The Dogs of War
Posted: Thu May 12, 2011 12:19 am
In the Abbottabad compound raid, the dog was equipped with protective body armour before rappelling onto the ground from a hovering helicopter in a support harness attached to its handler, according to the media reports.
This particular dog was known for its bomb-sniffing prowess and The Daily reports it was trained to "sniff out enemy troops from up to [3km] away".
The German and Belgian shepherd dogs can run twice as fast as humans, so if bin Laden tried to escape on foot the dog could have stopped his getaway, the Atlantic reported. The most commonly used breeds in the US military in Pakistan and Afghanistan are the German Shepherd and the Belgian Malinois.
These dogs are typically well-protected, wearing body armour and infra-red night sight cameras. They're valuable dogs, well-trained and highly effective.
Dog was equipped with protective body armour
Over 500 dogs in service in Pakistan, Afghanistan
Machines cannot replicate dogs' ability
General David Petraeus, Commander of US forces in Afghanistan, has in the past hailed the capabilities of the dogs, describing them as highly reliable and totally irreplaceable.
"The capability they [the dogs] bring to the fight cannot be replicated by man or machine," according to Petraeus.
"(Dogs) can sense biological, chemical, or radiological nuclear or explosive elements in the air better than security technology can, like sensors, drones, like UAV's, these types of things," Halo Corporation President Brad Barker was quoted as saying by the US media.
Barker said it's no surprise that a dog was on the mission to get bin Laden. The Halo Corporation is an elite team of former special operations and intelligence people
Dog on Osama mission was there to detect explosives
He said these dogs train much in the same way their two-legged SEAL counterparts do and jump from helicopters right along with them. As for their gear, they're heavily armoured and ready to hit the ground running.
"Bullet-resistant vests that can stop a blade, can stop a bullet, they get helmets on them to increase their survivability, night vision goggles, thermal imagery," he said.
The dog on the bin Laden mission was there to detect explosives. Their ability to get into confined spaces and send back live video of interiors of buildings is crucial to let teams of SEALs know when it's safe to enter, ensuring the mission's success.
"It takes a special dog with special breeding, a tremendous amount of patience from a handlerm and then still only a select few make it to be SEALs best friend," Barker said. "By all measures of performance, their yield outperforms any asset we have in our industry."
US Army has an estimated 2,800 dogs