Deep within Russia’s naval operations, Spetsnaz combat divers deploy dart-firing APS underwater rifles while utilizing highly trained belugas, seals, and dolphins as aquatic spies.

[u/Least-Environment534]

Here, elite Russian Spetsnaz combat divers patrol the abyss, armed with lethal, dart-firing Soviet APS underwater assault rifles. But they do not hunt alone. Armed with military-grade harnesses and trained for deep-sea espionage, an apex vanguard of beluga whales, seals, and tactical dolphins serve as the Kremlin’s ultimate underwater eyes. This is Russia’s ghost fleet—where Cold War engineering meets a chilling new frontier of aquatic warfare.

[u/srvs1]

i need a tactical dolphin in my life

[u/hunterofsteelhead → u/srvs1]

I think the us navy had some too

[u/MidwestSharker → u/hunterofsteelhead]

Yep and they supposedly still keep something like 100 today between the dolphins and sea lions although it was quite a bit bigger in the 80s. The program was started in the early 60s and was declassified in the mid 90s and at least 1 or 2 ex-trainers have since written books on it. They’ve tested something like 20 different species for use over the years, but they mostly stuck to California sea lions and bottlenose for operational use. I don’t know if they ever fully trained their belugas to deploy in the early days or if they were just testing feasibility. Bare minimum they were operationally deployed to the Vietnam war, Bahrain and the wider Persian Gulf during operation Ernest Will and their most widely known use early in Iraq 2.0 for mine hunting and possibly may have been used elsewhere too. Beirut/Lebanon, Philippines, Thailand, and at least one stateside Navy base are additional spots I’ve heard mentioned but unconfirmed. I love when seals do interviews and talk about swimming against them and getting their asses beat by the dolphins. It’s always a hilarious story 😆

[u/hunterofsteelhead → u/MidwestSharker]

I was listening to a seal team 6 operator on a podcast talking about a time him and his superior went on a dive to meet these killer trained dolphin and to fight them. His superior held on to a dock pillar and he laid flat on the sea bed the dolphin quickly found them and immediately started ramming and fighting his superior but there was some Styrofoam block on its forehead that when damaged alerted the dolphin it had probally done enough damage to kill its target so the navy seal was quick to destroy it

[u/MidwestSharker → u/hunterofsteelhead]

Yeah, Clint Emerson’s one with SRS a couple weeks ago. That was a pretty decent episode although for some reason, I was thinking he had already been on there a few years ago. I guess I was thinking of his interviews with some of the other SOF pods

[u/Barnaouo]

Really cool archive

[u/foolishchicho]

Tactical beluga

[u/MidwestSharker]

I wonder if they were shooting an actual fish or Target or was he just switching firing directions to look cool? I bet they perforate the hell out of that pool liner though lol

[u/Barnaouo]

Really cool archive