In Red Alert 2, a computer game, players were allowed to train killer dolphins to attack their enemy’s units. As it turns out this wasn’t too far removed from reality. Robert Beckhusen took a look at all the different ways that navies have (allegedly) used dolphins for combat purposes:

• Ukraine is said to be experimenting with knives and guns attached to the heads of dolphins.
• The country is also teaching the dolphins to search for mines and to mark them with buoys.
• The US has experimented with trained dolphins that would prevent enemy combatants from landing on the shore.
• The Russians, being aware of all the ways that their enemies have trained dolphins, have taught their commandos to fight dolphins in hand-to-hand (hand-to-fin?) combat.
• It’s not just dolphins that get to have all the fun. America uses Sea Lions that attach clamps to potential threats which can then be reeled in like fish.
• Countries have to be careful though. Dolphins aren’t the best at differentiating between enemy and friendly. Or to put it in the US navy’s words: “it would not be wise to give that kind of decision authority to an animal”

Read more about dolphins that can inject CO2 and times when they have actually been used over here.

Source: Wired