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Americas early guided missiles... utilising three Pigeons, yup you heard it correct.
In 1943, the U.S. military had a problem. It didn’t suffer from a lack of bombs and missiles, but there was no reliable way to accurately guide them for a precision strike. A psychologist, though, had a solution: use pigeons to get the job done. Thus, Project Pigeon was born. B.F. Skinner was a professor at the University of Minnesota at the time and specialized in understanding the psychology of human behavior. Homing pigeons had, of course, long been used in military service, as they could be trained to fly from one place to another. In 1940, Skinner began experimenting with the birds, devising an experiment in which they could be used to guide another object. The experiment was relatively simple. The pigeons were placed in a harness, and as they pecked away at a small grain dish, their head movements would steer a small cart towards a bullseye. The experiments progressed to having the pigeons guide their harnesses toward other targets, like small ship models. Soon enough, Skinner had his pigeons training to steer towards pictures moving across a screen. At first, Skinner couldn’t get the military interested, but in June 1943, the Office of Scientific Research and Development gave General Mills Inc., which was funding Skinner at that point, a small contract to try and develop his proposed pigeon guidance system. Skinner later described the project as “a crackpot idea, born on the wrong side of the tracks intellectually speaking, but eventually vindicated in a sort of middle-class respectability.” The pigeons — Skinner had determined that they worked best as a trio — would be placed in the nose cone of a missile, which was dubbed the “Pelican.” Each pigeon would be looking at a small electronic screen that would display the ground ahead of the missile. As the pigeons would peck away at the target, small pulleys attached to their heads would steer the missile. Unfortunately for the pigeons, they would be along for the ride up until the moment of impact. Skinner wasn’t allowed to see exactly what kinds of missiles the pigeons would theoretically guide — that was classified — so he had to make an educated guess. But the experiments still proved remarkably successful. The pigeons were quite adept at identifying and homing in on targets and were not affected by noise, temperature swings, or altitude changes in the Pelican. Still, after a 1944 demonstration, the project was shut down. The pigeon-guided missile was apparently too far-fetched of an idea even for the Army. “Further prosecution of this project would seriously delay others which in the minds of the Division would have more immediate promise of combat application,” read the rejection letter. Remarkably, this wasn’t the end for Project Pigeon. In 1948, the Navy revived the idea of using pigeons to guide anti-ship missiles, renaming it Project Orcon, or “organic control.” Fortunately for the pigeons, though, it was terminated in 1953, as technological advances in guidance systems mitigated the need for an organically controlled missile. Skinner would continue on to a distinguished career as a psychologist and academic, his pigeon-guided missile never having gotten off the ground. He kept the pigeons, though, and reported that even six years later, they could still identify their targets. |
B F Skinner's thinking was, and for all I know still is, a leading inspiration for the design of the UK military training system too, especially if you experienced performance based training objectives. https://www.liquisearch.com/b_f_skin...e_on_education |
Salute!
heh heh, and pigeons were not the only critters considered to help the war effort. To wit, the "bat bombs". Bats would be fitted with small incindiery payloads and release over the Japanese cities. The bats would land and roost in the eaves of buildings and then the payload would ignite and start a fire. Well, the system worked, but unfortunately at the test site in the U.S. !!! Early testing had an unplanned release of the bats and the suckers burned down one of the test sites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb Gotta love it. And the pigeons were smart enuf to be trained to home in on certain types of boats, unlike the bats that simply picked a building that looked comfortable. Gums sends... |
Originally Posted by gums
(Post 11342731)
Salute!
heh heh, and pigeons were not the only critters considered to help the war effort. To wit, the "bat bombs". Bats would be fitted with small incindiery payloads and release over the Japanese cities. The bats would land and roost in the eaves of buildings and then the payload would ignite and start a fire. Well, the system worked, but unfortunately at the test site in the U.S. !!! Early testing had an unplanned release of the bats and the suckers burned down one of the test sites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb Gotta love it. And the pigeons were smart enuf to be trained to home in on certain types of boats, unlike the bats that simply picked a building that looked comfortable. Gums sends... Every day a school day .............................. |
I guess they were cheep to operate. Fuel costs must have been chickenfeed
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I am fairly sure that pigeons were tried out for search and rescue at one time? They apparently could be trained to spot life-boats or whatever in the sea, and were placed in a glass bowl under SAR aircraft and could indicate if they spotted something?
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During WW2 the Russians used starving dogs carrying a pack, they trained them to seek out food attached to the bottom of tanks, when this was completed they had a satchel type charge strapped on their backs with a detonator that would set off the charge as the dogs rushed under the tanks, though they realised the dogs could not really differentiate as to who's tanks to run under.
https://www.rbth.com/history/329005-...d-suicide-dogs |
Originally Posted by Uplinker
(Post 11342762)
I am fairly sure that pigeons were tried out for search and rescue at one time? They apparently could be trained to spot life-boats or whatever in the sea, and were placed in a glass bowl under SAR aircraft and could indicate if they spotted something?
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THREE pigeons?
Committees never work when you want a quick answer. No wonder it didn’t suckseed. |
Originally Posted by Uplinker
(Post 11342762)
I am fairly sure that pigeons were tried out for search and rescue at one time? They apparently could be trained to spot life-boats or whatever in the sea, and were placed in a glass bowl under SAR aircraft and could indicate if they spotted something?
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And that's not all; my Dad, a Lancaster III pilot until shot down and captured near Munich, told us shortly before he died in 1975 about some very secret trials he was deeply involved with.
The powers-that-be were getting very concerned at the loss rate of bombers who, although they survived the raid itself, then got lost over the blacked-out UK, and crashed due to fuel starvation before they could find a runway. The idea was to have squadrons of pigeons based on the airfield as their home, so that they would want to return to it. Then, once that was established they would be taken on sorties over Germany. They would be kept in a box for the outward flight, and remain there on return until over the sea and approaching the English coast. They would then be launched through the DV window attached to a 60ft piece of light string, and, in theory all the pilot had to do was to follow the direction indicated by the pigeon. Unsurprisingly, this trial failed as the clean stall speed for the Lanc was pretty much the max speed the little birds could manage, and they tired within minutes. A boffin then came up with the solution; let the bird walk about on the coaming above the pilot's panel, in the hope that it would normally point unerringly toward the destination. This was a success, and the loss rate quickly began to decrease. The whole project was shrouded in secrecy, and eventually dropped as better homing devices were introduced. The records won't be released until 2045. |
An oldie but a goodie. |
Didn’t they also carry a cat in case the artificial horizon failed….everyone knows that cats always land on their feet so they must know which way up they are….
:E |
Originally Posted by ShyTorque
(Post 11342805)
Didn’t they also carry a cat in case the artificial horizon failed….everyone knows that cats always land on their feet so they must know which way up they are….
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I thought I heard cats were tested for guiding missiles. Don't you play missile cat? You pick up your cat, point it at the mouse and wait for the cat to lock on. Then release the cat.
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Speckled Jim
Skinner's ideas were based upon stimulus and response -- the pigeons got more food the better they zeroed in on the target.
Problem was the pigeons could not identify between friendly and enemy ship -- aircraft could release missile and pigeon target the friendly ship! I believe the US navy tried this idea with dolphins carrying explosives -- same problem enemy identification. Russian's probably had better results based upon stimulus response -- dogs starved but feed near tanks -- therefore tanks = food. So dogs run to tanks which are the source of food. Just need to keep you tanks out of the way when using the dogs armed with satchel charges. Today Russia is mean't to be using Whales for intelligence gathering with go-pros attached to head. I believe GB experimented with chickens and nuclear landmines -- chickens keep the mechanism war and you get cooked chicken. I always liked the CIA spy cat.... microphone implanted in cat and areal stitched into the tail -- unfortunately cats do not obey orders and wander around cocktail parties intelligence gathering. I believe the cat escaped and was run over -- multi-millions $ project was then abandoned or was it? Now the name of the game is to try and make drones look like animals or birds -- drone bird can sit near target and listen/provide real time visual or even carry explosive.....sort of high tech pigeon post. |
The cat landing on feet -- was tried with bombs!
The cat idea was tried with bombs..it was thought a falling cat would always try and land not only feet first but on something firm eg a ship rather than the sea.
How a terriified cat could recognise the difference -- espicially at night was nor really well thought out! |
During the Second World War, Allied forces attempted to sabotage German factories by stuffing dead rats with explosive charges. The idea was that a German worker would see the dead rat, and scoop it into the boiler fire for disposal.
This small explosive charge could then lead to a much larger boiler explosion, decimating the entire factory. The Nazis grew wise to the plan when they intercepted the first shipment. Although the plan was never fully executed, due to the resources wasted by Germans in checking all future dead rats it was considered a success. |
Fun Fact, the airframe developed to test the Pigeon guidance system had TV, Semi Active Radar Homing and Active Radar Homing (fire and Forget) guidance systems fitted to it. The last mode was fitted to an operational weapon that was actually used in Combat in the Pacific in 1945.
SARH version was the SWOD Mark 7 also known as Pelican https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelican_(bomb) While the Active Homer was the SWOD Mark 9 which was also known as the ASM-N-2 Bat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASM-N-2_Bat |
Never had any military experience, so not entitled to post here. BUT:
In 1961-62, at Aberdeen University Psychology Department, Dip Ed. Postgrad course concurrent with College of Education Diploma, over an evening coffee break one of the lecturers mentioned he'd worked on pigeon- controlled ballistic missiles. There was doubt if transistors could survive the forces, and valves couldn't. There was a glass screen, with a metal grid. An aerial photo of the target was moved behind it. When the pigeon pecked at the target, it got food, and the wire pecked was to control the rocket. When transistors were shown to survive, the project was ended, and he came to Aberdeen. I don't remember his name. Youngish guy then. |
I know that stool-pigeons were used to gather intelligence 😊
Mog |
ISTR that much of what has been discussed here was on an episode of QI some years ago ...
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I thought it needed a duck and a cat and a pigeon. You flew in the direction the pigeon pointed, kept the cat the right way up and when the duck lowered its tail and tilted its feet up, it was time to flare for the landing.
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Some of the old nuclear land mines had a chicken inside them , not sure if it was a hen or a rooster . My guess is that it was a hen as a rooster can be hard to coral into a confined space .
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Salute!
Best thread drift in many moons. Gums sends... |
National Safety Council of Australia planned to use pigeons in aircraft for search and rescue, don't know how far they got with it before the organisation went bust. Also engaged in fire fighting in the mountains, among other things, one proposal they had was to parachute horses into the back country from a C-130 so the fire fighters had a means of transport, believe it or not.
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Megan,
I can confirm the NSCA were involved in trials of pigeons to assist in SAR activities. In 1988 or 89 (the memory fades) the boss and I were flown to Townsville in their Dornier to see some trails. From memory it looked very effective. The "simulator" even had a shaker device and audio to simulate the ride in a chopper. Back at home base we had already seen the trials of para dogs, groin protection for humans jumping into wooded areas to either search for downed pilots or fight fires and had a brief on the potential for horses to parachute. As the first of the contract SAR bases, i must say the services offered were impressive and I'm not sure ADF had sufficient funds to pay for those levels of service had the organisation survived long enough the negotiate a contract renewal. Gne . |
ADF had sufficient funds to pay for those levels of service |
Originally Posted by fitliker
(Post 11342977)
Some of the old nuclear land mines had a chicken inside them , not sure if it was a hen or a rooster . My guess is that it was a hen as a rooster can be hard to coral into a confined space .
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Originally Posted by megan
(Post 11343024)
National Safety Council of Australia planned to use pigeons in aircraft for search and rescue, don't know how far they got with it before the organisation went bust. Also engaged in fire fighting in the mountains, among other things, one proposal they had was to parachute horses into the back country from a C-130 so the fire fighters had a means of transport, believe it or not.
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Originally Posted by ShyTorque
(Post 11342805)
Didn’t they also carry a cat in case the artificial horizon failed….everyone knows that cats always land on their feet so they must know which way up they are….
:E The trouble was the smell of fish on their feet. |
I heard that the Russian dog-bombs probably failed because they were trained to crawl under tanks successfully.
But, the training was done with Russian tanks which make a different noise (Russian engines) to German tanks (German engines) so when released they turned around and ran back towards the tanks that made the noise they'd been trained for. |
Originally Posted by ShyTorque
(Post 11343109)
Could you not use a reef knot? :E
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I'd go wth trained pigeons every time if the alternative was pointing a gun or mortar roughly downrange and yelling "Insh'allah!" as you pull the lanyard.
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Originally Posted by fitliker
(Post 11342977)
Some of the old nuclear land mines had a chicken inside them , not sure if it was a hen or a rooster . My guess is that it was a hen as a rooster can be hard to coral into a confined space .
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Originally Posted by Winemaker
(Post 11343484)
Many questions arise; why on earth would you put a chicken, alive or dead, in a land mine? What was supposed to trip a nuclear land mine?
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Originally Posted by Ninthace
(Post 11343496)
To keep it in warm of course. You needed 3 chickens in fact. Search for Blue Peacock, Blue Bunny or Brown Bunny.
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Wasn't Pigeon Induced Oscillation (PIO) a problem? (I'm only basing this on the lecture notes I received.)
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Originally Posted by FlapJackMuncher
(Post 11343409)
I heard that the Russian dog-bombs probably failed because they were trained to crawl under tanks successfully.
But, the training was done with Russian tanks which make a different noise (Russian engines) to German tanks (German engines) so when released they turned around and ran back towards the tanks that made the noise they'd been trained for. |
An older concept in animal-based navigation: ‘Powder of Sympathy’
The powder was also applied to solve the longitude problem in the suggestion of an anonymous pamphlet of 1687 entitled "Curious Enquiries". The pamphlet theorised that a wounded dog could be put aboard a ship, with the knife used to injure the dog left in the trust of a timekeeper on shore, who would then dip said knife into the powder at a predetermined time and cause the creature to yelp, thus giving the captain of the ship an accurate knowledge of the time. |
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