B F Skinner's WWII smart bomb

Project Pigeon (later ORCON)

[video=youtube;vIbZB6rNLZ4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIbZB6rNLZ4[/video]

Tech details:

https://www.bfskinner.org/newtestsite/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Pigeons-in-a-Pelican-pt1.pdf

Next thing you will be telling us is that the evil Russians put bombs on dogs! Here comes PETA!

No dogs or pigeons were harmed during the veiwing of this video...

Daddyisabar said:

Next thing you will be telling us is that the evil Russians put bombs on dogs! Here comes PETA!

Click to expand...

No, but our Navy did develop bombs carried by dolphins.

The Russians did put anti-tank bombs on dogs. The problem was that the dogs couldn't tell the difference between a German tank and a Russian tank. Oops!

Reminds me of the myth of the dynamite dog... they tackled that one on Mythbusters, and gave me a soundbite I'd love to find somewhere (Jaime saying (Gleefully) "BYE BYE!!!").

Daddyisabar said:

Next thing you will be telling us is that the evil Russians put bombs on dogs! Here comes PETA!

Click to expand...

Well, you know they did. And as I'm sure you also know, they stopped using them because the starving K9s' targeting was, let's say, "uncertain."

Amazingly, the PGM (Pigeon Guided Munition, to join the modern acronym trend) would have worked and worked very well since, if they were smart and I'd hope they would have been, they would have released them with no friendly ships within view of the PGU (Pigeon Guidance Unit).

The tech details PDF I linked to explains problems encountered and the fixes made. The entirely pneumatic logic system they used, peck-driven by three pigeons, was both extremely simple and as failsafe as one could get. An extremely clever and inexpensive workaround from the crude electronics tech they had at the time.

Zeus-cat said:

The Russians did put anti-tank bombs on dogs. The problem was that the dogs couldn't tell the difference between a German tank and a Russian tank. Oops!

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It was worse than that. They could tell the difference, and as they'd been trained with Russian tanks, they associated Russian tanks with food. :lol:

Imagine today. They ASPCA would be all over this project.

Fascinating project. Dolphins below the sea and pigeons above.

We're still using dolphins. Except now instead of training them to carry bombs, they are helping us to find mines.