[lordgroff]

The German death machine grinds down circa 30 million Soviet people, majority of them civilians, the hot take is being mad the red army for tank dogs. Sometimes the comments here are really special in their lack of context.

[vogt]

Or maybe both of those things are shitty and it isn’t mutually exclusive. Sometimes the binary thinking here is really special.

[lordgroff]

I'll take the 30 million dead over a relatively small number of dogs killed as the greater evil thanks.

[guntars]

It wasn't one or the other, it was both 30 million dead AND some unknown number of dogs killed that very likely didn't make a meaningful difference in the Soviet war effort. Congrats on getting down to the level of your enemy, I guess.

[jojobas]

Presumably every dog saved a man's life or a few. Doesn't it sound reasonable to send even all the dogs to bomb tanks?

The real problem was that the training they did was so superficial that the dogs made more harm than good.

[BurningFrog]

Sometimes you're faced with a binary reality, and have to decide between several shitty things.

[asdff]

Like strapping a bomb to a dog that might very well just run off into the woods or throwing it with your arm like everyone else, right? Somehow I feel like the tank dog idea didn't come up from cutting edge military science but rather some drunken soldiers with a bomb and a stay dog and a fucked up sense of humor.

[BurningFrog]

It was a serious Soviet military program. The dogs were trained to run under tanks.

A dog can run much further than a soldier can throw, which was pretty much the point. If you're close enough to throw something at an enemy tank, you are typically dead.

That said, this had limited success at best: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog

[themitigating]

Soldiers and civilians are aware of risks and have the chance to mitigate them. Animals aren't aware and can't do anything.

[commandlinefan]

Yeah, pretty sure both sides did those things to people, too...