactment society, then! link

You can ride reindeer if you aren't too big picture

Or cattle or water buffalo: picture
link

It matters little whether the animal's back is not strong enough (unless it snaps like a twig the first time you sit on it). You make it stronger by knackering generations of animals before such things as animal welfare and veterinarians were invented.

It is well documented that dead animal carcasses were catapulted into besieged cities to help the spread of diseases. The splatter effect would have been enough for me!!!

I find the whole thing about equiping thousands of bipedal hairless apes with guns and uniforms kina weired.
We even put them in flying machines . that just stupids apes can't fly