16th Century German Warfare Manual Suggests Strapping Rockets to Cats and Birds
Posted on March 7, 2014
A 16th century German warfare manual contains illustrations of bombs being strapped to cats and birds. The manual was recently digitized by the University of Pennsylvania. The Guardian reports that the manual "suggests capturing cats from enemy territory and strapping bombs to them." Hopefully, the strange war plans were never actually used. In addition to being very cruel the suggested method could also backfire.
Mitch Fraas, the historian who digitized the manual for the Penn library, told the Guardian he could find no evidence the war idea suggested in the manual was put in to practice. Fraas says, "It seems like a really terrible idea, and very unlikely the animals would run back to where they came from. More likely they'd set your own camp on fire." Take a look: