In
the movie Jurassic World, the leader of InGen's private security force (played
by Vincent D'Onofrio was obsessed with the idea of training velociraptors for
military use. The theory goes that since they are deadly killing machines, that
building an army of them would be unstoppable. Now the first obvious downside
to a raptor army is the probability of them killing your own men or turning on
their handlers, as happened in the movie. The concept of having predators
running along side your men carries substantial risk, and that risk factor only
increases with the size and ferocity of the animal.
In
Jurassic World 2, they don’t fully explore the Dinosaur Army concept, but do
take the next step of extracting the animals from the Island to auction them
off on the black market. They advance the idea without going all in, which is
what we would like to see them do for Jurassic World 3, creating functional
military dinosaurs. Perhaps not in the main film franchise, but rather a
one-time stand-alone movie that exists in the Jurassic universe. The first 5-10
minutes of the movie can be a backwards time jump of D'Onofrio's character
establishing a 3rd island with a dinosaur army training facility.
The
biggest question is, would dinosaurs trained for military use actually be
useful in modern warfare with high tech weaponry? A T-Rex is a menacing animal,
but what chance would one of them have against a tank? Perhaps if you travelled
backwards in time to when technology was more primitive, the effectiveness of
combat dinosaurs increases exponentially. In the modern context, you could not
have an army composed entirely of dinosaurs, especially when combating an
opposing force with artillery, air power, and armoured units. The animals would
best function in their own specialized units that serve a very specific role
within the army as a whole.
Having
dinosaurs serving along side humans would be tricky and require trained beasts.
The only dinosaur we know for sure can respond to human commands are the
raptors, in one case where a handler raised one from birth. There is no
guarantee that any other dinosaur could be trained to respond to commands and
used side by side with humans. An animal like T-Rex is just as likely to kill
your own people as the enemy, so that species would be better to set lose in
enemy territory, getting your troops out of the area. The T-Rex seems very
stupid, just a random killing machine that hunts anything that moves.
One
possible solution to the predators eating your own people problem is to outfit
the beasts with some form of head gear that has computerized eye goggles that
allow handlers to control what they see. If the T-Rex starts to turn on your
own people, you can press a button that covers their eyes. We know from
previous movies that they won’t kill you if they can’t see you. Which also
introduces a potential drawback to the T-Rex. If your enemies freeze and don’t
move, the Rex won’t be able to see them. That’s a problem.
D'Onofrio's
initial obsession does appear to be using velociraptors to flush out caves in
Afghanistan, so any movie containing the militarization of dinosaurs should
focus on the raptor unit as the primary focus of the InGen force. Early in the
movie, there should be a scene where the raptors perform this duty, and after
just one operation the Taliban issue a full surrender. The raptor unit will be
the most deadly, given the mix of intelligence, speed, and ferocity.
What
other species could possibly be converted to military use? There would be an
advantage to conscripting herbivores, as they would not eat their handlers. A
herd of giant sauropods might be able to trample an opposing military force,
but would have limitations. The military applications of the Brachiosaurus may
not be feasible. They would move too slowly and would have trouble navigated
rough terrain, like Afghanistan. You could possibly set up sniper nests on the
neck and backs of these giants, using them to take out enemies from a distance.
It's not out of this world to consider this as high risk but high opportunity.
Of
all the medium sized herbivores who could be useful in our dinosaur army, the
Triceratops has a heavily armored front with battlefield applications. They could
make great support troops, possibly carrying ammunition or other medical
supplies to soldiers on the field of battle. In ancient warfare, a squad of
Triceratops would be extremely useful in a cavalry charge, as those horns would
be great at impaling enemy troops. The biggest problem would be using them in
steep terrain like in Afghanistan. Much like the sauropods, there are
limitations to the locations where they could be deployed.
But
again, the best advantage to using herbivores is that they won’t eat their
human comrades. One dinosaur that may be
even more useful than Triceratops is the family of Ankylosauria, who have
extremely tough armor with dozens of spikes, and could mow down hoards of enemy
soldiers. They also have a tail that functions like a wrecking ball and could
hit your enemies with bone crushing force. Hopefully your enemy does not have
any Indominus Rexes with which to counter-attack, since we know they can easily
neutralize Ankylosaurs.
Nearly
any dinosaur you could use on the ground would be borderline useless if your
enemy has an air force to drop bombs on your units. If your army also has a
powerful air force like the Americans, there would be a need to clear the skies
of enemy aircraft before deploying ground units. In the absence of mechanized
air power, the flying dinosaurs that escaped from the aviary in JW1 would be an
effective counter-measure, if outfitted with the right kind of weaponry and in
significant numbers. One pterodactyl against a fighter jet might not be a fair
fight, but hundreds of them could create problems.
There
may be some uses of the dinosaurs that are the closest relatives to birds.
These dinosaurs specifically were the ones that lived closest to the extinction
event. Dinosaurs such as Microraptor and Archteryx would be useful for stealth
and infiltration missions. They have great dexterity and could clear an area
while causing a minimal disturbance. Imagine the horror. There is speculation
that these dinosaurs were able to fly, which would only increase their military
functionality. Although, this is debated among paleontologists. I may not be an
expert, but did do well in my Introductory Dinosaur Science course in
university. My belief is that these dinosaurs could fly and that makes them
perfectly suited for seek and destroy missions.
The
film makers have many different options if they choose to pursue the Dinosaur
Army storyline within the Jurassic universe. It’s not feasible for the American
military to purchase and train dinosaurs before any experimentation has been
done. We would need InGen to have yet another secret Island that is basically a
secret dinosaur military training facility, where they breed and train large
numbers of dinosaurs. Allow conventional armies to hire InGen’s dinosaur squads
to fight along side them.
In
the world of Donald Trump, it’s not hard to imagine a Presidential order to
create a dinosaur army to invade foreign countries. You could have a fake
President in a movie host a peace summit with the leader of North Korea, which
devolves into a shouting match where the lunatic President threatens to invade
NK with dinosaurs. “Our dinosaurs are huge, we have the greatest dinosaurs in
history. You are a loser!” That leads to the news headline “President Trump
orders creation of a dinosaur army.”
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