AHC: Make dogs a fundemental part of ancient and medieval warfare

With any PoD (because I'm honestly not that sure what would be required for this to happen), make dogs a large part of warfare on par with cavalry or archery. what part would dogs play on a battlefield? I imagine they would be relentlessly effective against lightly-armed/lightly-armored opponents, but falter against cavalry and heavy infantry. This would make them the perfect anti-skirmisher weapon, especially if a people like the romans adopt them against tribal societies - even a germanic breserker can't shake off three rabid dogs.

Also, how would such a division of the army be called? I'm thinking either doggery or houndry.
 
Firstly let me say that i find the use of dogs for military and police purposes terribly abusive (look into what dogs who fail K9 training go through, its terrible).

But at least as far as the romans are concerned, i can't see canine units being used effectively once they started exanding out of Italy. Though i did find it amusing when Many a True Nerd used them to finish off the roman garrison in rome total war
 
The issue with any large scale use of animals is that they take up a hell of a lot of resources. This is fine with horses, who are herbivores that largely eat things that we do not. With dogs however , that meat is something that could better serve the fighting men.

Furthermore, ancient warfare involves quite a bit of civil war or war against enemies who are very similar to yourself. Whilst dogs can be very smart, in the confusion of a battle I could see the dogs being confused and attacking their own men.

Now this isn't a post to say that mass use is wholly a bad idea, but that these are considerations for conventional warfare.

In ancient guerrilla warfare, dogs can be incredibly useful in mass tactics. Being able to constantly bark through the night in the forests is a good way to keep soldiers up all night, and ambushes can theoretically rely on them to serve as close quarters fodder whilst the enemy is pelted by arrows.
 
Dogs did perform indirect, or non-combat roles very well however and have been used for things like sentry duty, tracking, and reconnaissance, which make best use of a dog's greatest assets, their sense of smell and their intelligence.
 
The Soviet army used dogs during WW2 to carry explosive charges under the German tanks. The bomb detonates causing the tracks of the tank to be damaged and potentially destroying the vehicle if the fuel supply catches fire.
 
On par with cavalry and archers? I don't think that's going to happen. The logistics of keeping enough meat to feed the number of dogs you'd need to make them that much of a staple in an age without refridgeration would be a nightmare (Canines can't live on bread) even if they had the degree of tactical flexibility to be a ubiquatious as baseline troops. They are useless in a siege train (can't build works, do surpressive fire, forage, ect.), and sieges are far more common than pitched battles in ancient warfare
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
I seems dogs as difficult for war purposes as they are not large animals and you would need a lot of them for a war. That would stretch your resources as you now would need non-herbivore food for them which could drive up the costs like anything.
Beyond all this,how you can use dogs for battle purposes itself is of a suspense to me.
 
The Soviet army used dogs during WW2 to carry explosive charges under the German tanks. The bomb detonates causing the tracks of the tank to be damaged and potentially destroying the vehicle if the fuel supply catches fire.

Or at least they tried to; as I recall they made the mistake of training the dogs using Russian tanks, so on their first battlefield outing they promptly turned round and blew up their own side's armour.
 
Part of the issue is that in non guerrilla styled conflicts or in pure logistic roles, the use of canines in warfare in pitched battles, is usually a waste of resources. Namely, assuming you are faced in a pitched battle, in an era past around 4000 BCE, you will be facing armies wherein the majority of the enemies carry weapons of some kind and assuming nay sort of organization, are formed into lines of battle. When dogs are unleashed in a pitched battle, the general wisdom is that they generally do not have the same level of caution, pacing and dexterity of humans and will simply charge haphazardly and single out individual targets in the enemy lines. This is easily countered by humans with weapons simply fighting as a unit, even as individuals with weapons, the dogs often will not be able to get close to use their teeth or paws and will instead be smashed by something such as a club, spear, sword or mace. As well, the armor that many armors would field in the middle ages, would almost totally nullify dogs in a pitched battle scenario. A bite from a dog into most metals, we can expect to break its teeth and or jaw and cause the dog to more than likely flee in pain; it is akin to sending men to fight with only their fists and expecting them to punch armored targets. However, I can see dogs having uses (assuming fast, large sized dogs) against very lightly armored to no armor enemies. Say, a case wherein a large sophisticated civilization battles an enemy which in its army includes peoples whose style of war is traditionally fought naked or with armor equating to loincloths, animal fur draped around genitalia, etc... Say many of the armies from Mesoamerica, Sub-Saharan Africa, the southeast Asia, certain Celtic warriors, etc... these sorts of lightly armored warriors could be vulnerable to well placed hordes of dogs sent after them, as a sort of shock effect paired with an infantry charge of your own, the dogs play the role of bloodying the enemy and holding their attention briefly.

Otherwise, as mentioned earlier, dogs are valuable in hunting enemy positions with their scent, giving alarms in night engagements, attacks in the bushes and forests in guerrilla wars, etc... Another arena, could be in a scenario of raiding, looting, pillaging, certain armies use dogs to be an effective way of attacking lightly armored village levies and attacking single targets. Such as, a single horseman with considerable income, uses a pair of large dogs as pieces of his war chest along with weapons, horse etc, and when going into battle, these can attack an enemy he has singled out and allows him to give the killing blow with their distractions influencing the enemy.

An idea ^
 
People don't often appreciate the importance of non-combat jobs in war, which often times are as important or even more important than the combat itself. Poor logistical and financial planning have doomed innumerable campaigns throughout the history of civilization, sometimes before so much as a spear can be thrust in anger at the enemy's general direction.

While dogs are expensive to care for and maintain, their support roles in a well-planned army can be very useful. Even horses, who we generally imagine in combat roles for good reason, saw far more use as transports and heavy lifting. The Anglo-Saxons, famous for fighting on foot, still used a lot of horses primarily as pack animals and transports, dismounting when battle was about to be joined.

At any rate, if you're bivouacing in enemy territory, if you're out on scouting and foraging missions, if you are garrisoned in a town or fortification, dogs are very, very useful in alerting you when the enemy is around, sniffing out trails or prey animals, hunting, and for holding checkpoints and entries.
 
People don't often appreciate the importance of non-combat jobs in war, which often times are as important or even more important than the combat itself. Poor logistical and financial planning have doomed innumerable campaigns throughout the history of civilization, sometimes before so much as a spear can be thrust in anger at the enemy's general direction.

While dogs are expensive to care for and maintain, their support roles in a well-planned army can be very useful. Even horses, who we generally imagine in combat roles for good reason, saw far more use as transports and heavy lifting. The Anglo-Saxons, famous for fighting on foot, still used a lot of horses primarily as pack animals and transports, dismounting when battle was about to be joined.

At any rate, if you're bivouacing in enemy territory, if you're out on scouting and foraging missions, if you are garrisoned in a town or fortification, dogs are very, very useful in alerting you when the enemy is around, sniffing out trails or prey animals, hunting, and for holding checkpoints and entries.

I would say that you’re very correct. However, dogs were already used in this mode for the most part. The poster was asking most especially regarding their usage in battle, not necessarily in maneuvers, logistics, etc... other theatres of warfare.
 
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