Cold War....."And a live Chicken"

I never thought one way or another about chickens, except they taste good and definitely not as a weapon of war.  The first time I saw a chicken in a wartime setting was in the Gulf War, We were getting ready to go up against Saddam Hussain and the 4th largest Army in the world.  We were there from Germany and our stuff was green.  You could tell the Stateside Army and the European Army apart, the Stateside Americans had the "Chocochip DCU's" and we had the "Forest Green BDU's".  We never got the desert stuff until after the war was over.  Well anyway we were gearing up and Biological and chemical attack was a real concern and we as GI's really didn't have faith in our NBC gear, sure the MOPP suits would work, but the detection gear was shall we say "really Old"  I surmise that the detection stuff was based on the 1950's and early 1960's technology.  Face it, NBC isn't sexy so it doesn't get the big defense dollars or supporters on capital hill.  Perhaps it is different now, but back then, that was the feeling.  Well anyway  We were part of the coalition to get Saddam out of Kuwait,  The Czech's being former "Warsaw Pact" knew the ins and out of the Soviet pattern chemicals and delivery systems and they were prepared accordingly and they send all of their "Fuches" or "Fox" NBC detection equipment to assist.
    Well to further help us, we got a Chicken.....yep a live chicken...the logic was that the bird being more susceptible to chemicals and biologicals would keel over first giving us additional warming along with the M-8 Chemical alarms we had....Funny about that chicken, after the ground war started, the chicken "vanished". and I had nothing to do with it, someone else beat us to the chicken., dangit, LOL

Landmine: The Cold War was a tense time for Europeans, caught as they were between the military behemoths of the USSR and the USA.
Both superpowers lined their missiles up from the frozen North to the sunny South waiting for curtain-up in this theatre of war.
But the Russians and the Americans were not the only nuclear powers in the region. The French and the British were also players in the game and devised their own, home-grown deterrents to invasion by the Soviet threat.

A top secret document from 1957 discussing the nuclear land mine plans

The British had already made their name for warfighting engineering expertise in the Second World War with successful bouncing bombs and super-fast spitfire fighter planes.
The threats during the Cold War were entirely different.
Facing weapons of mass destruction and the vast military might of the USSR’s armed forces plucky Brits came up with a wide range of ideas that were designed to stop the enemy advance in its tracks.

One such design, codenamed Operation Blue Peacock, was a nuclear landmine. It was planned to be remotely triggered in order to inflict maximum damage on advancing Soviet forces.
One problem that the designers could not manage out easily was that the detonation could not occur if the device was too cold, and buried underground in Germany’s northern plains, maintaining a temperature at which the bombs’ electronics could be effective was difficult.

Bunker Complex(getty Image)

Even so, in July 1957 the British Army ordered ten nuclear landmines to be constructed and delivered to West Germany.
The story was that these were nuclear power units for use by the British military forces stationed in the country.
As the mines were to be left unattended, in the case of a retreat by British armed forces, there were anti-tamper devices built-in to the bombs.
The casings were pressurized, which meant that pressure and tilt switches could be incorporated. Once the weapon was armed it would be set off if moved, if the casing lost pressure or if it filled with water.
It was also designed to be detonated remotely by wire from a distance of up to three miles or by an eight-day timer.
While this would work when the electronics were at operating temperature, there was a very real risk that the harsh winters of the region could render the weapons useless.
Developers tried and tested many ways to keep the bomb electronics from freezing, ranging from wrapping the mines in insulating blankets to the use of live chickens, whose body heat would be enough to maintain the correct ambient temperature required.

Soviets were a real threat

The birds were expected to live for at least eight days inside the bomb, which was considered long enough in the event of invasion.
The chickens would be given enough grain and water to sustain them for the maximum window required for the timing mechanism should the full term be needed, before starving to death.
The bombs were said to deliver a ten-kiloton explosion that would result in a crater 375m wide and render a wide area out of bounds due to contamination, causing considerable impediment to an advancing Red Army.
Nevertheless, after the production of two prototypes the order was cancelled amid fears of creating unacceptable levels of fallout in the atmosphere so close to home.
There were also ethical and political issues concerned with the installation underground of nuclear warheads in allied territory and so, in 1958 the British Ministry of Defence cancelled the project.
Fast forward to 2004 and the documents relating to the nuclear landmine project were declassified. It is not known who was responsible, but the details of the chicken-powered bombs were released, quite appropriately, on April 1^st.
However, a spokesperson confirmed that this was not an April Fool but had been a serious proposal, funded by the British government and developed by the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE).