Quote from: BadApple on February 18, 2025, 03:13:20 PMGoogle Belgian Malinois.

AKA Fur Missile.

Modern war dogs are FAST, they need to hit before the gun can be brought to bear.  They're plenty strong enough compared to modern people.

Historical war dogs were STRONG, they needed to take down a melee warrior possibly armored and hamstring horses, etc. Look at the Cane Corso and Neapolitan Mastiff for more like what a Roman War Dog was like, and Rottweiler for what a Roman herding dog was like.

With Rabies, even a small puncture wound bite from a poodle, would have potentially deadly consequences.

If you give them a katana, the sky's the limit!

Australian Cattle Dog.

Accept NO substitute.

There was a report in the UK that the Police took 19 bullets to take down an XL Bully Dog that broke out of its house and attacked someone in the street. Fortunately the victim survived, but is in hospital.

Yes, bred and trained attack dogs must be pretty fearsome.

Guess their use in war dropped off because they could not do much against formed troops - would have been terrifying in the rout and pursuit.

Quote from: zanshin on February 26, 2025, 03:37:06 AMThere was a report in the UK that the Police took 19 bullets to take down an XL Bully Dog

OK, but to be fair, what do they arm those bobbies with, .22's?

Quote from: zanshin on February 26, 2025, 03:37:06 AMGuess their use in war dropped off because they could not do much against formed troops - would have been terrifying in the rout and pursuit.

Massed accurate firearms is the answer to why a lot of things that had been successful tactics for millennia stopped being so effective. When most combat is close quarters (archers mostly just softened up targets rather than obliterated them outright), something like a dog is very useful.

A failure to understand the capabilities of massed repeating firearms (and gas, but mostly repeating firearms including machine guns) is what bogged World War 1 down into trench warfare and mass death to gain a handful of yards. Men were easier to convince to perform suicidal charges than dogs were, but massed battles using accurate ranged weapons made melee-only tactics nearly useless.

It's really only been with the return to skirmish warfare in our long occupation military operations where battles are often squad vs. squad (or equivalent) and often in the close combat distances of an urban environment that attack dogs value in military actions has returned.

They can get pretty lethal.
https://terminator.fandom.com/wiki/T-K90