mine-dogs and other bioweapons

'Lo folks; a couple of things about animal weapons; from the Zaloga book
"The Red Army in the Great Patriotic War 1941-5" (Osprey), the Russians
started working on mine-dogs in '41, and persisted "at least until
Kursk".
The load was about 10-12 kg.  The Germans claimed they were ineffective,
but
the Russians claimed 12 tanks killed at Kursk by 16 dogs, which sounds
pretty good to me.  The Germans did make a point of shooting dogs on
sight
just to be on the safe side.  Considering the minimal investment, the
annoyance value alone was probably worth it.

	A partisan trick involving dogs was to sprinkle tiny fragments
of
explosives along railway lines etc.  German sniffer dogs would find
these,
be punished for pointing at "nothing", and quickly learned to ignore
demo
charges.

	A British anti-submarine proposal involved using submarines to
provide fish for seagulls.  The idea was that the birds would associate
the
boats with food, and enemy boats could be spotted by watching out for
clouds
of expectant gulls.  

	An American bright ideas department made a Viet Cong detector
for
use in tunnel complexes.  It relied on bedbugs, which among other
charmless
habits shriek (ultrasonically) with delight when they smell a mammal. 
The
bugs sat in a box which would show a light when its electronics heard
the
shriek.  The geniuses failed to realise that American soldiers are also
mammals...

Rob

"Rob Paul

Dept of Zoology
Oxford University
South Parks Road
Oxford
(01865) 271124
----------------------------------------------
"Auld an bald!"
"