Dogs: man’s best friend, even in battle.
The elite American military squad that assassinated Osama bin Laden included a canine trained for technology-fueled terror.
According to a new profile in The Daily, the 79-strong Navy SEAL team that killed Public Enemy No. 1 included a German Shepherd — at least it’s most likely, they’re very hush-hush about the details — outfitted with titanium-infused teeth, body armor, infrared cameras and oxygen masks for high altitude missions.
The dogs are trained to case buildings, work with night-vision cameras, helo-cast from a moving helicopter into water and tell the difference between a terrorist and a hostage.
Justin Rocket Silverman and Carmel Melouney report:
Wearing body armor equipped with an infrared camera, the dog could stream live images to SEALs in other parts of bin Laden’s hideout, and back at the base. A radio mounted near the dog’s ears would have let SEALs in other parts of the compound give orders to the dog.
“The dog can literally be used as a homing missile — if they had some sort of scent on bin Laden, they could have used the dog to go right after him,” said Brandon Tyler Webb, a former SEAL who ran the sniper program at the Navy Special Warfare Command and wrote the book “21st-Century Sniper.”
Those titanium teeth, by the way? They cost $2,000 per tooth, with the goal of piercing through an enemy’s body armor. (Apparently the U.S. military has been using this technique for years.)
The ultimate soldier clearly has four legs.
Hounded to Death [The Daily]
