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Another Never-Ending Kitten Thread

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4est_4est_Gump

Run Forrest! RUN!
Joined
Sep 19, 2011
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PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- You're a 16th-century German prince plotting to crush a peasant rebellion, or perhaps you're leading an army against the Ottoman Empire or looking to settle the score with a rival nobleman. What's a guy looking for a tactical edge to do?

Bring on the rocket cats!

Fanciful illustrations from a circa-1530 manual on artillery and siege warfare seem to show jetpacks strapped to the backs of cats and doves, with the German-language text helpfully advising military commanders to use them to "set fire to a castle or city which you can't get at otherwise."
Click to expand...

273cee01-1e7d-49cd-b502-99993cba3777-big.jpg


:cool:
 
Till I joined the Lit forums I had no idea that people were this crazy about kitties.








(Gosh, I hope I manage to squeeze my post into this super popular never-ending kitty lover thread.)
 
Bidin~Time said:
Figure Z?! There were Figures A through Y?
Click to expand...

I saw this on another site. There's a whole book of fanciful weapons some prince-wannabe-king imagined. There is no rocket cat. The idea was to catch a cat from a castle or town you want to invade and tie a flaming bag to its back. Then it runs home, hides in the straw-filled barn and your enemies have a fire inside their walls.

Apparently he thought a dove might work too.

I don't know what A-Y were. The article said the entire book was scanned and is on some academic website.
 
sigh said:
I saw this on another site. There's a whole book of fanciful weapons some prince-wannabe-king imagined. There is no rocket cat. The idea was to catch a cat from a castle or town you want to invade and tie a flaming bag to its back. Then it runs home, hides in the straw-filled barn and your enemies have a fire inside their walls.

Apparently he thought a dove might work too.

I don't know what A-Y were. The article said the entire book was scanned and is on some academic website.
Click to expand...


I suppose he never could quite work out the logistics of how to keep the cat with the flaming bag tied to it's back on task. Even now, cats just don't seem to embrace kamikaze very well.
 
Bidin~Time said:
I suppose he never could quite work out the logistics of how to keep the cat with the flaming bag tied to it's back on task. Even now, cats just don't seem to embrace kamikaze very well.
Click to expand...

And good luck trying to tie anything on a cat that doesn't know you. Especially a barn cat. Easier to tame the Tasmanian Devil of cartoon lore. I think there's a good reason this guy never got to be king.
 
sigh said:
And good luck trying to tie anything on a cat that doesn't know you. Especially a barn cat. Easier to tame the Tasmanian Devil of cartoon lore. I think there's a good reason this guy never got to be king.
Click to expand...

I wonder how many times he tried before he figured out they were uncooperative creatures. It would have been a sight to see.
 
I've never seen ancient Aliens...


;) ;)

I have seen a cat on fire. Boy, that thing was really moving. :D
 
Bidin~Time said:
I suppose he never could quite work out the logistics of how to keep the cat with the flaming bag tied to it's back on task. Even now, cats just don't seem to embrace kamikaze very well.
Click to expand...

There were some modern attempts at using animals as weapons. The Russians tried training dogs, carrying explosives, to run under German tanks. A projecting rod would trigger the explosive, detonating the charge - and the dog.

It worked in theory. But at first the Russians made a fundamental mistake. They trained the dogs using RUSSIAN tanks. The smell of a Russian tank and a German tank was different. The dogs chose to head for the Russian tank.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog
 
The US failed too...

In 1943, U.S. forces considered using armed dogs against fortifications. The aim was for a dog to run into a bunker carrying a bomb, which would then be detonated by a timer. Dogs in this secret program were trained at Fort Belvoir. The dogs, called "demolition wolves", were taught to run to a bunker, enter it, and sit whilst waiting for a simulated explosion. Each dog carried a bomb strapped to its body in canvas pouches, as with the Russian method. The program was terminated on December 17, 1943 out of safety concerns. During the training, dogs often returned to the senders without entering the bunker or waiting there for supposed period of time which would have caused friendly casualties in a live fire situation. It was feared that in the actual battle, dogs would return much more often, scared by enemy fire. Attempts to continue the program in 1944 and 1945 failed.

William A. Prestre, a Swiss citizen living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, proposed using large dogs to kill Japanese soldiers. He convinced the military to lease an entire island in the Mississippi River to house the training facilities. There the army hoped to train as many as two million dogs. The idea was to begin island invasions with landing craft releasing thousands of dogs against the Japanese defenders, then followed up by troops as the Japanese defenders scattered in confusion. One of the biggest problems encountered was getting Japanese soldiers to train the dogs, as very few Japanese soldiers were being captured. Eventually, Japanese-American soldiers volunteered for the training. The biggest problem was the dogs, as they were either too docile, did not respond to training teaching them to rush across beaches, or were terrified by shellfire. After millions of dollars were spent, the program was abandoned.
 
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