Originally posted by lil bitchiness
Please, do offer examples as to what modern armies use dogs in combat.
I have heard of interrogation dogs, dogs used for detecting explosives, mines, people and such and I have heard of dogs set to keep a look out for the enemy, but not of dogs being used for combat today.
It clearly states in the article that these dogs have been given titanium fangs - they're therefore suggesting those dogs are trained for combat, not detection, prevention or whatever.Dogs thus, must be close enough to the enemy to use their 'weapons' and as WWII military personnel found out, they tend to be gunned down before they can even come close to begin sniffing out the enemy.
So, this is why, this whole bin Laden story of his capture is super holywoodized that is bordering absurd. It started off with ''they killed him'' and it got more and more outrageous and weird.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogs_in_warfare
Modern usesU.S. Army military working dog searches among rubble and trash outside a target building in Rusafa, eastern Baghdad, Iraq.
Contemporary dogs in military roles are also often referred to as police dogs, or in the United States as a Military Working Dog (MWD), or K-9. Their roles are nearly as varied as their ancient cousins, though they tend to be more rarely used in front-line formations. As of 2011, 600 U.S. Military dogs were actively participating in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.[21]
Traditionally, the most common breed for these police-type operations has been the German Shepherd; in recent years there has been a shift to smaller dogs with keener senses of smell for detection work, and more resilient breeds such as the Belgian Malinois and Dutch Shepherd for patrolling and law enforcement. All MWDs in use today are paired with a single individual after their training. This person is called a handler. While a handler usually won't stay with one dog for the length of either's career, usually a handler will stay partnered with a dog for at least a year, and sometimes much longer.
In the 1970s the US Air Force used over 1,600 dogs worldwide. Today, personnel cutbacks have reduced USAF dog teams to approximately 530, stationed throughout the world. Many dogs that operate in these roles are trained at Lackland Air Force Base, the only United States facility that currently trains dogs for military use.[22]
Change has also come in legislation for the benefit of the canines. Prior to 2000, older war dogs were required to be euthanized. Thanks to a new law, retired military dogs may now be adopted,[22] the first of which was Lex, a working dog whose handler was killed in Iraq.
There are numerous memorials dedicated to war dogs, including March Field Air Museum in Riverside, California;[23] the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia;[23] at the Naval Facility, Guam, with replicas at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine in Knoxville;[24] the Alfred M. Gray Marine Corps Research Center in Quantico, Virginia;[25] and the Alabama War Dogs Memorial at the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile, Alabama.[26]
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the reference about 600 dogs in use currently:
Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of United States forces in Afghanistan, said last year that the military needed more dogs. “The capability they bring to the fight cannot be replicated by man or machine,” he said.Maj. William Roberts, commander of the Defense Department’s Military Working Dog Center at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, said the dog on the raid could have checked the compound for explosives and even sniffed door handles to see if they were booby-trapped.
...
“Dogs are very good at detecting people inside of a building,” Major Roberts said.
Another use may have been to catch anyone escaping the compound in the first moments of the raid. A shepherd or a Malinois runs twice as fast as a human.
Tech Sgt. Kelly A. Mylott, the kennel master at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, called dogs ideal for getting someone who is running away without having to shoot them. “When the dogs go after a suspect, they’re trained to bite and hold them,” Sergeant Mylott said.
Some dogs are big enough that, when they leap on a suspect, the person tends to drop to the ground, Sergeant Mylott said. Others bite arms or legs. “Different dogs do different things,” she said. “But whatever they do, it’s very difficult for that person to go any further.”
Finally, dogs can be used to pacify an unruly group of people — particularly in the Middle East. “There is a cultural aversion to dogs in some of these countries, where few of them are used as pets,” Major Roberts said. “Dogs can be very intimidating in that situation.
...
There are 600 dogs serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that number is expected to grow substantially over the next year, Ensign Brynn Olson of the United States Central Command said. Particularly popular with the troops are the growing number of Labrador retrievers who wander off-leash 100 yards or more in front of patrols to ensure the safety of the route. A Silver Star, one of the Navy’s highest awards, was awarded posthumously in 2009 to a dog named Remco after he charged an insurgent’s hide-out in Afghanistan.
The training of dogs in Navy Seal teams and other Special Operations units is shrouded in secrecy. Maj. Wes Ticer, a spokesman for United States Special Operations Command, said the dogs’ primary functions “are finding explosives and conducting searches and patrols.”
“Dogs are relied upon,” he continued, “to provide early warning for potential hazards, many times, saving the lives of the Special Operations Forces with whom they operate.”
Last year, the Seals bought four waterproof tactical vests for their dogs that featured infrared and night-vision cameras so that handlers — holding a three-inch monitor from as far as 1,000 yards away — could immediately see what the dogs were seeing. The vests, which come in coyote tan and camouflage, let handlers communicate with the dogs with a speaker, and the four together cost more than $86,000. Navy Seal teams have trained to parachute from great heights and deploy out of helicopters with dogs.
The military uses a variety of breeds, but by far the most common are the German shepherd and the Belgian Malinois, which “have the best overall combination of keen sense of smell, endurance, speed, strength, courage, intelligence and adaptability to almost any climatic condition,” according to a fact sheet from the military working dog unit.
so..... ummmm.... ya......
EDIT: emphasis added