A MK 7 dolphin prepares to mark a buried underwater mine (Photo credit: US Navy)
“…at the height of the Soviet program, their dolphins were also trained to find and mark enemy divers; except their marker contained a CO2 needle that could be remotely triggered, killing the diver if and when the Soviets wanted to. They also employed dolphins as kamikaze torpedos with remotely triggered explosives, and told Cartlidge that as many as 2,000 dolphins had been killed testing and developing this system.
But the most bizarre Soviet marine mammal system was a dolphin paratrooper. A dolphin wore a harness attached to a parachute, and could be dropped from heights up to 3,000 meters. How the dolphin was meant to get out of the harness once in the water, or what its task would be, was not reported.”