AHC/WI : War bears used by Romans, Germans or Russians

Neirdak

Banned
Reading again the article about Private Voytek, I had an idea. Your mission is to create War bears. Yes domesticated or tamed bears going to wars, serving in various positions.

- http://www.badassoftheweek.com/voytek.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_(bear)

Revealed how Americans used drugged bears to test-ejector seats for fighter pilots during the Cold War
- http://www.warhistoryonline.com/fea...s-for-fighter-pilots-during-the-cold-war.html

No bear cavalry, except if you can create a realistic one and can scientifically show that bear can be used this way.

Putin-rides-a-bear1.jpg
 
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Before the XIXth century, bears being infiltrated in grazing areas to destroy the cattle.

Painted in red and tattooed with the cross, pamphlets were then distributed among the population, linking the bears with a divine punition.

After the beginning of the XIXth century, bears being used to carry heavy equipment in close quarter and low visibility zones (like the colonisation of mountainous / forest regions)

Also, inspiration can be taken from this movie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brotherhood_of_the_Wolf
 
Even better, when they hibernate, take big dudes and dress them up as bears.

The villagers who see bears in the middle of winter will have even stronger beliefs in the divine intervention theory.
 
Before the XIXth century, bears being infiltrated in grazing areas to destroy the cattle.

Painted in red and tattooed with the cross, pamphlets were then distributed among the population, linking the bears with a divine punition.

After the beginning of the XIXth century, bears being used to carry heavy equipment in close quarter and low visibility zones (like the colonisation of mountainous / forest regions)

Also, inspiration can be taken from this movie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brotherhood_of_the_Wolf

There's no way that bears could take down cattle. In the wild many bears never take down any animal of size, living mostly on plants, insects, fish, and carrion they steal off wolves. The ones which do hunt tent to only stalk young or sick animals. You'd never see a bear take down a moose or something - why bother when it has so much else to eat?

More generally, the issue with domesticated bears is they are large, solitary animals which are territorial. You simply cannot keep adult bears in groups together, which makes selectively breeding them (let alone using them on a battlefield in large numbers) pretty much impossible.
 
The only real way this could happen is if you have trapped bears and you unleash them in battle as some kind of shock weapon. They wouldn't likely be domesticated or trained. You'd just have to scare them away from your army, and have them charge the other one somehow.
 

Redhand

Banned
The only real way this could happen is if you have trapped bears and you unleash them in battle as some kind of shock weapon. They wouldn't likely be domesticated or trained. You'd just have to scare them away from your army, and have them charge the other one somehow.

Things like this happened in the West all off the time with Native Americans sending a buffalo stampede through a settlement to weaken its defenses. The US cavalry adapted their own tactics and drove cattle through Native settlements before launching their own assaults. And of course there is the war battle where apparently a mule train getting loose lead to a pack of mules charging the Confederate lines and saving the Union position by accident, leading them to be 'brevetted' as horses.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Sounds pretty grisly, all around.

Reading again the article about Private Voytek, I had an idea. Your mission is to create War bears. Yes domesticated or tamed bears going to wars, serving in various positions. No bear cavalry, except if you can create a realistic one and can scientifically show that bear can be used this way.

Sounds pretty grisly, all around.

Not to pooh-pooh it, or anything...

Best,
 
Your going to lose more men capturing and taming the bear with medieval technology than it's worth. At best, they will be as easily scared as elephants, if they're not busy smelling their own poop or something. A successful tactical use of them would be terrifying to the enemy. Just imagine the contingent down the battle line being mauled by large, unwashed creatures!
 
There's no way that bears could take down cattle.

Bears do take down cattle.

One of the (many, many, many) Alaska-based series on Discovery (Alaska: The Last Frontier), a family of Alaskan cattle farmers have to keep a close eye on local bears, in case they attack their herds. Though wolves are also a problem around there.
 
See also the discussion at
AHC: Bear Cavalry (
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Enigmajones

although, that's just as cavalry, not as ... shock troops. It's pointed out there that bears are not anatomically suited to be ridden.


I think there was also some discussion of this in
Cool Potential Domestications (
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other threads:
Bear Cavalry, Roc Warriors and Cecil D. Vinci (
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10)
DValdron
(ASB)

Behemoth: Steampunk Germany with tesla cannons, Russian bear cavalry, British Biopunk (
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dreadnought jenkins
(Books and Media)

Bear Cavalry? (
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1 2) 8Deer

Bear Cavalry (
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1 2 3)
ArKhan
 
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