Project Pigeon - Psychology at its best / worst / strangest

[Continu0]

As I am studying Psychology, I came across this today and found that it might interest you...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon

May be this can be modelled in a new 1946 scenario

[raaaid]

I heard also the bat bombs

I had actually an idea for a gunsight quite effective but you wont see me publishing

creativity for killing pffff

[Skoshi Tiger]

Few years ago now (maybe 10?) but there was a technology/science show on TV where researchers in the UK were studying pigeons thast were conditioned to peck at the sight of dayglow orange. These pigeons were to be placed in the nose of search and rescue aircaft and look for life rafts and PFD's of people lost at sea.

I wonder if they actually got put into use?

[Screamadelica]

Another fairly bizarre idea the US scientists had in WW2 was to use cats as bomb aiming devices against Japanese naval targets. The cats were placed in a sling in the nose of the bomb with a small window to see out of, and a system of cables attached to the cat's legs. The logic was that cats don't like water and as they descended they would naturally try to land on the target ship! Unfortunately the excessive G-Forces that the cats experienced being in the bomb as it went down caused them to black out and thus rendered the idea useless, as well as being non RSPCA approved!
A similar idea was used with pigeons being trained to peck at the target, thus keeping the missile on target.

[WTE_Galway]

Some of these ideas were crazy but others were taken seriously. In the case of the Soviet exploding anti-tank dogs these were actually deployed in combat. The main issue seemed to be the dogs headed for any tracked vehicle not just German ones.

[MD_Titus]

... which lead to the entry in the spoofy "home from the front" handbook that did the rounds with landsers "do not shoot dogs when you are home, they will not explode and you will have to deal with their owners" or similar

[335th_GRAthos]

Originally Posted by WTE_Galway

Some of these ideas were crazy but others were taken seriously. In the case of the Soviet exploding anti-tank dogs these were actually deployed in combat. The main issue seemed to be the dogs headed for any tracked vehicle not just German ones.

Actually the dogs headed for the Russian vehicles instead of the German ones!

The Russian tanks were running on diesel fuel.
The German Tanks on petrol fuel.
Since the Russians trained their dogs using russian tanks for target practice, the dogs would not identify German tanks as the target (they smelled differently).

Cruel world...

~S~