Acoustic Kitty and Bat Bombs: Citation Needed 6x05

"That is horrific," says Matt at one point during this episode. He's not wrong. We delve into unconventional Cold War tactics, and some surprising - and doomed - members of the animal kingdom.

[TomScottGo]

If you're wondering why the introduction's shorter this week, so am I. Apparently I just forgot to read it and no-one noticed.

[chlojo]

Matt saying “espionage?” is in exactly the same tone as “panthers?”

[vale.antoni]

The dogs associated the image of food with the general looks of the T-34 and - more importantly - with the sound and smell of the diesel engine powering them. The one massive problem was that Panzers ran on petrol. I would dare to assume that the only visual clue they remembered from the tanks is it's a big metal box. The sound and smell are more impactful, when it comes to triggering senses of dogs, and forming associations.

[ShubhamBhushanCC]

Bats Insufficiently motivated. I imagined the great Alan Rickman saying that in way that only he could.

[andreyrumming]

I absolutely love how long it takes Tom to realize what was said about parachuting in a cat 8:11

[WafflePlaneRC]

"well spot was all over it by the end of it"
oh
oh no

[EjvindGEMDark]

Cats in space with antennas? I guess you'd call that a Catellite.

[MultiPwolf]

Just imagine a group of Russians engaging in secretive talks when suddenly a dead fish lands right next to them and in hobbles a little cat with a flashing red diode and a little antenna behind its ear.

[BreezedLightning]

Can you imagine what would happen if the Citation Needed crew (Tom, Chris, Gary, Matt, and Will, maybe another person) did a Dungeons & Dragons (or other tabletop RPG) campaign?

(Then again, Tom would be pressed for time making something like that. Maybe Will could be the Game Master instead?)

[funnymoss-man]

Fun fact about the bat bomb: it was meant to be used against Japan, where quite a few of the buildings at the time were traditional buildings made mostly out of flammable materials like wood and paper. The idea was that the bats would roost in the attics of the houses, and after a few hours the timers attached to the incendiary devices would go off, (hopefully) resulting in the city going up in flames.

[ericvilas]

Why did the cat cross the border?
To work for the other side.

[fisch]

Somehow I feel Gary Brannan being called "everyone's favourite Gary Brannan" is one of those phrases that theoretically are compliments but in practice really isn't...

[adamweishaupt]

I'm disappointed no one knew about or thought to mention St. Olga of Kiev in relation to the incendiary bats. St. Olga supposedly demanded a rebellious village give her 3 birds from each house, attached burning sulfur to their legs, and released them, at which point they flew home and burned down the entire village.

[acarrot]

Brannan was right, the RAF once para-dropped cats in Borneo to solve an outbreak of the plague.

[Asocial-Canine]

i'm just realising now, Gary's cat sign idea is exactly what some folks do with buttons that say things. And they don't even need nails!

[Zelmel]

This episode makes me miss this format, even though I know the guys were tired of it.

[metropod]

Also, should anyone be wondering, the idea of the bat bomb (so hard not to type "Batman and Robin" there) was the bats would be asleep on a series of racks in a bomb casing. each bat would have their incendiary device attached to them. the plane would drop the payload, the casing would fall away, the racks would open, activating a timer on the incendiary and the bats would fly off to find somewhere to roost. the general idea was to use this against the Japanese home islands due to the fact that the vast majority of buildings were then still wooden.

[Qhran]

The moment when you know exactly what Tom has found and explain it in perfect detail and just wait for that "Mystery Biscuit" to be played, and then you get disappointed when you realise "Oh yeah... not on the show"...

[jamesl]

After what matt whispers at about 7:00 I really hope no one has ever asked him to look after their cat while they go on holiday

[mtty]

Park bench all it recorded was 2 blogging men rambling about nothing