Elephant swords

[mahratt]

Originally Posted by kronckew

The Soviets in WW2 trained dogs to run under tanks with backpacks on, Their first test engagement against a line of German panzers they put anti-tank mines with a vertical contact fuse on the dogs, and released them towards the German tanks, they promptly turned around and ran under the Soviet tanks, which all blew up. They'd trained them with soviet tanks...Project sancelled.

Although this information is not related to the topic, I must note that this is false information.
Dogs destroyed up to 300 German tanks during the period from 1941 to 1945.
The German source mentions the destruction as a minimum of one German tank in October 1941 on the outskirts of Karachev.
In the summer of 1943, in the battle of Kursk, 12 German tanks were destroyed with the help of dogs.
Dogs were a problem for the Germans, because the tank machine gun was located high enough and hardly got into a dog moving quickly near the surface of the earth. The German command ordered every soldier to shoot any dog ​​that appears in sight. Killing dogs was prescribed even to pilots of Luftwaffe fighters - from airplanes.
Over time, the Wehrmacht soldiers began to use flamethrowers installed on tanks against dogs, this turned out to be a fairly effective countermeasure, however, some dogs still could not be stopped.

[kronckew]

I stand corrected, thanks.

[ariel]

Originally Posted by kronckew

I stand corrected, thanks.

Don’t feel bad: the above info was lifted verbatim from the Russian version of Wikipedia. The reliability of that source is limited, to put it mildly.


For example, the blurb here states that during the Kursk battle ( summer 1943) dogs destroyed 12 German tanks. But another reference ( not cited) mentions that already by 1942 the dogs for some reasons became less reliable and, instead of jumping under German tanks, preferred to go back to Russian positions, wrecking havoc there. As a result, their use was swiftly terminated. The only German description refers to an incident in October of 1941. And another reference from the Russian Wiki ( also not cited) avers that the entire program was not effective altogether.

The story about Luftwaffe hunting any dogs was taken from some Russian radio program, never documented, just like the use of flamethrowers.

Overall, don’t feel sad and guilty: we are dealing with a cockamamie story.

The idea of using animals as suicide bombers was briefly revived at the end of 20th century: dolphins. The program was shut down anon.

On the other hand, there were well documented cases of patriotic Russian soldiers throwing themselves with explosive devices under German tanks. The only thing it proves is that Pavlovian brainwashing works better on humans than on dogs. Dogs seem to be smarter.

[mahratt]

Originally Posted by ariel

Don’t feel bad: the above info was lifted verbatim from the Russian version of Wikipedia. The reliability of that source is limited, to put it mildly.

I will be very grateful if you provide serious evidence that the Wikipedia article contains erroneous information.

[Jim McDougall]

Yeah!!!! How bout them trunk swords!!!!!