Bunker buster

Government papers obtained by the Sunshine Project, a group which monitors research into chemical and biological weapons, under US Freedom of Information rules reveal that the US military investigated building a "gay bomb", which would make enemy soldiers "sexually irresistible" to each other.

The 1994 plans for a six-year project costing $7.5m were never pursued.

The plan for a so-called "love bomb" envisaged an aphrodisiac chemical that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among troops, causing what the military called a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale.

Now that's what I call a dirty bomb. Can you imagine one of those going off in your face? It could result in a huge blow, to morale. Corporal Jones might have been forced to reconsider his assessment that "They don't like it up 'em Mr Mainwaring".

(Please add your own puerile schoolboy comments - it's what Tim Berners Lee invented the web for!)

Another idea was to develop a chemical causing "severe and lasting halitosis", so that enemy forces would be obvious even when they tried to blend in with civilians. Reports of a stray test bomb lost over France are unconfirmed.