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Comment by pelasaco | Hacker News Reader

"For protection against enemy divers, dolphins will swim up to the infiltrator, bump into them and place a buoy device on their back or a limb using their mouth. The buoy then drags the outed diver to the surface for easy capture." I mean come on, "enemy divers" will just kill the dolphins or avoid contact with them..

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Yeah I did wonder that. Dunno how far Dolphins echo location is effective from. But presumably it's further than most people probably can see underwater. Especially if the water is murky or dark. It could allow the dolphin to detect the diver beyond the perception of the diver. Then presumably the dolphin is trained to rush the diver and 'bump'/smash into the diver before he has time to react or even see the dolphin.

Still does all sound fairly risky for the dolphin. Think I'd still rather be the dolphin given it's much better suited to water than humans and probably has the perception advantage with echo location.

ok Dolphin bump into a little squad of marines. Then with its mouth the Dolphin place a buoy in a soldier's back? The scenario Dolphin carries explosive, bump in a diver and explodes is pretty possible. But a Dolphin bumps in a diver, and with it's mouth it places a buoy in the divers back and go unnoticed? It is Hilarious!

I think you are overestimating how well a diver can maenouver under water in comparison to a dolphin.

As a driver, I agree with this. While I feel comfortable in the water, I'm not dolphin. I can try really hard to be streamlined but I still have a lot of lumpy bits I have to drag around so that I don't die. Lots of drag. That's not even taking into account millions of years of evolution.

But we should also not underestimate the ability of the enemy to train dolphins.

It would be hard to send an strike team of just dolphins but I imagine a strike team of both humans and dolphins trained to fend of the defending dolphins and protect the divers would stand a chance.

AFAIK dolphins are never used together with friendly divers against other divers as the dolphins can't discern between friends or foes.

Just make sure the enemy team wears red diving suits and the friendlies wear blue ones. Foolproof!

How does the enemy get the trained dolphins there? And once discovered, an attack, dolphins or not, isn't going to have much success.

Except the divers are probably Marines. Enemies which are probably well trained and armed. No Dolphin will bump on them and place a device on their back...

You have evidently never dived. Even the biggest, roughest, toughest marine diver would be outclassed by a juvenile dolphin with regard to mobility. Let alone a trained one who didn't want you to touch it.

You assume too much on Internet. Dolphin isn't really known by their fine work with their "mouth". I'm wondering how it would place a buoy with their mouth on somebody's back..

Imagine trying to kill or avoid a shark while diving... Where is it? Which direction is it coming from? How fast is it coming? How far can you see in this water, because it can "see" you with its non-visual senses...

except the shark isn't trying to kill you but to place a buoy on your back with it's mouth..

I love that you think a human can "just kill" a dolphin on their home turf. And not just any dolphin, a trained dolphin.

And I'd love to hear an explanation about how a human just "avoids contact" with a sea-based animal with built-in echolocation.

while a Dolphin is placing a buoy on your back or limb? We are not talking about you and me, but probably a small US marine squad.

> I mean come on, "enemy divers" will just kill the dolphins or avoid contact with them

Good luck! You'd never see them coming and they're too fast and agile to "shoot".

I think while the dolphin is trying to place a buoy in his back, a well trained soldier can get the Dolphin away with a simple knife.

I doubt the dolphin loiters long enough. It's probably a "boop" and done. My money is on the dolphin in almost every situation unless there's a large disparity in divers vs dolphins.

What they didn't tell you in the article is that there are militarized sharks with frickin' laser beams on their heads that protect the dolphins from enemy divers.

Hmm. Have you ever had to handle one large dog who was determined to attack you? Or watched video of this happening to someone else, preferably?

Difference being, both of those animals evolved on land.

Dolphins can and do ram sharks to death. "Bump into" might be a euphemism here.

Nope, it's not. "bump into them and place a buoy device on their back or a limb using their mouth." I'm quite sure they could bump some one violently. But bump into an elite soldier squad - i.e US Marines - and place a buoy device on their back or limb using their mouth? Lol

Visibility while diving can be super low and underwater weapons (mostly crossbows) are not that great. Also the dolphin is kind of a smarter shark and if you attack it's not out of the realm of possibility it will bite you in balls in retaliation. It's not impossible the might be arming dolphins with guns too against armed divers.

I think the scenarios of Dolphins armed with explosives that just explode when they bump into enemies a real one. Or sacrifice them to detect mines. But the whole The Dolphin detect the mine and then come back or Dolphin place a buoy in the back of an enemy diver with its mouth is nonsense

Do you understand the context?

These dolphins are protecting an area claimed by the military. Killing the dolphin would be an act of war. Even doing the same to non-live military equipment would be.

Obviously during wartime the dolphins would be vulnerable. But during peace time you'd think twice before attacking a military dolphin. You don't "just kill" them if you're not in war.

This made me laugh.

Sabotage, border clashes and airstrikes happen all the time without constituting acts of war that give casus belli to their target. A basic legal condition of a just war is that it is proportionate and embarked upon as a last resort: launching a war because a dolphin you trained was killed is neither of those, as sad as it might be.

I didn't talk about casus belli, you're just making stuff up.

Sure, things happen all the time without a war breaking out. But it's not like you can "just kill" or "just attack" without repercussions. That's ridiculous thought. It's similar to saying "what's the reason to have a security guard in the shop, when you can just take a pistol and kill him". Security isn't about having an impenetrable defense; such a thing isn't possible. Anything can be destroyed in the end.

There's always a repercussion for attacking the military, be it diplomatic, economic or a military retaliation.

The phrase 'an act of war' means an act which intends to and/or actually does give the target casus belli. I took it for granted that you knew that.

See, for example, the OED reference:

'An act by one nation intended to initiate or provoke a war with another nation; an act considered sufficient cause for war.'

https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20...

Well, war has changed. Russia annexed part of Ukraine without ever declaring war. It's not as black and white today. War is a spectrum, especially at the borders of superpowers. Whether you want to call it an act of war or an escalation or whatever, I don't care. If you want to play definition semantics, I'm not interested as it completely misses the point I was making.

If you are a military diver covertly infiltrating a foreign country's military installation and you get discovered by an agent of that country (be it human, animal or artificial), you are already quickly approaching (if not across the line into) "act of war" territory.

Granted, modern international relations has done a solid job of fuzzing the delineation of "acts of war" such that interpretations of acts can serve needs in a geopolitical context, but that will be the case whether you kill the dolphin or not.

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