Weird Weapons ~ The Allies

Project Habakkuk or Habbakuk: was a plan by the British in World War II to construct an aircraft carrier out of pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice), for use against German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic, which were beyond the flight range of land-based planes at that time.

Today on Far Future Horizons we present the second part of a documentary special from the acclaimed History Channel series Modern Marvels. The second installment of this special investigates the strangest secret weapons ever conceived by the Allies during the height of the Second World War.

The Bat Bomb: was an experimental World War II weapon developed by the United States. The bomb consisted of a bomb-shaped casing with numerous compartments, each containing a Mexican Free-tailed Bat with a small timed incendiary bomb attached. Dropped from a bomber at dawn, the casings would deploy a parachute in mid-flight and open to release the bats which would then roost in eaves and attics. The incendiaries would start fires in inaccessible places in the largely wood and paper construction of the Japanese cities that were the weapon's intended target.

In a world gone mad, no weapon seemed too strange to try. World War II saw the invention of some extraordinary new weapons and some that were just too far out of the ordinary, like an unsinkable aircraft carrier made from solid ice, rocket-propelled wheels that would roll through enemy lines, bats trained to carry tiny firebombs into Japan, pigeon-guided missiles and bombs so unbelievably large and powerful they could trigger earthquakes.

The earthquake bomb, or seismic bomb, was a concept that was invented by the British aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis early in World War II and subsequently developed and used during the war against strategic targets in Europe.

And, finally the most powerful weapon ever conceived the Atomic Bomb ended the war and created a new era of terror weapon development for the cold war that was to follow.

Atomic bomb mushroom clouds over Hiroshima (left) and Nagasaki (right)

Weird Weapons ~ The Allies is available on DVD from Amazon Books.

Weird Weapons ~ The Allies (World War II) Modern Marvels
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