Yesterday I bought a book that documents the history of the 5th Marine Division (The Spearhead) throughout WWII from induction, training, the Iwo Jima invasion and the occupation of Japan. One thing (out of many) that I found interesting was the use of trained dogs (Devil Dogs) by the Marines to pinpoint where Japanese snipers where firing from at Iwo Jima and in early occupied Japan. This got me wondering, are we still using dogs in this capacity in Iraq or has technology developed to point where we have a device that performs this function? Or are we using a combination of both? How are/were these dogs utilized? Do they freeze and point? Are they also trained to attack?
From this site, it appears that dogs were used in combat during the Vietman War. This is a page with great information about the dogs used during that conflict. From some of the latter’s “Dog News” articles, it appears that dogs are still used in the military for various tasks-- mostly bomb detection-- but I didn’t see any mention of their current use in combat.
There is technology that will perform this feat. If you Google “gunshot locater” or “sound ranging”, you will find plenty of information on the subject. I’m pretty sure the military is using this technology, but to what extent, I do not know.