World War II Database

1.  Alan Chanter says:
6 May 2013 07:27:06 AM

The mine-dog was a Soviet invention of the Second World War, first encountered, as far as we know, by the 3rd and 7th Panzer Divisions on September 30th 1941, during the encirclement battle of Vyama-Bryansk. A unit of 108 dogs had been formed at Moscow, mostly from sheepdogs and Dobermans, and trained to find their food under tractors with the engines running, They were then sent into action with explosives in saddlebags and a wooden rod which stuck up above their backs, which detonated the charge when it was broken. The hungry dog was supposed tp dive under a German tank in search of food and snap off the rod as it did so, but the weapon was not a great success. A stationary tractor was a rather different proposition from an advancing Panzer, and most of the unfortunate animals preferred to remain hungry, although some did complete their mission with invariably fatal consequences for both dog and tank. As soon as the Germans became alerted to the tactic they adopted a policy of firing small arms at every dog that they saw, and although the mine-dogs were used again, notably outside Stalingrad in 1942, they never caught on for general use.