Researcher baffled by document written by artillery master Franz Helm featuring pictures of jetpacks strapped to cats and doves
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| The manual suggests capturing cats from enemy territory and strapping bombs to them. Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP |
theguardian.com, Thursday 6 March 2014 10.44 GMT
You're a 16th century German prince plotting to crush a peasant rebellion, or perhaps you're leading an army against the Ottoman Empire or settling a score with a rival nobleman. What's a guy looking for a tactical edge to do?
The answer, of course, is rocket cats.
Fanciful illustrations from a circa-1530 manual on artillery and siege warfare seem to show jetpacks strapped to the backs of cats and doves, with the German text helpfully advising military commanders to use them to "set fire to a castle or city which you can't get at otherwise".
Digitalised by the University of Pennsylvania, the unusual, full-colour illustrations caught the attention of an Australian book blog and then found their way to researcher Mitch Fraas, who set out to unravel the mystery.
"I really didn't know what to make of it," said Fraas, a historian and digital humanities expert at Penn library. "It clearly looks like there's some sort of jet of fire coming out of a device strapped to these animals."
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