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'Rocket cats' in 16th-century warfare manual


Still Waters

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The huns (or was it the Scythians?) use to cover a full grown hog's back with pine pitch and/or tar, set it on fire and release it toward the enemy (particularly the cavalry) the theory being that

the flaming pigs would disrupt the enemy horse... Unfortunately for the Huns/Scythians, When panicked pigs don't run in a straight line, and would not approach a mass of troops... Plus even if

they did all they served to do was to provide the enemy troops with a nice hot ham dinner....

During medieval seiges, one tactic to get past a cities walls was to tunnel under them, set a fire and let the flames weaken the walls... Some cities would dig "counter tunnels' and release angry bears

on the enemy soldiers digging toward them...

So using animals in warfare is not as odd or rare as the article might indicate... (though I doubt "bombcats" would be all that effective...)

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I couldn't stop laughing at that picture :clap:

Imagining some medievil scholar bent over his desk carefully brushing out this picture of a cat with a bloody rocket attached to it's back :w00t:

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What would be more impressive would be the guy who had to strap on the rockets to the cats without getting his eyes ripped out. He'd be a hero throughout the land.

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I couldn't stop laughing at that picture :clap:

Imagining some medievil scholar bent over his desk carefully brushing out this picture of a cat with a bloody rocket attached to it's back :w00t:

Abbott: "Brother John... What are you doing?"

Brother John: "I'm drawing a cat with a rocket strapped to it's back."

Abbott: "What on Earth for?"

Brother John: "I'm really bored with illuminating manuscripts all day. And it's a Protestant cat anyway."

Abbott: "Ummm. Okay."

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I'm sure Tsoukalos will tell us it's translated poorly &...

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Well we had Samurai Pizza Cats...

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so they had Medieval Rocket Cats. :clap:

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I think it's gonna be a long, long time before rocket cats can be called "useful" in warfare.

Harte

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I think it's gonna be a long, long time before rocket cats can be called "useful" in warfare.

Harte

Felix the Cat won against those Mice in WWI.

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There's a few cats i'd like to have done that to, except the rocket wouldn't have been on its back.............If you catch my drift.

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Couple of things wrong with this story, the passage taken from the book doesn`t sound like 1530 speak, and the picture is closest to a cheetah, now i don`t know but i never heard about their being any castles in Africa.

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Couple of things wrong with this story, the passage taken from the book doesn`t sound like 1530 speak, and the picture is closest to a cheetah, now i don`t know but i never heard about their being any castles in Africa.

indeed there are many fine castles in Africa.

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The huns (or was it the Scythians?) use to cover a full grown hog's back with pine pitch and/or tar, set it on fire and release it toward the enemy (particularly the cavalry) the theory being that

the flaming pigs would disrupt the enemy horse... Unfortunately for the Huns/Scythians, When panicked pigs don't run in a straight line, and would not approach a mass of troops... Plus even if

they did all they served to do was to provide the enemy troops with a nice hot ham dinner....

Actually, the first people to do this were the Romans. In the 3rd century BC they tried out the idea of incendiary pigs as a way to scare the elephants in the army of Pyrrhus of Epirus (the guy whose victories were so expensive it resulted in the term Pyrrhic Victory). The plan didn't work because the Romans deployed the pigs facing a part of the Epirote army where there were no elephants.

However, the Greeks of the time heard about it, and it seems one or two states tried the same thing in the following years.

To my knowledge neither the Huns nor the Skythians tried this.

During medieval seiges, one tactic to get past a cities walls was to tunnel under them, set a fire and let the flames weaken the walls... Some cities would dig "counter tunnels' and release angry bears

on the enemy soldiers digging toward them...

So using animals in warfare is not as odd or rare as the article might indicate... (though I doubt "bombcats" would be all that effective...)

Other uses of animals I've read of:

- Around the 15th century BC there's a report of Canaanite king using a flock of mares in heat to distract the (presumably) stallions pulling the chariots of the Egyptian army.

- The Greek historian Xenophon claimed that the Persian King Cyrus was so worried about the reputation of the cavalry of Lydia that in one battle he got some of his cavalrymen to ride baggage camels instead of horses. Clever fellow that he was, the Lydian King Croesus (with a lot of gold, as in "as rich as Croesus") ordered his own cavalrymen to dismount and fight on foot.

- There are a couple of vague claims that an Assyrian army (9th century BC I think) and an Arab army (7th century AD) both used camels wearing disguises to make them look like elephants.

- There's a Mayan legend about a hero fighting off enemies by throwing hornet's nests at them. As wargame rules writer Phil Barker describes it, "projecting an early multiple homing sub-missile warhead". Also used by the hero in the movie "Apocalypto".

- The Moors of North Africa used kneeling camels as a barrier to protect their infantry from cavalry attacks.

- The Hsien-Pi, nomads from Central Asia, are reported on one occasion to have had women riding oxen and dragging branches on the ground behind them to give the appearance of the arrival of reinforcements.

- Many generals have tried to disrupt enemy armies by driving herds of stampeding animals at them - cattle, wild camels, even wild elephants.

- The Ming Chinese of the 14th-17th century occasionally used "thunder-bomb oxen" - animals with barrels of gunpowder tied to their back and driven at the enemy. Success appears to have been rare. They were also among those who used herds of stampeding cattle.

- I remember reading somewhere that sieges might involve the dropping or hurling of baskets of venomous snakes.

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I recall reading somewhere once that they used to ties burning things to the tales of cats and send them out in a town or field in order to burn it down. They didn't have the ASPCA or PETA back then.

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Why not just use the fire arrow and be done with the whole process of rounding up native kitties and such? I think the monk must have been deep into the sacramental wine that day.

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Why not just use the fire arrow and be done with the whole process of rounding up native kitties and such? I think the monk must have been deep into the sacramental wine that day.

Or he had been scratched by a cat that week.

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