Scary Pigs and Phantom Planes: Audio Warfare Through the Ages

<p>During my last episode about sonic tactics, I talked about the different audio strategies that animals have developed for hunting prey and escaping predators, whether they're orcas using tail slaps to stun schools of fish or moths evading a bat's sonar with their clicks. As it turns out, some of those strategies are surprisingly similar to the sound tactics we've been using on the battlefield for centuries. This week I'll be delving deeper into how those same sonic strategies have played an important role throughout the history of war, from ancient Roman war pigs to inflatable army tanks.</p><p>Since animals already rely so much on sound to survive, it may be no surprise that one of the first uses of sound as a battle plan was to try and scare off the other side’s animals. Perhaps the most fearsome mount ever faced in antiquity was the war elephant: they were the tanks of the ancient world, massive and nearly unstoppable during a charge. But elephants are skittish, and it didn’t take long for their enemies to stumble upon a sound that would send even the bravest pachyderm running: the squeal of a pig. “War pigs,” as they came to be called, were sent stampeding among the approaching war elephants to make them panic and trample their own riders. To counter this gambit, elephant trainers began to raise pigs alongside their war elephants so they’d grow accustomed to the sound.</p><p>The idea of using sound to evoke fear among the enemy isn't limited to animals. One of the most distinctive sounds on the battlefields of ancient Japan is the kabura-ya (kah-burr-ah-yah) arrow, which literally translates as "turnip arrow." They're often called whistling arrows because, thanks to their hollow, turnip-shaped heads, that's just what they did. The sound of a kabura-ya flying through the air was believed to dispel evil influences, and they were used as signals to announce each army's arrival on a battlefield. While their use by samurai started to fade after the twelfth century, such arrows were also used by bandits to signa