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From: howard@cos.com (Howard C. Berkowitz)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: non - standard target acquitsition
Summary: Bedbugs were ground troops
Message-ID: <12262@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 13 Dec 89 04:27:16 GMT
References: <12014@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: Corporation for Open Systems, McLean, VA
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From: howard@cos.com (Howard C. Berkowitz)
 
 In article <12014@cbnews.ATT.COM>, DEPLETE%TUCC.BITNET@ncsuvm.ncsu.edu writes:
 > 
 > 
 > From:    DEPLETE%TUCC.BITNET@ncsuvm.ncsu.edu
 > During my tour in RVN it was rumored that one of the methods
 > use by us to track NVA was by flying a helo over the triple
 > canopy and wafting air over a bed of bedbugs. The phermones in the
 > aiir were detected by the bugs who became vewry excited. Excitment
 > noted and ploted and done agin again until a concentration of troops
 > was identified. Arty and aircover did the rest. WSA Was ;this ever
 > evaluated or di d it ever exist? B-52 stikes were vectored
 > using a much diferent methodology , another posting.
 
 
 There were at least two "people-sniffer" devices.  The airborne
 sensor detected ammonia concentrations, as typically was generated
 by any large mammal(s).  Took out lots of water buffaloes, 
 although the NVA did seem to have some awareness of the technique;
 there were reports of troops finding beer bottles of urine 
 hung high in trees (as a spoofing technique, we hope).
 
 Bedbugs were a different method, used in perimeter defenses and
 some trailside sensors.  Developed, as I remember, by the Army
 Limited Warfare Laboratory, they were fairly selective for humans,
 but had a limited life in the field.  I have mercifully forgotten
 the contents of the Bedbug Depot Maintenance Manual (if any).
 
 I worked on people sniffer basic research for the Navy, which,
 as far as I know, never deployed any.  We did do some research
 in discriminating among various population groups based on
 dietary components, cosmetics, and other "smell-based" approaches;
 most were not practical.  I had a group of social scientists
 research any traditions relating to smells; I remember their
 sober description of a particular Montagnard tribe which 
 "bathed but once a year, and then in the blood of a sacrificed
 water buffalo.  They have been scrupulously avoided by both
 sides." [by memory from "Cultural and Biological Effluents 
 of Southeast Asia," Center for Research in Social Systems (CRESS),
 then an Army Contract Research Center at American University.]
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