All language subtitles for The UnBelievable with Dan Aykroyd s03e10 Wildest Weapons.eng

[Dan narrating]

[energetic music]

- What are the most shocking
weapons ever created?

How about one that
transforms animals

into cold-blooded
killing machines?

[bats flying]

- This is absolutely
a stroke of genius.

Bats can carry more of their
body weight than birds.

They fly faster than birds.

- And then when the timer goes
off, the napalm is ignited

and then kabam!

[napalm exploding]

They explode.

- Or a device that
breaches enemy lines

with some rather
unconventional ammunition.

- They filled a trebuchet
with their most foul-smelling,

worst looking, rotting,
bloated corpses

and launched them into the city.

- They're exploding on impact.

[energetic music]

Just stuff is just oozing
from all sorts of gaps

and crevices in these bodies.

- What about a gun that gives
its user a real headache?

- An inventor decides that
guns have a major problem.

- He thinks that he can take
the firearm to the next level

by making it a
hands-free device.

- And thus the gun helmet
is a recipe for disaster.

- These are the weapons so wild,

they are truly unbelievable.

[energetic music]

[video whooshing]

In 1941, after suffering
an unprecedented attack

on home soil, the
United States knows

it must retaliate, but how?

The answer lies in a
secret weapon so unusual,

it is the last thing
anyone expects.

[ammunition exploding]

- The Japanese
bomb Pearl Harbor,

the United States
enters World War II.

And we're trying to come up
with any, any clever idea

to end the war as
quickly as possible.

- In Pennsylvania, this
dental surgeon by the name

of Dr. Lyle Adams thinks
that he has the ideal remedy,

the ideal weapon for
the United States.

[bright music]

- Adams is a part-time inventor,

and he is also a man who
enjoys exploring caves.

And one day he's touring
around caves in New Mexico

and he sees bats
hanging everywhere,

and he thinks, what
if we weaponize them?

- [Dan] His idea,
strap explosives to bats

and release them
into enemy territory.

- This is absolutely
a stroke of genius.

Dr. Adams knows that
bats can carry more

of their body weight than birds.

They fly faster than birds.

- The way this can work is that
you can chill the bats down

to around 40 degrees and they
enter a hibernation state.

- Each hibernating bat is fitted

with a little incendiary
device of napalm.

These hibernating bomb-laden
bats could then be loaded

into a canister and that
could be carried up aloft.

In a B25.

Once released, the bats
would naturally wake up

when they hit warmer air.

- They will then flutter off

and find whatever building
they possibly can and roost.

- So these bats make their way
into the eaves of buildings,

into attics, into crawl spaces,

and then when the timer goes
off, the napalm is ignited

and then kabam!

[napalm exploding]

They explode.

- Exploding bats may sound wild,

but Adams has friends
in high places.

[bright music]

- Adams knows the first
Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.

He writes her a letter
describing what he wants to do.

She then shows that letter
to her husband, the president

of the United States,
the commander in chief

of the American military.

- FDR hands the idea over to
the US Army Air Force, along

with a $2 million check and
says, "Go develop bat bombs."

- To pull this off,

Dr. Adams needs bats,
and a whole lot of them.

- Adams chooses the
Carlsbad Air Base

because it's right
near a system of caves

that have a population of
roughly 9 million bats.

So it's perfect.

They'll be able to have
an unlimited supply

of bats and be able to test
them using Air force airplanes.

- [Dan] There's
just one question now,

do these flying mammals have

what it takes to win a war?

- The day arrives
to do the first test

without incendiary devices.

So they take thousands of bats

and then drop them over a farm.

They fly down to the ground
and they fly into the barn.

They fly into hay bales,
fly into the house.

They're doing exactly what
they hoped that they would do.

- After the successful
test with the unarmed bats,

the army gets a
little bit ambitious

and that same day
decides to do a mini test

with six armed bats.

- [Dan] Six
unlucky bats strapped

with timer rig napalm capsules.

Again, what could
possibly go wrong?

- They're getting ready to
put them into the casing

when suddenly the bats
wake up, they come out

of hibernation mode
and they fly away.

These bats fly all over
the Air Force base.

They get into a control
tower, they get into a hangar,

they go under a fuel tank.

Some of them fly into
an automobile nearby.

Turns out it's the
general's automobile

and they detonate.

- The test of the bat
bomb is such a success,

it demolishes the military
base, but it means it works.

It works perfectly.

- [Dan] Unsurprisingly,
there is one person

who is not very happy
with the outcome.

- Our army Air Corps general
is pretty much fed up

with this project because
it blows up his car, sort

of puts a blemish on his record.

So it's handed off to
the United States Navy,

but the US Navy has
other priorities,

and the Navy,
uninterested in developing

this program further

turns it over to the
United States Marine Corps.

- When the Marines
take over this project,

they move the operation
eventually to Utah

where they build a
model Japanese village,

and they're able to
destroy this model village

using these incendiary bats.

- [Announcer] Despite
this initial success,

the Marines quickly learn bats
aren't always cooperative.

- Sometimes they don't
wake up from hibernation,

so when they're dropped out
of a plane, they just kind

of fall and land wherever.

- They find that when
females are pregnant

and males are in the vicinity
of the pregnant females,

that the males become
agitated to such a degree

that they're no longer
predictably capable

of delivering the
explosives as intended.

And there's really only
about a five-month period

in the calendar year
during which the bat

can be reliably used for
the delivery of explosives.

And the big problem there

is that the war goes
on 12 months a year.

- As the team is working
through all these difficulties,

in parallel, there's
another effort underway

to shorten the war, and that
is the atomic bomb project.

So eventually the bat
bomb is simply discarded.

- As one unconventional
idea is shelved,

another is just taking
flight, this time with wings

of a very different kind.

[ammunition exploding]

- We're in the midst
of World War II

and all the missiles that
we used are not guided.

They can't be directed
to hit a specific target.

They can only be flown over
an area and then dropped.

If we had a way to have
that bomb go precisely

to that location, it
could be a game changer.

- [Dan] Noted
Harvard psychologist

and inventor B.F. Skinner
has an epiphany one day

while out for a walk.

[pigeons flying]

He happens to see a flock
of pigeons and it occurs

to him, I could use their
natural innate honing abilities

to direct the bomb.

- Skinner approaches

the National Research Defense
Committee with this plan.

He code names it Project Pigeon.

- [Dan] Using pigeons
to hone in on the enemy

sounds crazy, but is it
crazy enough to work?

The defense committee
certainly thinks so.

- Skinner receives $25,000,

or roughly half a million
dollars today, to figure out

how to make a
pigeon-guided bomb work.

But Skinner has a plan,

and he thinks that in order

to create a
pigeon-guided missile,

you need a
pigeon-guiding cockpit.

So Skinner creates a little
cone that'll go on top

of a glide bomb and in the
cone will be a video screen.

- Skinner places a gold
electrode on the pigeon's beak.

He then shows the pigeon video
of targets like buildings

and battleships on the screen.

- Skinner's theory is this.

If you train a pigeon to peck
at an image of a battleship

or a building and you
reward them for it,

they'll continue pecking at it.

And after a while, they will
no longer require the reward.

They'll just keep pecking.

- The images on the
touch panel are linked

to the guidance
mechanism of the missile.

So the pigeon actually
is guiding the missile

towards its particular target.

- [Dan] The system
works almost perfectly,

except for a slight
issue with focus,

- It can get distracted, it
might get something wrong,

it might send the bomb
to the wrong target.

So Skinner comes up
with a great idea.

Let's add democracy
to our pigeon bombs.

And thus Skinner
uses three pigeons.

If two out of three
pigeons pick the ship,

the bomb's gonna steer
in that direction.

Turns out that pigeon democracy
works every single time.

[bright music]

- [Dan] All they have
to do now is stick a camera

on the missile and let those
pigeon pilots fly, right?

Not so fast.

- The system Skinner
creates works very well,

but the army thinks it would
be a little bit embarrassing

to have pigeons
guiding their missiles.

So they choose not to
go with the pigeons,

but it's not a total loss.

The screens that the
pigeons were pecking on

are the precursors

to the screens we use every
day in our cell phones.

Interestingly enough, the
pigeons are ahead of their time.

[energetic music]

- If you think bat bombs

and pigeon-driven
missiles are weird, wait

until you see what's next.

- In times of war,
protecting lives becomes

just as important as
destroying enemies.

This holds especially true for
new parents in London in 1939

whose worries go
from diaper duty

and nap time to shielding
their little bundles

of joy from lethal
chemical threats.

[suspenseful music]

- From the first World War,

there were 100,000
deaths from mustard

and chlorine gas.

So you have the military

and scientists trying
to develop technology

to keep the population
safe from gas attacks,

and baby gas masks are invented.

- Gas mask is probably
the wrong word.

This is like a full body suit.

This is like a
helmet with a visor

and a metal grate
over the kid's face.

- [Dan] In an effort to
make them seem less scary,

the government names them
the Mickey Mouse mask.

Not sure how much that helps.

- Getting a baby
into these gas masks

isn't exactly the easiest thing.

You have to load them into
this metal visor thing

and then wrap canvas
around them like a diaper

with their little legs
hanging out from the bottom.

But then it is actually
convenient for the parents

because you can wear your gas
masked baby like a backpack,

like a gas masked Baby Bjorn.

- This suit is
meant to be airtight

and you as the parent have
to keep pumping air into it

so your kid has enough
fresh air to survive.

It's not hard to imagine

this isn't gonna work well.

- So the bridge start testing
out this brilliant idea,

but then the nurses
notice a little problem.

The babies are falling asleep.

- [Dan] And it
isn't because the babies

are so warm and cozy.

- So it becomes rather clear

that they aren't actually
getting as much air

as they're supposed to

and ultimately the
project is scraped

because of course,
better to run the risk of a

gas attack than inadvertently
wipe out a generation

by suffocating them
in baby gas masks.

- [Dan] But it does inspire

yet another bizarre
idea for armor.

- As the British people are
facing the prospect of war,

we also have the baby
gas mask stroller,

for the parent on
the go who wants

to make sure their
child's protected

in the event of
a mustard attack.

Basically it looks like a
coffin with a visor over it

so you can see the baby,

make sure everything
looks good there.

- [Dan] And like
the baby gas mask,

the gas stroller is
also airtight

with a cute little pump,

just don't forget to give
it a squeeze now and then.

- You put your baby

in this airtight
coffin-like metal container

that has an air
filter that you have

to consistently
pump oxygen into,

and you go for a stroll
in Piccadilly Circus.

- [Dan] What happens to
the person walking the baby

isn't quite clear, but
the intent behind it

somehow makes sense.

- During wartime, you still
want to go to the park

with your baby even though
you're under threat.

So people are just
grasping at straws

to maintain their
sense of normalcy.

- And luckily, London

and the rest of England
we're not attacked

with chemical weapons,

and so the baby stroller
was never needed.

- As the fear of chemical
threats subside,

a different kind of terrifying
attack takes aim

during World War II.

[ammunition exploding]

- After Pearl Harbor, the
Japanese essentially are ruling

the entire Pacific, but by
1944, the tide is turned

and the Allies are
getting closer to Japan,

and as a result,
desperate times call

for desperate measures.

Enter the kamikaze.

[ammunition exploding]

[suspenseful music]

- These planes have a pilot.

They're loaded with
bombs and extra fuel,

and they're designed to slam
right into American ships.

- So the Japanese
Navy is looking around

and they see these
kamikaze planes

and they think, well,
that's a good idea.

What if we had
something like that?

- [Dan] Japanese Navy
lieutenants, Hiroshi Kuroki

and Sekio Nishina, come
up with a daring design,

the Kaiten Torpedo,
which roughly translates

to the heaven shaker.

- The Japanese have long
relied on torpedoes as one

of their main weapons
for naval engagements,

but it's very difficult

to get a torpedo on
time and on target.

What they develop is
essentially a suicide submarine.

- They take their
standard type 93 torpedo,

and in the center right
behind the payload,

they add a cockpit for a pilot.

- It's got rudimentary controls,
it's got a steering column.

It also has a button to
detonate the warhead.

The torpedo is 30 feet long,
but the real importance comes

with its speed.

It can reach 60 miles an hour,
which is almost twice as fast

as any ship afloat at the time.

- [Dan] While it seems like

a pretty straightforward
single use vessel,

it still needs to be tested.

- The first tests that are done
are done without a payload,

but it's still dangerous to
ram a target under the water.

[suspenseful music]

During these trials, 15 men die,

including one of the
inventors, Hiroshi Kuroki,

who was killed in
one of the tests.

- So now with testing complete,
there's only one thing left

to do, and that's to
put it into battle.

And who's gonna run
that first mission?

None other than
the other inventor,

Lieutenant Sekio Nishina.

- He wants to pay tribute
to his best friend who died

during training, and as such,
he brings a box of his ashes

that are going to ride like a
co-pilot with him into action.

- [Dan] On the morning
of November 20th, 1944,

the Kaiten sets out
on its first mission,

to ram the USS Mississinewa.

- Nishina drives it
across the harbor

and slams into the side
of the US oil ship.

[suspenseful music]

The explosion blows a massive
hole into the starboard side

of the Mississinewa.

It rolls over and 63 sailors

on board are killed.

- Although it appears
that the Kaiten is going

to be a revolutionary weapon,

as a matter of fact, when
they put them into operation,

there's very little success.

At the end of the day,
179 American sailors

lose their lives
in Kaiten attacks,

but nearly 1,000
Japanese are lost

either on the Kaitens themselves
or in the mother submarines

that are sunk on the way
to deliver their cargo.

- The Kaiten torpedo
stands as one

of the war's most
harrowing inventions.

A grim reminder of just how
far some are willing to go,

but when brute force won't
do, some turn to brain power.

- Protecting your head
in battle is crucial,

but a century ago,
someone turned

that safety gear into
something far more offensive.

- Prior to World War I,

an inventor Albert
Bacon Pratt decides

that guns have a major problem.

[gun firing]

You actually have to
hold them in your hand,

point them and pull the trigger.

- He thinks that he can take
the firearm to the next level

by making it a
hands-free device.

- So Pratt goes into
his Vermont workshop

and tinkers away with what he
thinks will be the solution

to modern warfare.

It's called the gun helmet.

- The design is a steel shell,

and integrated into the
steel shell is the weapon.

And from the barrel, there's
also a site that falls down.

So all the marksman has
to do is look at his enemy

and boom, hands-free shooting.

- [Dan] This of course
begs $1 million question.

How does one fire a handgun
without their hands?

- The marksman has a
rubber hose in his mouth,

and he blows into that
hose, which is routed up

above his face into the
helmet, which ignites a bulb,

depresses the trigger, and now
you have hands-free firing.

[gun firing]

- His patent illustrates

that the helmet has
another function.

On the top, there's a spike,

and it's actually
a cooking utensil.

The wearer can tenderize
meat, stir stew,

maybe even butcher a bear.

- [Dan] Cooking
stew notwithstanding,

there is one glaring
flaw in Pratt's design

that is a real
headache to move past.

- At this time in history,
guns have serious recoil.

When they fire that gun,

that sucker's gonna
kick his head back.

[gun firing]

The neck can snap,
the skull can crack,

and even teeth can be broken.

- And thus, the gun helmet
is a recipe for disaster.

- Apparently, the
US military agrees

because the gun never makes
it to the front lines,

but there's another way
to use your head in battle

and it won't give you whiplash.

- Conventional espionage is
although a very successful way

of gathering intelligence
about a potential foe,

it's also very difficult.

So during the decades
of the Cold War,

the government comes
up with a plan.

The US military establishes
Operation Stargate,

and this is a
program by which 10

or 15 men are trained at
Fort Meade in Maryland

in a psychological exercise
that's called remote viewing.

- What is remote viewing?

Well, simply put, it
is psychic spying.

The principle of psychic spying
is that people use the power

of their mind to

locate all the usual
intelligence targets,

missile silos, military bases,

ballistic missile submarines,

that sort of thing.

- [Dan] Incredibly,
this unique form

of espionage seems
to actually work.

- Turns out the
results are way better

than chance alone should allow.

Some of the estimates
about the success rate

of this program put
the figure at 70, 80%

- From these experiments,

the Army identifies six,
quote, star performers.

One of these star performers
is named Joseph McMoneagle.

- During his remote
viewing session, he begins

to sketch out what he's seeing.

- McMoneagle claims
that he's capable

of seeing deep into
the Soviet Union,

and he observes the construction
of a large submarine.

And what McMoneagle describes
ends up being the

Typhoon class of Soviet
ballistic missile submarine

six months before their
existence is made public.

But while McMoneagle is
seen as a star performer,

he's not even the
best one of the group.

That would be his
colleague, Pat Price,

who is deemed a
psychic treasure.

Pat Price is supposedly
successful in being able

to infiltrate an underground
Soviet nuclear research site.

- Price claims to
remote-view the development

of a particle beam weapon that
the Soviets are going to use

to shoot down satellites.

- [Dan]
Despite its promise,

Operations Stargate
never really takes off,

and the CIA shelves the program.

- But there's a suspicion
that it's only in public

that the plug has been pulled.

Some people believe these
programs continue to this day.

There is a theory that
this is a classic black op.

It's still going on,

but it's buried somewhere in
the private sector perhaps.

- It may sound like a
strange Cold War footnote,

but Operation Stargate

stands out as one of
the most groundbreaking

military intelligence
experiments ever.

- When used wisely, spite can
be a very dangerous weapon,

especially if you are a
professional welder

with a passion
for DIY projects.

[video whooshing]

- It's June of 2004,

and the town of
Granby, Colorado,

has descended into panic,

[building rumbling]

because there is a homemade
armored vehicle laying waste

to local buildings
in the community.

It is a absolute
wrecking machine.

[building collapsing]

The local law
enforcement have no idea

how to stop this thing.

It seems to be armor-plated.

It's knocking down buildings,
running over vehicles.

It seems to be
retrofitted to be more

of an armored fighting vehicle
than an actual bulldozer.

As a matter of fact, it's
quickly nicknamed the killdozer.

[video whooshing]

- But what the scared
citizens of Granby

don't realize is
that the man driving

the steel-clad
behemoth is a neighbor

they know [video
whooshing] and like.

[gentle music]

- Marvin Heemeyer is the
local man behind the wheel.

He is known as an expert welder,

and in fact, he runs a very
successful business in town.

Outwardly, he seems to
be living a happy life.

- [Dan] Life should
be good for Marvin,

but there's something
sticking in his craw.

[video whooshing]

- For years, Marvin
has been in a battle

with the Granby Town Board
due to a land dispute.

- [Dan] The trouble
starts in the early '90s

when Marvin outbids the
concrete company next door

for a prime piece of land.

They allegedly retaliate
by using their connections

with the board to get Marvin
slapped with costly fines.

- Marvin grudgingly
pays the fines,

but when he's making out his
check, he uses the memo section

to insult the town board,
calling them cowards and frauds.

- [Dan] As the town
finds continue with no end

in sight, Marvin's rage builds.

[suspenseful music]

- One night, Marvin claims
to hear the voice of God.

That voice tells him to get
revenge on all of the people

that are involved
in this scandal.

[video whooshing]

Marvin gets himself a
bulldozer at a local auction,

and while he is
running his business

during the day, at night,

he's spending his time creating

this impenetrable
armored attack vehicle.

- [Dan] Marvin
reinforces the killdozer

with steel plates and concrete,

making it virtually
impenetrable.

Instead of windows,
he mounts cameras

behind bulletproof glass

and navigates using
internal monitors.

On June 4th, 2004,

Marvin's rampage begins.

- The first thing
he turns into rubble

is the concrete factory next
door owned by the family

who he had the problems with.

- Law enforcement shows up

and they start firing 50
caliber bullets at him.

They even try to use
concussion grenades,

but not a scratch
on the killdozer.

- [Dan] Marvin
takes to the highway

to visit everybody
on his long list.

- Next, Marvin hits the
propane company owned

by a town board member.

Then he moves to
the town hall itself

and runs it completely
into the ground.

- He turns the killdozer
towards the hardware store,

also owned by a board member.

But Marvin makes one
massive tactical blunder.

He fails to realize the building

does have a basement.

The killdozer wedges
into the basement

where it gets stuck.

- [Dan] The dozer
starts overheating,

and finally shuts down.

- Marvin does not
survive the ordeal,

but he does become
a folk hero of sorts

for the people in the
area, people who feel

that taking matters
into their own hand

is the only act they have left.

- Decades earlier, the
British military rolled out

something just as unstoppable
and far more explosive.

[tank firing]

- It is 1943 and World
War II is at a stalemate.

The Germans have built
a massive fortification

along the entire French Coast
called the Atlantic Wall.

It's nigh unimpenetrable.

- So this is a big
conundrum for the Allies.

How do you get
troops on the beach

and circumvent the obstacle
of the Atlantic wall?

- [Dan] What
they come up with

is something straight out
of a "Road Runner Cartoon".

[video whooshing]

[gentle music]

- The weapon is the brain child

of British Wing Commander
C.R. Finch Noise,

and he comes up

with what he thinks will
be a war-winning weapon.

- Picture, if you will, two
10-foot tall steel wheels

upon which are 70 slow
burning cordite rockets.

In the middle, a
canister stuffed

with 4,000 pounds
of high explosive.

- [Dan] The idea,
get up close to the beach

with the panjandrum,

spark up the rockets
and let her rip.

- They wanted to
send 12 panjandrums up

to the beach at Normandy to
blow channels in the wall

so that the troops could
just walk on through.

That's an insane idea

for this rocket
powered wheel of death.

- [Dan] In late 1943,
Finch Noise decides it's time

to take the panjandrum out
for a little test spin.

- Finch Noise invites
the military's top brass

to witness this war
machine in action.

- This being a
test, they decide,

we're not gonna actually
blow something up.

So its payload, rather than
being 4,000 pounds of explosive,

is 4,000 pounds of inert sand.

This turns out to be
a very wise decision.

- When the test begins,
they light the rockets

and the panjandrum comes
off the landing craft.

Everything looks good for
the first 20 or 30 feet,

then it starts losing rockets
and all hell breaks loose.

- An officer's dog starts
chasing the panjandrum

down the beach like
it's a chew toy.

Then the panjandrum turns and
starts going after the dog.

Rockets are firing irregularly.

The things flipping from side
to side like a wagon wheel.

It's an unmitigated disaster,
and for that reason alone,

the panjandrum is not
included in the plans

for the D-Day invasion.

- We are happy to report

that no dogs were harmed in
the making of the panjandrum.

- In times of war, a necessity
breeds not just innovation,

but sometimes unspeakable
acts of resourcefulness.

One such example comes
from the Mongol Empire

while running low on
soldiers and ideas.

- So it's the early part
of the 13th century,

and the Golden Horde, a mighty
massive military force led

by Genghis Khan, overtakes
most of Asia, is on their way

to Europe and takes over
the Crimean Peninsula.

- [Dan] In the newly
conquered Crimean Peninsula,

the Mongols strike a deal

with Genoese merchants in
the walled City of Caffa,

keeping the peace for now.

- All goes really
well for some time

until we have a
new Khan, Janibek.

Janibek Khan wants Caffa back.

- [Dan] For
two brutal years,

the Mongols batter the city.

Just as victory
seems within reach,

something unexpected
turns the tide.

- Suddenly, men in the Mongol
army are dying in droves.

- Janibek is seeing his
soldiers fall left and right.

He's thinking, how
are we gonna continue

a siege like this?

- At the same time, the
Genoese look over this wall

and they're starting to see
this powerful Mongol army

writhing in pain on the fields,
vomiting, just bleeding.

And they think to
themselves, we've won.

They're too sick to fight.

There's no way that
they're gonna be able

to take over the city from us.

We get to keep it.

The day is ours.

Hurrah.

- [Dan] That's
when the golden horde

of Mongols fearless
leader devises a plan

that is both unbelievable
and well disgusting.

- They filled a trebuchet

with their most foul smelling,
worst looking, rotting,

bloated corpses and launched
them into the city in the hopes

that the smell alone will
drive the residents out.

[energetic music]

- They're bloated
bodies, they're corpses.

So when they hit,

[bodies falling]

they're exploding on impact.

Just stuff is just oozing
from all sorts of gaps

and crevices in these bodies.

- The Genoese are inside
going, man, we know we have

to do something with
all these dead bodies.

So they start loading
them into wagons

and carrying them to the
river and dumping them in.

- [Dan] Problem
solved, right?

Nope.

Turns out the Genoese

are victims of a
new form of warfare.

- As they're
collecting these bodies

and starting to dump
them, they're noticing

that they're also
starting to get sick,

and they're also starting
to have the same symptoms

that the Mongols did
outside of the city.

They are now writhing in pain

and they realize, oh my God,

we've got the same
thing that they got.

- [Dan] What
the Genoese got

is none other than one of
the most infectious diseases.

- The disease that Janibek

and the Mongols have
hit the Genoese with

is the bubonic plague.

- So Janibek Khan's
original idea

was to just stink
these people out.

But now he's
realizing, oh my God,

I can get them just
as sick as my men.

So the bodies keep
coming over the wall.

He has no shame in
throwing these men,

flinging them over the walls,

just watching them
explode on impact

and getting these
Genoese people sick.

[suspenseful music]

- The Black plague trebuchet
is easily the weirdest example

of biological weaponry
in human history,

and its impact will reach far
beyond the walls of Caffa.

- The Mongols retreat
south of Caffa,

and all the Genoese
abandon the city,

board boats towards Europe.

And what they begin
to do in their retreat

is spread the black
plague through Europe.

- We can't say for certain

that Mongols are
solely responsible

for this infamous pandemic.

What we do learn is
a valuable lesson,

when launching
hazardous ammunition,

it's best to keep
a safe distance,

but centuries later,
that gets a lot harder

when the payload is nuclear.

[bomb exploding]

[gentle music]

- At one of the peaks
of the Cold War,

the US Navy and the US Air
Force are the two services

leading the way in
America's nuclear arsenal.

But the Army wants
to find some way

to use nuclear devices
in its own activities,

notably in the field.

- What if on the
battlefield, a confrontation

with Soviet Russia, we have
a portable nuclear weapon?

A nuclear bomb attached
to the end of a bazooka?

That is a battle winning idea.

[video whooshing]

- [Dan] They call
it the Davy Crockett,

and it packs a potent punch.

- The Davy Crockett
weapon system fires

a 20 ton nuclear warhead.

Anything in its immediate
vicinity is gonna be reduced

to ash, rubble.

[bomb exploding]

- It's great at
eradicating your enemies.

It's also great at
eradicating your allies.

- [Dan] Therein
lies the king

of the wild frontier's
little problem.

- It uses radioactive material,

and the men who are deploying
this device are going

to be very close to it,

so they're at risk of
radiation poisoning.

- What they actually tell them

to do is safely fire the
weapon, hide behind cover.

Don't look at the
bright flash, get away

as quickly as possible.

That way you don't suffer
from nuclear fallout.

- [Dan] Believe it or
not, friendly fire radiation

isn't the only issue.

- Deploying nuclear
weapons on a battlefront

is a guaranteed way
to start an escalation

to global nuclear war.

It won't just stop
with the Davy Crockett.

- The army starts
recalling the weapon.

The official reason

is that they are not
accurate enough for combat.

[bomb exploding]

- Well, I think the threat of
possibly ending civilization

as we know it merits
a change of pace.

- There's no shortage

of bizarre World War II
weapons, from baseball grenades

to a wind cannon that shoots
puffs of air at the enemy.

But these pale in comparison
to one British engineer's idea

to bounce the Nazis
out of the war.

- In World War II, Britain
comes up with this idea

to attack Germany within.

We're gonna destroy
their infrastructure.

So the idea that they come
up with is destroying dams.

They will terrorize
the population,

but they'll also take
out hydroelectric power,

and it should have
a negative impact

on their manufacturing capacity.

- An easy way to
take out the dam

would be to shoot
a torpedo at it,

but the Germans actually
have torpedo nets.

So that's off the table.

- Dr. Barnes Wallace
is an engineer,

and he's got a plan to get
something past the torpedo net

and below, which would
ultimately cause them to fail.

- [Dan] To Dr. Wallace,

the answer is as easy
as skipping stones.

- You bounce the bomb across
the surface of the water,

it hits the dam, then
drops down and explodes,

and just the right point
to create maximum damage.

- But a key element is that
the bombs must have back spin.

So backs spin helps
in several ways.

One, it helps with the
skipping off of the water,

but also when it finally
hits the wall of the dam,

the back spin has
the English effect,

and it brings it down
to the base of the dam,

so it settles there.

- [Dan] With no idea on
how to create the backspin.

Barnes Wallace does what many
of us do when stumped at work.

He hits the golf course.

- He realizes something
about the golf ball

that may actually help
with the bouncing bomb,

and that is is that the
golf ball has these dimples.

- Because a golf ball, the
way the dimples work on it,

it actually helps
create the backspin.

- Barnes Wallace and
his designers

actually incorporate this

into their bouncing
bomb, even to the point

where they're calling
them the golf mines.

- [Dan] By July of
1942, it's test time.

Will Dr. Barnes Wallace's
dimpled bomb have what it takes

to take out a dam?

- They find a place in
Wales called Nant-y-Gro Dam,

and that's where they first
test the bouncing bomb.

The RAF bomber takes off

with the bouncing
bomb slung underneath.

You have to spin it at exactly
the right speed, 500 RPM.

You have to be exactly the
right height over the water,

60 feet, and you
have to be traveling

at exactly the right
speed, 232 miles per hour.

This is a very narrow window
that these teams have to hit.

- It skips across the
river, hits the dam, sinks.

90 seconds later,

[bomb explodes]

the bomb works.

- [Dan] The Confident
Royal Air Force readies a fleet

of bombers eager to bounce
havoc on the Germans.

Enter the dam busters.

- Just after midnight
on May 17th, 1943,

the dam busters go into action,

and the raid is led by a
24-year-old wing commander

by the name of Guy Gibson,
with 133 men from Britain

and their allies
flying in 19 bombers.

The plan calls for them

to hit three dams in
Germany's Ruhr Valley,

their industrial heartland.

[suspenseful music]

- Gibson is the first
to release his bomb.

It bounces three times on
the surface of the water,

but then falls short.

One plane's bouncing bomb even
bounces clean over the dam.

The first four planes miss,
the fifth plane coming in

is Flight Lieutenant
David Maltby.

He's approaching the reservoir.

Gibson circles back around

so that he takes the
fire on his plane

so that Maltby can
make it through,

and Maltby releases
his bouncing bomb.

[suspenseful music]

- And then suddenly
the bomb explodes,

concrete is crumbling.

A huge column of water
goes into the sky.

Complete success.

- [Dan] By the
end of their mission,

the dam busters take out
two of the three targets,

but they pay a high price.

- Out of 133 men, 53
are killed on this raid.

Three of them end up in
the hands of the Germans,

but the dam busters go
down in history as one

of the most legendary squadrons
ever to take to the skies.

[energetic music]

- Whether it's handheld
nukes or bomb dropping bats,

these are not only the
wildest weapons ever created.

They are the very best
of the unbelievable.

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