Fighting animals - animals in one capacity or another used or used in military (combat) operations .
These may be working animals used to transport military goods and transport soldiers ; many pets, such as dogs , pigs , oxen , camels , horses and donkeys , can be used as horse-drawn vehicles or as mine seekers. During the war, elephants, pigeons, rats, and even dolphins and sea lions can also be used.
Content
How to transport and to transport goods
The Greek lexicographer of the late II century, Julius Pollux , describes animals used in war: “Donkeys harnessed to equipment , bulls harnessed to carts are useful in wars, and mules are used for both purposes, while camels are laden with equipment. But the Bactrians also fight on camels ”(Onomasticon I, 139–140).
Animals as Weapons
To attack on horseback or as a direct combat
The Bible describes it as an Old Testament Judge -hero Samson, set fire to the foxes' tails and drove them into the fields of their Philistine enemies. The Book of Judges says: “And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took the torches, and tied the tail with the tail, and tied it with the torch between the two tails; and he lit the torches, and put them on the Philistine's harvest, and burned both the mocks and the undead bread, and the olive orchards [and]. ”(Judges 15: 4–5).
In ancient times, fighting elephants were used in the Indian, Roman , Carthaginian , and in the Middle Ages - in the Khmer army. At the same time, at first the soldiers were very scared of unprecedented animals, but then they got used to it, and the elephants became less effective. There were usually two horsemen : one controlled the elephant, the other held a spear (Khmer - a crossbow ), or one, sometimes holding a spear that controlled an elephant, which simply stamped and scattered the enemy army with tusks. A metal plate was put on the animal’s face and tusks, protecting them from spears and arrows. Khmer warriors sat in booths.
In the Indian treatise on politics and military affairs " Arthashastra " (III century BC), Kautilya writes about the various functions of an elephant in combat conditions, including its action not only when attacking an enemy, but also during defense , in engineering and the destruction of fortifications [1] .
The German military historian H. Delbrück summing up the combat use of elephants wrote in his History of Military Art [2] :
| Summarizing the whole experience of ancient military history, we conclude that the suitability and usefulness of elephants in battles should not be highly regarded. They were successful in battles against nations that they had never seen, and against horsemen and shooters; but these successes were greatly exaggerated by the defeated in order to justify themselves, as, for example, in the battles with Pyrrhus. The troops, who knew them and were not afraid of them, knew how to avoid them and attack them, even, like Alexander under the Gidasp, they knew how to cope with them not by means of tricks in the form of fire arrows and intimidation of them, but due to the correct use of weapons. |
War pigs were used in ancient wars against war elephants . According to Pliny the Elder, the elephants were frightened when they heard the squeal of pigs, and began to retreat [3] . Claudius Elian reports that the Romans used war pigs to frighten the elephants of the Epirus king Pyrrhus in 275 BC [4] .
War animals found widespread use in the armies of the Arab Caliphate , which had both cavalry and camel [5] .
Among the many works on various topics, the ancient Greek historian Xenophon has two treatises on equestrian affairs and the management of cavalry. From ancient times until the 19th century, horses served both directly as a means of transportation, and as draft power for chariots .
Live Bombs
During the Second World War, scientists in the United States developed a project to create a " mouse bomb ." It was assumed that the carriers of these smallest (17 grams) in the history of aerial bombs will be bats dropped from aircraft in special self-unpacking containers.
During the Second World War, the USSR used anti-tank dogs .
In the UK, they developed a project of exploding rats , stuffing rat carcasses with a bomb and throwing them into boiler rooms, but the Germans intercepted the information, and the British refused to continue using the exploding rats.
Signal animals
Since the 18th century, the sending of correspondence by means of pigeons was widely used in the armies of many countries. The importance of the "military service" of some birds was rated very highly: for example, the English carrier pigeon No. 888 for outstanding services during the First World War was quite officially awarded the rank of colonel of the British army. For their part, the Germans used trained falcons as "fighters" against the English pigeon mail.
See also
- Cavalry
- Chariot
Notes
- ↑ Arthashastra / Transl. IN AND. Kalyanova. - M, 1993 .-- S. 422 (X, 4).
- ↑ Hans Delbrück. The history of military art Volume 1. The ancient world . - Multimedia publishing house Strelbitsky, 2016-03-28. - 946 p.
- ↑ Pliny the Elder. VIII, 9
- ↑ Alian. About the nature of animals. I, 38
- ↑ Vovk O. V. Encyclopedia of signs and symbols . - Veche, 2006 .-- 534 p. - ISBN 9785953314879 .
Literature
- Abakumov A.A. War elephants in the history of the Hellenistic world. - M .: Book, 2012.
- Denison J. History of Cavalry. Armament, tactics, major battles / Transl. from English S. Fedorova. - M.: 2014.
- Xenophon . About horse riding. / Per., Entry. Art. and comm. V.V. Ponaryadova. Syktyvkar, 2005. 80 p. 300 copies.
- Ponomarev V.T. Fighting animals: The secret weapon of all time. - Donetsk: PKF BAO LLC, 2006. - 304 p.