Remember in the 60 and early 70s reports of the US Navy training dolphins for various underwater duties? Some were trained to retrieve sunken equipment, find and mark bombs for later detonation and a somewhat serious placing magnetic bombs on ships. Remember that? Then we never heard of it, but the project remained in operation until the next century! Matter of fact the practice of using marine mammals until 2017!
They hope to replace all of the mammal operations with the autonomous with the above pictured Knifefish but it seems that the animals will not be discontinued all together. According to Device the US Navy feels that there may still be some specialized missions where sea mammals are needed past 2017.
And believe it or not, the the Ukrainian Navy wants to test another aspect of dolphin-skill: how they do wielding weapons. As bizarre as it seems or Austin Powerish it seems that at least one country has taken protection. Here is an excerpt from the Dvice blog:
Russian commandos have trained to fight dolphins in case that ever became a reality, and the Soviet Navy once deployed dolphins that were armed with syringes loaded with carbon dioxide. Those Soviet dolphins also were trained to attach mines onto ships and parachuted out of helicopters.
Dvice blog article
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