Anti-tank dogs - sadly they did exist

Ppl, today as work break I was reading memoirs of Mansur Abdulin (thnx 2 Owen for pointing me) and stuck at some part - where author describe anti-tank dogs that were used by soviet troops at Stalingrad. If he is right - they did exist. They were armed with 5-8kg of demolition, that stuff had radio antenna and were blowed remotely. According to Abdulin the use of them were effective, germans were not ready to such 'weapon'.
Dogs were trained to get under tanks, as author said they were feed under tanks during training so on the battlefield they get under tanks to find some food and were blowed remotely.

Very sad story as I like dogs

 

There's a thread or two dedicated to them on here somewhere, but I can't find 'em now.
:icon_crash:

It's often said that one of the major problems was that they were trained to run beneath 'Tanks' rather than 'German Tanks' so if any friendly AFVs were in the area they'd be as likely to run under them.

Some tenuous info on the Japanese use of such dogs:
Japanese WWII Trained Dog Battalion: WWII Photo Feature 27 (Lone Sentry)
And an illustration/recreation/suggestion of the 'kit' here.
vorausmedia.com - Anti Tank Dog Mine - 01:
Hmm, I tried to find too but was out of luck. So I've created this one.

interesting links, thnx

 

Dogs against tanks
The following article by German war correspondant Fritz Lucke reporting from German headquarters east of Bryansk, appeared in the November 1st 1941 issue of the Berlin newspaper the Berliner Lokalanzeiger:
Even our chief divisional officer could not believe the report. At the crack of dawn he rang up the orderly on duty, getting him out of bed to ask whether we thought this was April Fools Day; after all he said, he should understand a soldiers joke as well as the next man, but really, this was supposed to be a military report.
The incredible news was true word for word: Suddenly a number of dogs had come running along the narrow field path toward the foremost of our vehicles. A few yards away they veered off, ran back the way they had come, wagging their tails, then returned towards us. On their backs they were carrying jutting cases fastened on with a harness. This was a strange and suspicious business and our soldiers did not know what to make of it. The Company leader made the only decision he could. The men took tommy guns, rifles and pistols and shot the animals. When the corpses were examined - the dogs were grey Shepherds and brown Dobermans - it turned out that the boxes on their backs contained two explosive charges each but the mines had not been primed, the pins had not been pulled. . .
No doubt about it, the Soviets believed that these trained mine-dogs were actually a weapon they could use to fight German tanks. They called the commando dogs by the highfalutin name "destroyers." Back at the end of July, Soviet soldiers who had been taken prisoner, said they had been called to Vishnyaki 9 miles outside Moscow, where they were assigned to the 2nd Army Destroyer Detachment. There were about 235 men to a detachment, each equipped with one dog and one rifle. The detachments were combined to form a "destroyer battalion" totalling 500 men.
Training of the dogs began with towing vehicles. Meat was used to entice the dogs underneath the vehicles. In the next "class", pieces of meat were held out to make the animals along under a standing tractor form one end to the other. These exercises lasted about five days. Then they were repeated using a slow-moving tractor. During the 40-day training period the tractor was replaced by a tank. Exploding firecrackers were tossed out of the tank, and blanks fired from rifles, to accustom the dogs to the noise of battle. . .
But they failed to reckon on the honest soul of a dog, who, like any other animal, will run away from a tank in a serious battle. The behaviour of the mine-dogs proved it, and our Soviet prisoners confirmed it too. Two of the three companies in their detachment were to be deployed for the first time along our sector of the river. But most of the dogs had not been properly tarined and only a very few crawled under the moving tanks. On top of that, many dogs were gun-shy and ran away from the exploding firecrackers. The breeds were all mixed: any breed that could be confiscated was used.
Three beautiful canine specimens are now lying peaceably at our feet, accepting every morsel of bread with a wag of the tail. They have no notion what fate their "dear masters" had in mind for them. We asked which of the three had been the aptest pupil. One of our prisoners pointed to the german Shepherd in the middle, a light-grey male. We are taking him along - he'll make a fine divisional mascot!

 

I wonder if any film exists of these anti-tank dogs in use?

 

From here: Soviet-Empire.com - Soviet Anti-Tank Dog Mine
And read here: Soviet-Empire.com - The Soviet Anti-Tank Dog Mine

PS: what the hell is that soviet-empire.com?

EDIT: damn! that site is even funny that I thought - there gathered some neo-communists from around the world FUNNY!

 

You may find this interesting. In Holland we used mine dogs to search out mines. The mine dog men thought that they were outstanding, And that they picked up huge quantities of mines...me? Oh I was never going to trust my ability to father children, or to endanger my future love life, in the gift of some scruffy canine.
NO SIR!
Sapper

 

i got 2 jack russels shamus and rusty-roo.i dont like thee idea of my rabbiters being used as a/tnk devices.yours,lee

 

My own posts on Dogs generally have been here for a while.....the Dog Mine recieved the award for the most useless military weapon of all time

I even hosted a quiz that can only be described as a "dog"...

 

nice to see you back chris,yours,lee.

 

I read about this in Anthony Beevor's book Stalingrad, they would strap magnetic mines to dogs who were trained that there was treat under the tank.

 

PS: what the hell is that soviet-empire.com?

EDIT: damn! that site is even funny that I thought - there gathered some neo-communists from around the world FUNNY!

Argh! That's the place where even The Red Rabbi fears to tread!

 

Anti-tank dogs, also known as dog mines, were starving dogs with explosives harnessed to their back and trained to seek food under enemy tanks and armoured vehicles. By doing so, a small wooden lever on the dogs back would be tripped, detonating the explosives.

The dogs were employed by the Soviet Union during World War II, to be used against German tanks. The dogs would be starved, then trained to find food under a Russian tank. The dogs quickly learned that being released from their pens meant to run out to where a tank was parked and find some food. Once trained, the dogs would be fitted with an explosive charge and set loose into a field of oncoming German tanks. When the dog went underneath the tank — where there was less armour — the charge would detonate via the trigger on the dogs back and destroy or disable enemy vehicle.

Realization of the plan was less successful. The Hundeminen, as they were called by the Germans, had been trained using Soviet tanks, and would sometimes be loosed into a battle, only to (as they had been trained to do) run under the Soviets' own tanks. Other times the dogs would spook at the rumble of a vehicle's engine and run away.

Despite the problems, the anti-tank dogs were successful at disabling a reported three hundred German tanks. They were enough of a problem to the Nazi advance that the Germans were compelled to take measures against them. An armoured vehicle's top-mounted machine gun proved ineffective due to the relatively small size of the attackers and the fact that they were low to the ground, fast, and hard to spot. Orders were dispatched that commanded every German soldier to shoot any dogs on sight, for fear they might be rabid. Eventually the Germans began using tank-mounted flame-throwers to ward off the dogs. They were much more successful at dissuading the attacks.




A similiar practise was employed by the Afhgans against the Russians in the 1980's. They used Mules and Camels with saddle bags packed with explosives and tied them up by the side of military instalations and vehilces before remotely detonating them.

 

At a wargames convention a couple of years ago my friends and I played in a game where 2 of us commanded German tanks, another Soviet tanks and the 4th Soviet anti-tank dogs. In the game the dog commander was called Sergeant Pavlov. The Germans won, mainly because my dice throwing (not my tactics!) were comfortably the best of the quartet.

The game organiser said that one of the problems with the anti-tank dogs was that the Soviet tanks that they'd trained with had diesel engines and so smelt differently to the petrol-engined German tanks that they were meant to attack. Thus, given the significance of smell to dogs, they were more likely to go for the Soviet than the German tanks.

 

Our own dog would never have cut the mustard first grenade thrown and she would be away to bring it back , smart dog but The Boss would not be impressed.

The photo below comes from Mark Yerger's "Knight's of Steel" Volume 2 showing a Russian Red Army guard dog which "defected" when captured becoming the mascot / pet of the "Das Reichs" Sturmgeschutzabteilung.

I often wonder what became of the poor thing , rumour has it that the black cat from Bismarck ended up in the Somme War Hospital in Belfast and lived out his life there as a much loved and pampered puss.

 

Reminds me of similar tactics the INA would use, similar to a "Banzai" charge where if needed a bunch of guys would strap explosives around themselves and hide where British tanks were coming, when the tank would run over the dynamite (inturn them) it would explode.

Attack dogs where also used, unfortunately during times of desperation people tend to look past things such as race, class, gender, species, etc and instead look at the end goal.

 

Seen the movie Letters From Iwo Jima?
like that aye, when the guy dies and waits with a hand-grenade untill a tank comes, that happens alot, but with dogs,

RIP anti-tank dogs

 

Reminds me of similar tactics the INA would use, similar to a "Banzai" charge where if needed a bunch of guys would strap explosives around themselves and hide where British tanks were coming, when the tank would run over the dynamite (inturn them) it would explode.

Attack dogs where also used, unfortunately during times of desperation people tend to look past things such as race, class, gender, species, etc and instead look at the end goal.
Forgive my ignorance but what does INA stand for?