In bird culture this is considered a dick move
this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2025
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Historical Artifacts
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Wait til the birds hear about the technique of tying flaming material to them and releasing them to return to their roosts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb
He believed that if time-release incendiaries could be attached to bats, some kind of container holding them could be dropped over the city after dark and the bats would simply roost and burn Tokyo to the ground.[5] The plan was subsequently approved by President Roosevelt[6] on the advice of Donald Griffin.[7] In his letter, Adams stated that the bat was the "lowest form of animal life", and that, until now, "reasons for its creation have remained unexplained".[4]: 6 He went on to espouse that bats were created "by God to await this hour to play their part in the scheme of free human existence, and to frustrate any attempt of those who dare desecrate our way of life."[4]: 6 Of Adams, Roosevelt remarked, "This man is not a nut. It sounds like a perfectly wild idea but is worth looking into."[2][3]
It gets worse after that. Mercifully, they don't really go into the details in the article, which mainly involved the bats either still being hibernating or else with the bomb part too heavy, basically they were just dropping innocent bats out of planes to splat onto the ground in big numbers like Wile E. Coyote until someone put a stop to it all.
they were just dropping innocent bats out of planes to splat onto the ground in big numbers like Wile E. Coyote until someone put a stop to it all.
Oh, the humanity... "As god as my witness, I thought ~~turkeys~~bats could fly!"
Genghis to the wife he took from his newly conquered city: "We'll bang, okay?"
Is that historically accurate or just a legend?
There's some dispute over it. The 'tying brands to birds' trick is noted as a strategy by a handful of other historical figures noted for their ruthlessness - it's not entirely clear whether it's just terror propaganda or an actual technique that was used.
I just don't see how that would work in practice. But then, I've never besieged a city, so what do I know.
I mean, the panicked animals returning to their usual haunts seems plausible. The intention of setting the place on fire is to spread chaos internally before/during a traditional assault on the walls. Generally there's an element of deception and bad faith in the stories, that the animals were requested as tribute for peace and then immediately deployed as a weapon of war.
Maybe this is for medieval suggestion box notes. Delivery's quite aggressive.
Lindybeige told me this was fake, though
Don't know who that is, but looks like a history youtuber.
While incendiaries were not used at every possible opportunity, as movies and games sometimes portray, fire has a long history of military usage, including specialized means for delivery. Julius Caesar, of dictator and conqueror fame, once used heated sling bullets to set thatched roofs on fire; Spanish guerillas against Roman occupation were known to use metal javelins wrapped in flammable materials, and so on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTd_0FRAwOQ
In fairness, he seems to base it purely on himself saying "it's a stupid idea" and not on any historical research that he cites explicitly.
I hate watching videos, but the first few seconds show movies where fire arrows are being launched at troops, which was rare (though not completely unheard of as a terror tactic). Generally, incendiary projectiles were used for purposes wherein fire would be, uh, useful, like setting fire to buildings, camps, supplies, ships, siege weapons, or flammable environs.
Yeah. Technically he qualified it by saying he didn't think they were used "in open battle," and his reasons were probably accurate, but yes he's missing a whole category of use for which they probably were super useful.
Love this videos but somethings I just plain disagree with. Horses, in war, a dumb idea? I just feel like he's personally not got the best relationship with the species.
When did he say horses in war were dumb? Yeah, that's wrong.
(it's a screenshot the play button won't work)
It might be he's arguing specifically against cavalry though, not horses, but I remember thinking he just sounds like he's not comfortable on horses.
Which I find odd, as he loves dancing and I feel those two are pretty similar.
A horse-drawn cart is very awkward indeed in comparison to how nimble a good rider on a horse can be. I don't remember the content of the video and am not listening to it rn
Yeah... I think this is just wrong. It think you're right that he is just making a big authoritative sounding thing based on his personal experience on horses and guessing and extrapolation and some light confirmation-bias research.
IDK, I thought this guy was legit, but maybe not.
I mean, he's "legit" in my opinion, but no-one is right all the time.
"Cavalry was a stupid idea" is a pretty big thing to be wrong about, though. Like talking about physics and asserting gravity is a myth and if you close your eyes and believe, you can free yourself from its tyranny and float. Even if they were correct in 100% of whatever else they said on physics, it's going to be hard to believe them from that point on.
Yeah. The biggest empire of the ancient world was built on basically a 100% horse archer military and they didn't seem to have too much of a problem.
I feel like it would be different if he was citing some kind of history "look at the composition of all these armies, cavalry's actually a really small part, look at these big battles where the horses were a liability and then they moved away from them after." That's history, whether or not it's right or wrong, it's based in fact. This whole thing sounds like "I ride horses and it's a mess, cavalry doesn't work, the end."
He also has a video titled "let the children smoke" and I completely agree with the video.
I haven't relistened to this now, but I'm pretty sure he's not just plain out asserting it's bullshit, just like he's not actually pro-children smoking tobacco.
Cavalry was a stupid idea
Oh Lord.
Lindybeige is a self proclaimed expert who just calls things as he sees it. He's no researcher, he's no craftsman. Your better of watching Todd from Todd's workshop, he does actual experiments with medieval weaponry.
But lb is just a blabbering buffoon with an British exceptionalist worldview who loves the aroma of his own petards.
Yeah. I just removed him from !nerd_streams@ibbit.at. If you're going to be a nerd, you need to know what you're talking about.
Ty!
The way they're often used in movies by firing basic flaming arrows into groups of soldiers is often not accurate(although there are records of East Asian troops using gunpowder based rocket arrows against soldiers).
However, flaming arrows have been historically used in sieges for a long time. We have records going back 2700 years of arrows having something tied around the tip that was soaked in oil and lit on fire. Just look at the posted picture, those are real "cage" style flaming arrows
We even have actual examples of arrows from the 1400s with a saltpeter compound on it that burns under water.
Haven't watched the video from Lindybeige; but, here's a rather good video on what incendiary arrows (like the ones pictured) would have been like. We have evidence of medieval (and earlier) use of incendiary devices in warfare (QED, the arrows pictured). Though, probably nothing like what is shown in movies.
idk if its historically accurate but if you can forge weld in a coal forge those are definitely possible
Interestingly enough, forge welding was widely used in the ancient world, and the Roman Empire, in particular. There's a neat graph about Roman blade forging from the same book I got this artifact from; unfortunately, it's a bit low-res, so I ended up deciding not to upload it as a post. But it feels too relevant to not post in this reply!
Update: I guess the master advertising hoover-machine that listens to your cell phone all the time to see if you're talking about cat food has reached Lemmy. In reference to the whole Lindybeige conversation, this was literally in my YouTube recommendations today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9KD3Xv7D1c&t=1349s
TL;DW Lindybeige is fine, maybe a little racist, he's entertaining but also just literally makes shit up instead of reading about it first