Cow bomb™

Introduction

After September 11th, security precautions have been tightened to prevent against further terrorist attacks. However there are many types of attacks that cannot be planned for, one rather extreme example is the use of the utterly devastating cow bomb™.

Cow bomb™ is a specific instance of the more general class of terrorist attacks known as falling comedy animal attacks.

Details

Cow bomb™ involves a cow being dropped from a helicopter onto a house or other target, because cows are very heavy they will cause significant damage when dropped from a great height. The following graph shows how accuracy decreases with the height the from which the cow is dropped.

[Cow bomb accuracy graph]
Data courtesy of the US department of defence

Advantages

One of the main advantages that cow bomb has over more traditional attack techniques such as high explosives or missiles, is that it is almost completely unpredictable because it is not considered a serious threat.
Another huge bonus of cow bomb is that it cannot be covered against in most insurance policies, this causes financial damage to the victim

Disadvantages

Most critics of cow bomb™ cite that fact that the cows have to be dropped from a very low altitude in order to gain accuracy, because people are likely to notice low flying helicopters immediately prior to attack, this distracts from the unpredictable nature of cow bomb.

This photo shows what can happens when cows are dropped from too great a height, this cow has completely missed its target and ended up in a tree.
[Picture of a cow in a tree]

Other drawbacks include animal rights issues, although supporters are often quick to point out that the cow can be killed/sedated humanely before the attack.
Another possible disadvantage is that if fresh cows are not used then the resulting damage may only be minimal. So to insure a good amount of damage, it is vital to use fresh cows, not diseased and/or rotting cows that are often much easier and cheaper to obtain

Cow bomb in action

As these rather graphic before and after pictures show, cow bomb is a very powerful weapon when in the hands of the wrong people.


Before	After