They Might Be G.I. Ants Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bees

An incredibly simple tactic, the Romans used catapults to launch beehives against their enemies. This worked both as a means of defense and in attack.
The ancient Romans were not the only group to use bees in this manner - there are records of King Richard using the same tactic against the Saracens during the Crusades, and in more recent history, of beehives being 'booby trapped' with tripwires during World War I.

Answer: Dog

Dogs have been used for a wide range of military purposes - as guards, messengers, scouts and for rescue purposes. Perhaps the most terrible however, is the use of dogs as anti-tank mines. The then Soviet Union deployed anti-tank dogs in World War II.
This was done by training the dogs to find food beneath tanks. Before battle the dogs were starved. In battle the dogs were strapped with explosives and released.
The results were mixed - a number of flaws in the methods of training meant that the dogs might refuse to head toward a moving tank, and the noise of battle would quite often scare them off, despite their hunger. In addition, the dogs had been trained with tanks used by the Soviet army - which meant the dogs headed towards the familiar vehicles rather than the German tanks.

Answer: Elephant

War elephants were used throughout the ancient world, from India to the Persian Empire and Macedonia - Alexander the Great apparently encountered 15 war elephants for the first time in the Battle of Gaugamela and after defeating the enemy, is said to have taken these and made use of them in later battles.

The advantage of the war elephant was the combination of their size, for both the 'intimidation factor' and the height advantage, and also the thick skin of the elephant made arrows and slashes less effective in bringing them down.

Answer: Pigeon

'Project Pigeon' was a World War II project which proposed that pigeons could be trained, using operant conditioning, to peck a screen containing an image of a target, to guide a missile. The intent was that the pigeon would peck the centre of the screen for the missile to go straight; pecks left or right of centre would adjust the missile accordingly.

Operant conditioning uses both negative and positive reinforcement to influence 'voluntary' behaviour: It 'rewards' or 'punishes' behaviour after the behaviour happens voluntarily. This disinguishes it from classical conditioning which initially requires a stimulus before the behaviour. First studied by Edward Thorndike, B.F. Skinner took the theory of operant conditioning further and created the 'operant conditioning chamber' or Skinner box.

The project was cancelled in 1944, only to be resurrected in 1948 under the new name 'Project Orcon'. In 1953 the guidance system was shown to be faulty and the project was then scrapped.

Answer: Bat

The idea came from Lytle S. Adams, a dental surgeon. The idea was to drop multiple casings, each containing Mexican free-tailed bat with a small incendiary device attached to it. The casings would open and release the bats which would then roost in dark, out of the way spaces.
Later the devices would go off, causing fires in spaces that were awkward to reach or inaccessible. The sheer number of these fires would, in theory, cause massive devastation, particularly in Japanese cities which had high concentrations of buildings where paper and wood were used in construction.

The research yielded positive results, although there were some accidents along the way. The project was abandoned in 1944 though when it appeared it would not be combat ready until 1945. Essentially, it was not that it didn't work - it was just taking too long to happen!

Answer: Dolphin

Dolphins are ideally suited mine retrieval. Their echo-location allows them to pinpoint sea mine locations. When they search an area they report back to their handler with one of two responses, one for a mine located the other for no mine. If there is one located, the handler will send the dolphin to mark the mine, which will be dealt with later.
Dolphins are used for more than just mine retrieval. They are also used for rescues, object recovery and can act as sentries, protecting areas of the sea against unauthorised swimmers.

Answer: Horse

Horses have been put to use for a wide range of military purposes. They have been involved in pulling carts, chariots and artillery, in cavalry charges, in addition to their use as simple transport.
Although used by armies for ceremonial purposes and by law enforcement around the world, the Indian Army maintains the only modern day full-time regiment that are horse mounted.

Answer: Honey bees

Research has been conducted in both Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Montana on the ability of bees to detect both explosives used in bombs as well as substances toxic to humans. Apparently the honeybee has a sense of smell that rivals that of a dog!
Honeybees respond to nectar by sticking their tongue out - the researchers have been working on getting the bees to replicate this behaviour for the presence of certain chemicals by using a traditional reward approach. Thus far, the results have been promising.

Answer: Pig

Although the use of pigs as military animals is believed to be rare, Pliny the Elder referred to this use more than once and a Byzantine scholar Procopius also wrote about pigs being used to scare elephants.

Answer: Rats

Rats are a cheap and effective means of clearing land mines. Their small size means they are unlikely to trigger a mine and they are easy to train.
The African Giant Pouched Rat is used in one of two ways. In the first method, they use field samples taken from a minefield - if the rat detects no explosives in the sample, that area can be considered 'cleared'.
In the second method, the rat is harnessed between two handlers. They go out and search a given area and they are trained to stop when a mine is detected. The handlers then note where mines have been located on a grid of that area.