Animals and war paddle at opposite ends of the swimming pool of merit.

Animals, as if you didn't already know, are all up at the deep end doing back flips off the diving board. War on the other hand is wearing arm bands down at the shallow end, making splashing noises and unwittingly swallowing mouthfuls of stale urine. In fact war is actually worse than that - it's probably sifting through old corn plasters in the chemical foot bath.

Yes, animals and war are unlikely bedfellows. So when some bright spark decided to utilise the skills of the former when the latter was kicking off, the results were always going to raise an eyebrow.

Here then is our list of animals in combat, and how good at it they were when they got there.

A photo simultaneously showing the horrors of war,
and the excellence of dogs.

Horses

Horses and war go way back, either as a means of soldier transportation (mounted infantry) or directly on the battlefield themselves (cavalry). Of course horses vary immensely, so you'll have to pick your steed pretty carefully if you're about to get into a ruck. Our tip is to go for something big like a shire horse. A shetland pony may keep that marauding horde of pygmies at bay for a while, but against anyone else you'd really be better off on foot.

We should also mention that the Trojan horse, which wasn't a real horse, was used with great success by the ancient Greeks to gain entry into the very exclusive Trojans only nightclub "Figleaves". This is way back in 1200 BC, when door policies were even tighter than they are now.

Verdict: Stalwart of pretty much every war so far, the horse has proved itself a vital battlefield ally. 4/5.

Camels

Like horses, camels have been used for years by the armed forces to get soldiers from one place to another. The French foreign legion were the first to spot the advantages of an animal that can survive for weeks in the desert without needing to stop for a quick Pernod refill. What the French perhaps failed to realise at the time was that camels are incredibly uncomfortable to sit on, and because they have about 15 knees per leg, it takes at least an hour to get on or off them. Needless to say, this could be a disadvantage if someone's about to fire a cannon at you.

If you've ever ridden a camel yourself,
you'll appreciate that this scenario just wouldn't happen.
Camels bounce around so much that attempting to aim a rifle
is a total waste of time and effort.

Camels also look less snazzy in ribbons than horses, and will often refuse point blank to participate in gymkhanas.

Verdict: Too specialised for the trenches, the camel is a below par addition to the list. 2/5

Elephants

Elephants are basically the ultimate fighting machine, on account of them being massive, strong, scary, and having bayonets naturally growing out of their faces. The Greeks and Romans certainly thought so, as they used elephants on the battlefield in a number of different ways. Sit a few archers on top and you've got a pre-industrial revolution tank. Strap a couple of pieces of armour on the front and you've got a battering ram. Wedge a few buns down the trunk and bingo, you've got a high velocity bun cannon.

The perfect war animal.

The perfect war animal? Actually not quite. As we all know, elephants are rumoured to be scared of mice. This is rubbish of course, but there is another animal that can reduce the elephant to little more than a cowering lump of grey. Which animal? The vicious and deadly spitting cobra? The aggressive and unpredictable grizzly bear? The not seen for a while around these parts tyrannosaurus rex?

The truth is far less impressive.

Elephants are terrified by the squeal of pigs. One decent squeal is enough to reduce even the largest elephant to a bundle of nerves, and it didn't take long for the ever resourceful Roman army to figure this out. When faced with an opposing herd of elephants on the battlefield, they grabbed the nearest pig, doused it in oil, set fire to it and stood well back. The net result of this was an amazingly vocal pig, which in turn would scare off the elephants and force the enemy to concede the battle. After that it was simply a case of getting the brown sauce out and tucking into the celebratory bacon sandwiches.

And if you think we're making this stuff up,
you can read a bit more about it here.

Verdict: If it wasn't for having the most rubbish Achilles heal ever, elephants are pretty decent wartime allies. They also look the business wearing war paint. 4/5

Pigeons

You can say what you like about pigeons, but nobody can deny that when it comes to jettisoning unpleasant payloads, they're a great shot. Perhaps this is the reason that during the height of World War II, animal behaviourist Dr BF Skinner started working on a top secret project training pigeons to steer bombs. He trained them to continuously peck a black dot superimposed against a white background, which somehow steered a missile all the way to it's target. We say somehow because having read all about it, we still can't work out exactly how, or indeed if, it ever worked. Anyway, the plucky pigeon was strapped inside a special compartment at the front of the bomb and ceremoniously thrown out of a plane. Of course the pigeon probably wasn't aware that he was steering a missile, because if he was, doubtless he would aim for the nearest statue or recently washed car windscreen rather than following orders.

Sometimes it's better to keep pigeons in the dark about this type of thing.

Verdict: Rather like an avian predecessor to missile command, this is one of the more fun ways for wartime animals to meet their maker. The fact that the pigeon guided missile appears never to have actually been used in combat means that we cannot possibly give them a mark out of five for effectiveness, although if they had, we'd have given them 4/5 for originality.

Dogs

Dogs, when not playing poker in the officer's mess, like nothing more than a bit of argy bargy. You've often only got to walk out of your front door to hear a local canine barking swear words at the postman or playing fetch with a severed cat head. But even bearing in mind this love of a good ruck, there's still a pretty big gap between chasing milk floats and blowing up German tanks. But hold on - this is war, and if there's anything we've learned from our investigations so far, it's that anything's worth trying
once.

In the Middle Ages, dogs were dressed up in armor and used to defend travelling caravans from ambushes. Later, in the Seven Years War, Russian dogs were messengers for the army of Frederick the Great. Fast forward to the 1904 Russo-Japanese War, and you'll see that the Russians were still using dogs, this time to ferry supplies to wounded soldiers on the battlefield.

Three chevrons means that Bernard here
got to command up to 30 Gordon Setters out on the field.

But perhaps the most inventive use of man's best friend to kill man's worst enemy was in World War II, with the introduction of the anti-tank dog. Anti-tank dogs were another Russian invention, of course, and worked on the theory that if you always feed a dog underneath a tank, underneath a tank is the first place that they'll head towards on the battlefield. Logically speaking, if the dog was wearing a suicide bomber outfit at the same time, you'd have a pretty nifty weapon on your hands. That was the theory anyway. In practice, these Russian dogs were trained by placing Russian dog food under Russian tanks, meaning that you can probably guess the floor in the plan. In 1942, after these rapscallious hounds forced an entire Russian tank division into retreat, the anti-tank dog was retired from service.

To be fair, the Russians had only themselves to blame for making such elementary obedience training mistakes in the first place.

Verdict: Good. Dogs are still used occasionally by the armed forces, such as the mission undertaken in 1988 by Special Forces rottweilers who dutifully carried Israeli bombs into enemy bunkers in Lebanon. Thinking about it, the Israelis could have used Aibos instead if they'd only waited a few years longer.

Still, dogs are clearly a war's best friend, so 5/5.

A bombdog approaches a Nazi tank. The tank itself appears to have been adorned with
mickey mouse ears in a somewhat misguided attempt to confuse the enemy.

Dolphins

Of course, war is a very bad thing indeed. But technical innovations pioneered during wartime have led to some of the things that we today take for granted. Things like microwave ovens, cd players, computers and pens that write upside down whilst underwater.

Another good thing that war has given us is the opportunity to send dolphins out on perilous mine clearing missions. The US navy to this day uses the sonar skills of the dolphin to wander around for a while out side their boats, making that irritating clicking noise if they spot one. They’re used too to rescue Navy Frogmen (the best job in the navy by far), if perhaps one of them has dropped a flipper or nicked his hand on a bit of coral.

Click-click-click-click. BOOM.

Verdict: 3/5

Monkeys wearing nuclear jetpacks

This hasn't happened yet, but we await news from the Animal Reviews weapons lab with baited breath.

Provisional Verdict: 5/5

Conclusion

So there you have it. According to government statistics, bad ideas outnumber good ideas six hundred to one, and let's be honest, sending innocent animals out to do our dirty war work is one of the six hundred as opposed to one of the one. On the upside, wars have become much more advanced now meaning fewer animal casualties.

Thank heavens too, because our research has suggested that if we were to continue down the same road we were, by now animals would have declared war against us.