
Bat bomb - The_Fox
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb
======
oblio
If you want to read about the world's scariest saint:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_of_Kiev](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_of_Kiev)

~~~
terminado

      Now Olga gave to each soldier in her army a pigeon or a 
      sparrow, and ordered them to attach by thread to each 
      pigeon and sparrow a piece of sulfur bound with small 
      pieces of cloth. When night fell, Olga bade her soldiers 
      release the pigeons and the sparrows. So the birds flew 
      to their nests, the pigeons to the cotes, and the 
      sparrows under the eaves. The dove-cotes, the coops, the 
      porches, and the haymows were set on fire. There was not 
      a house that was not consumed, and it was impossible to 
      extinguish the flames, because all the houses caught on 
      fire at once.
    

...but no explanation for the spontaneous combustion of the cloth-bound
sulfur.

Sounds like it was probably a closely-kept, obfuscated military secret like
Greek Fire:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire)

~~~
Houshalter
Certain chemicals will spontaneously combust when wrapped in cloth. They
absorb into the cloth, and the increased surface area exposed to the air lets
them react with oxygen faster, producing heat. The cloth also insulates it so
the heat slowly builds up until it gets hot enough to combust.

This is why keeping oily rags are a fire hazard.

~~~
custardcream
Super glue does this if you put it on cotton wool.

I found this out as a child by accident and set fire to the desk in my
bedroom...

To be fair that desk caught fire quite a few times.

~~~
reitanqild
Hehe, same here. And then my Dad would come in calmly pointing out that this
house might come in in handy as a place to live in the future as well.

He once really stalled on us, we were stuffing an empty 7.62 cartridge with
explosives and he very clearly explained that while he though we shouldn't
make fireworks at least we shouldn't use metal parts.

We continued with a small plastic tube and a couple of hours later it went off
in my hand. I love my Dad for a lot of reasons.

~~~
custardcream
Now that's how it should be! Good for you.

We weren't blessed with such weaponry in the UK. About all we got was 12 gauge
shotgun cartridges and anything we made ourselves. The latter included ANFO so
we made up for it through chemistry. This was 25 years ago; doing this now
would get you chucked in prison in 2 seconds flat.

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batbomb
this is where I got my hn name from. I've actually spent a lot of time at
dugway. One of my favorite parts about it is the german counterpart of they
japanese village mentioned in the article, the German village. There's still a
few building (still in use!) out there that were modeled after European villas
so the army could test weapons during ww2.

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new299

      By that time it was estimated that $2 million had been spent on the project. It is thought that development of the bat bomb was moving too slowly, and was overtaken in the race for a quick end to the war by the atomic bomb project.
    

I can just see the conversation now.

A: "So what are you working on?"

B: "Well, we're harnessing the nucleic forces to create a destructive force
hitherto unknown to man. How about you?"

A: "Um... bats"

B: "What?"

A: "We attaching firecrackers to bats."

B: "OK, um great!"

A: "Yea..."

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mabbo
The reality is that the atomic bomb wasn't scary because it could destroy a
city, it was scary because it could do it with just one drop.

America had already flattened 20+ cities before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but
instead of bats, they used large non-atomic bombs. The bats sound cool, but
actual bombs were a little bit more dependable.

~~~
swartkrans
> they used large non-atomic bombs

America was dropping napalm on Japanese cities filled with civilians[1].
Firebombing was a popular tactic in the 1940's.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm#Military_use](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm#Military_use)

~~~
krick
Well, USA was using white phosphorus in "cities filled with civilians" in Iraq
in 2004 (Fallujah), which is more like "is using".

So when talking about scary stuff like incendiary weapons it's better to not
to try and fool yourself with words like "yeah, past was _dark_ , but now it
is 2014, we have all these conventions and stuff, and even in times of war
people know limits of humanity, so worry not". Humans are wicked animals.

~~~
anonymfus
According to Wikipedia, USA signed part of "Convention on Certain Conventional
Weapons" which bans white phosphorus in incendiary weapons in 2009 under Obama
administration.

~~~
shabble
I think the problem is that it's still one of the most effective smokescreen
generating compounds out there, so militaries are hesitant to ban it entirely
and not have it available for that use.

But, just because it's not marked 'incendiary' on the side of the munition
doesn't mean it can be used (both purposefully or accidentally) to horrible
effect on people.

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1qaz2wsx3edc
I clicked the See also: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-
tank_dog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog)

I'm kind of bummed out from that one.

~~~
po
Wow, this sounds like a total clown-car operation:

 _Out of the first group of 30 dogs, only four managed to detonate their bombs
near the German tanks, inflicting an unknown amount of damage. Six exploded
upon returning to the Soviet trenches, killing and injuring soldiers._

and later...

 _Another serious training mistake was revealed later; the Soviets used their
own diesel-engine tanks to train the dogs rather than German tanks which had
gasoline engines. As the dogs relied on their acute sense of smell, the dogs
sought out familiar Soviet tanks instead of strange-smelling German tanks._

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ogig
This is one of those were reality defeats fantasy. Bat bombs sound a lot more
like an orcish weapon than a real thing.

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ShinyCyril
These were featured in a great series of books about bats by Canadian author
Kenneth Opel called Silverwing [0]. Many fond memories of reading this book as
a kid.

[0]
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverwing_(novel)](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverwing_\(novel\))

~~~
Kronopath
From the original article:

 _The book Sunwing written by Kenneth Oppel was inspired by this plan._

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chris_wot
I inspired this article creation - it fell into the "exploding animals"
category, mainly because I originally wrote the exploding whale article on
Wikipedia.

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liadmat
Don't forget the pigeon guided missile.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnKyOfNuSoo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnKyOfNuSoo)

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increment_i
"Think of thousands of fires breaking out simultaneously over a circle of
forty miles in diameter for every bomb dropped. Japan could have been
devastated, yet with small loss of life." \- Dr. Lytle S. Adams

I guess Dr. Adams wasn't counting the actual bats here.

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32faction
I have a feeling Alfred Hitchcock would've had a field day with this one...

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guard-of-terra
This weapon seems to mainly target civians and therefore should not be.

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JSno
it's a shame

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1dl3
obviously batshit crazy

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elwell
Oh...
[http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111123184929/batman/ima...](http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111123184929/batman/images/6/65/Bat_bomb.jpg)

