I came across this U.S. WWII pre-electronic guidance system initiative called “project pigeon” which basically used trained pigeons to direct bombs on target by consensus. My entry point on this was a really great book called Universal Principles of Design. Click on the image at left to see the full page. There is also wikipedia entry on this. Apparently the States spent 25K to research behavioural psychologist B.F. Skinner’s project.