Imagine that you’re a Soviet
soldier during the early 1980s. Your country is at war with Afghanistan,
and, like many thousands of your comrades, you’ve been sent into a hot, arid, and unfamiliar
country to suppress the mujahideen. These Islamic groups don’t like the Marxist and Leninist views
espoused by Afghanistan’s ruling Khalq and Parcham parties, and it’s your job to ensure the spread
of communism continues amidst constant rebellion. But you have a problem.
Your leaders provide you with absolutely horrendous rations to keep your
energy levels high during your fight. Dehydrated and condensed field rations – which taste a
little like feet – are all you have to keep yourself going, and you get sick of it. Surely,
there’s better food out there. Something more befitting of a soldier, even a Soviet one who has
come from poverty and has somehow found themself in even worse conditions in Afghanistan.
Plus, your army actively sent better food to the frontlines, right? Strategic army food
supplies regularly headed into Afghanistan, including canned meats, green peas, tea,
cigarettes, and even some delectable Polish and Hungarian hams. Where did all of that food
go? Why are you left with the most awful rations available when you know your army is sending over
much more substantial—and better-tasting—food? The reason was that much of the
food the Soviets sent to feed their soldiers didn’t end up in Russian hands.
It ended up in the hands of Afghani traders. Still, that means there’s an
alternative source of food available. There is a lot of it being sold at Afghan
bazaars, but that only makes your problems worse. You have no money—certainly none that
Afghan merchants are willing to accept—but there’s a glimmer of hope for your rumbling
tummy yet. The Afghan merchants may not accept your rubles, but they’re willing
to barter for what they have to offer. And there’s one very valuable
commodity you have that they want: Bullets.
What do you do? If you’re anything like the Soviet soldiers of
the 1980s, you know that you can’t simply hand your bullets over to the Afghan merchants. Who
knows who those merchants support? By giving them your bullets, you may be actively arming
the very mujahideen that you’re in Afghanistan to fight. So, you come up with a plan. One
that might be just crazy enough to work. Boil the bullets before you barter.
Yes, in order to get around the moral conflict that a Soviet soldier would have faced
when essentially bartering away ammo to the enemy, they’d boil bullets before exchanging them.
The question now is simple: Why?
The idea was to make the bullets completely inoperable. A
Soviet soldier would requisition ammo from supply zones – which was easy enough to do in a warzone
– before grabbing a pot and some water. After making a small fire, the soldier would pour the
water into the pot and place it over the flame, bringing the water to a boil in the process.
Then, he’d put the bullets in the water. For the next four or five hours, the soldier
would leave those bullets to simmer before taking them to an Afghan merchant to trade
for food. The technique arose because of a longstanding Soviet army tale that the bullets
they used would fail to function if left in boiling water for a few hours. And the tale seems
to make sense. After all, boiling bullets expose them to extremely high temperatures without the
risk of causing the ammo to detonate while it’s in the pot. Boiling also doesn’t change
the look or feel of the ammo. Instead, it supposedly did something to the bullet that
would make it unusable when loaded into a gun. Plus, it had worked before.
Bullets made during the 19th and early 20th centuries could fall victim to the
boiling strategy. Those early bullets used mercury fulminate as a primer, which would ignite the
bullet’s propellant. When that fulminate reached temperatures of around 212 degrees Fahrenheit
– the boiling point of water – it would undergo thermal decomposition. The fulminate would fail to
function as the material had lost its integrity, leading to a bullet that couldn’t fire.
But there was a problem. The bullets the Soviets were using in Afghanistan
in the 1980s were a far cry from the ones they’d used at the turn of the 20th century. They didn’t
use mercury fulminate anymore. Instead, they were lacquer-coated and had primers made using
chemicals that had far higher heat tolerances than the mercury fulminate of the past. By that
point, Soviet bullets were completely resistant to heating, meaning the poor soldiers – who just
wanted a little food – ended up selling bullets to Afghan merchants that may well have ended up being
used to kill their comrades or even themselves. Desperate times lead to desperate measures.
But the practice of boiling bullets was far from the only relic of the past that Soviet
troops believed in for many years after the fact. For our next example, we take you to
World War II and a strange practice that the Soviets – and later even the
Russians – carried out for centuries. Not wearing socks on the battlefield.
Before you start conjuring up images of Soviet soldiers running around barefoot – that
would be a nightmare when fighting in Russia’s snowy conditions – the Soviets did at least
have some form of foot covering. Only those coverings weren’t socks.
They were stinky rags. Transport yourself to World War II and imagine
you’re an American soldier near the war's end. You’re working alongside Soviet soldiers –
who are part of the allied powers that would eventually defeat Nazi Germany – and you have a
pretty good idea of what standard military wear should look like. That’s especially the case for
your feet. You and all of your fellow American soldiers get issued a pair of hefty boots that
lace up, along with long pairs of socks that you wear underneath.
It's all logical. The boots protect your feet from anything on the
ground – such as rocks – that could cause damage, while the socks provide protection from the
boots themselves. After all, you need something to prevent the skin from being eroded from your
feet during the long marches you must endure. Then, you see a Soviet soldier.
And you take a look at their footwear. Gone are the laced boots that are standard issue
for American soldiers, replaced by long leather boots that have no laces at all. But what’s
far stranger to you is what lies underneath those boots. Scraps of smelly rags are used
in place of socks, and you’re left asking the obvious question:
Why? The answer lies in the impoverished nature of
the average Soviet soldier during World War II. During the 1940s and for much of Russia’s
history, socks were seen as a luxury item that was essentially the reserve of the rich.
The reason dates back to Russia’s industrial revolution when socks were surprisingly expensive
and time-consuming to manufacture. They were a far cry from what they are today when they can be
manufactured by the millions using machinery and are so cheap that you can easily find a couple of
pairs for less than $1. To Soviet soldiers – and their commanders – socks were a luxury that
diverted resources away from other valuable equipment, such as bullets and food.
Why waste money on socks when nasty old rags would suffice?
In truth, these footwraps, known as “Portyanki,” were a little bit more
than rags. They were large pieces of cloth, typically rectangular, that a Soviet soldier would
wrap carefully around their feet. Once applied, the Portyanki would work in much the same
way as a sock – protecting the foot against moisture and blistering. They also did a fine
job keeping dirt and rocks out of a Soviet boot. But even though they were functionally similar,
that doesn’t mean they weren’t strange in an era when socks were plentiful for U.S. soldiers.
Take putting them on as an example. We all know how a sock works. Shove your foot in the
hole and pull up, and you’ll be wearing a sock. A Portyanki had to be actively applied, wrapped
around the foot like a bandage or the hand wraps a boxer wears, meaning a technique needed to be
perfected before a soldier could wear a Portyanki. The wraps also served a
minor disciplinary purpose. Failure to apply a Portyanki properly would lead
to the Soviet soldier getting blisters. Plus, soldiers were often timed on their ability to
wrap a Portyanki properly. If you were too slow, you received a punishment. Think of it
as being similar to the rifle dismantling drills that soldiers today have to master,
and you’re on the right track. A Soviet soldier had to be capable of being fully
dressed within 45 seconds, meaning they had mere seconds to wrap the Portyanki properly.
These interesting footwraps also had centuries of tradition behind them, dating back to the era
of Peter the Great and the legends that his armies marched into battle wearing rags rather
than the knits that were customary during the 17th and 18th centuries. Russia had already won
many wars wearing Portyanki, almost making them as much of a good luck charm as a practical way
to protect feet. And you could argue that the good luck charm worked – the Soviet Union was
on the winning side by the end of World War II. But Portyanki had to be
replaced by socks eventually. The craziest part is that this
change didn’t occur until 2007. As military reforms took hold in Russia
that year, Portyanki was finally seen as a relic of the past that Moscow needed to leave
behind. But it still took time to eradicate them from the Russian military entirely.
Portyanki were still in minor use until 2013 when they were finally abandoned for good.
The reason for that abandonment is as much symbolic as it is practical. Portyanki had come
to symbolize the “old” Russian army. One powered by peasants rather than a modern military
capable of standing with the world’s best. Sergei Shoigu – Russia’s defense minister in 2013
– had the final word on Portyanki in a televised briefing, ending their use once and for all.
“In 2013, or at least by the end of this year, we will forget foot bindings,” he proclaimed.
“I’m asking you, please, if there is need, we will provide additional funds. But we need to finally,
fully reject this concept in our armed forces.” By now, we’re perhaps seeing a pattern
emerge in Soviet techniques and tactics. Rather than modernizing, Soviet soldiers seemed to
rely on outdated ideas and equipment. The concept of boiling bullets stemmed from an era when
mercury fulminate was used in Soviet rounds. An era that had long passed by the time the
soldiers stationed in Afghanistan were boiling bullets to exchange them for food and supplies.
As for Portyanki, they were a relic that dated even further back than boilable bullets and one
that stuck with the Soviets as much for symbolic reasons as practical ones long past the point
where socks were easy to manufacture in Russia. But these aren’t the only examples of the
Soviet Union relying on outdated equipment. Our next example was far more
successful than it had any right to be—the flight of the Night Witches.
During World War II, Nazi Germany managed to achieve aerial superiority throughout much of
the war thanks to the terrifying might of the Luftwaffe. Officially formed in 1935 – though
it had been in development long before that year – the Luftwaffe boasted over 1,800 aircraft
and 20,000 personnel. But more importantly than that, it was the most technologically advanced
aerial force the world had seen to that point. And the jewels in the
Luftwaffe crown were immense. The He 111H became the Nazi air force’s mainstay
bomber, raining fire down on many a city as Hitler cut a destructive path through Europe. But
even more dangerous were the fighters that protected these bombers – the Messerschmitt Bf
109, or Me-109, and the Messerschmitt Bf 110, Me-110. The former was a single-seater
with one engine, and the latter carried two people and a pair of engines. But both
were fast, agile, and capable of battling the best that the Allies could bring to the skies.
The Soviets had nothing that could compare, at least at the beginning of World War II.
So, as you saw in the previous two techniques, they looked backward. Yes, they would continue
trying to develop planes that could compete with the Nazi’s ingenuity. But in the meantime,
they would battle the Me-109 fighters with the Polikarpov Po-2 biplane.
The problem? By the time World War II came around, those
biplanes were massively out of date. They were relics of the previous World War and contained
far inferior technology to Germany’s new fighters. Knowing this, the Soviets chose not
to entrust their best pilots to these planes. Instead, they chose women.
There was just a hint of misogyny to this decision, with women being chosen because the
Soviet Union knew the Po-2 wasn’t up to scratch. Perhaps the thought was to use these outdated
biplanes – and the women piloting them – as cannon fodder to distract with Me-109s and Me-110s,
giving other Russian planes a chance to attack. What nobody could have predicted was
that the outdated technology in the Po-2 made it a surprisingly good
match for Nazi Germany’s fighters. Take the plane’s wooden frame as an example.
The Po-2s were made using plywood and canvas, a construction method that led to some calling
the plane “a coffin with wings.” That plywood was susceptible to tracer fire, as a single
bullet could lead to the Po-2 becoming a flying inferno that would engulf the poor woman
sitting inside. But that wooden construction also came with a key benefit:
The Po-2 was undetectable by German infrared sensors and radars.
For that reason, the women who flew the planes restricted themselves to flying under
the cover of night. When darkness descended, their slow-moving and low-flying craft were
far harder to see from the ground than they were during the day. And thanks to being
undetectable by radar and infrared sensors, they were able to get in close to a target and
drop the two bombs they could carry before German fighters had any idea they were in the vicinity.
The only sign came far too late for the target: A whooshing sound—often described as similar
to the sound of a witch’s broom—could be heard as the Po-2 glided over its target.
Thus, the Night Witches were born. And they weren’t only effective during nighttime
bombing raids on German targets. When stacked up against the Me-109 – one of the most terrifying
fighters in the Luftwaffe – the Po-2 often came out on top for a simple reason – it
was too slow for the Me-109 to catch. That may seem like a contradiction until
you realize that the Me-109 could reach a top speed of nearly 350 miles per hour. To keep
pace with a Po-2, the Me-109’s pilot would have to decrease their speed to 90 miles per hour
or lower, which presented a major problem: The Me-109 stalled out at that low speed.
When combined with the Po-2's surprising maneuverability, that low speed led to the far
superior Me-109 sometimes dropping out of the sky—assuming the pilot didn’t abandon the fight
altogether—as it tried to take on a Night Witch. By the end of the war, the 588th Night Bomber
Aviation Regiment – the official name for the Night Witches – had become one of the most
dangerous Soviet weapons. Decked in old uniforms, which had previously been worn by men and
were extremely ill-fitting, the women of this regiment numbered around 400 and collectively
flew around 30,000 missions. They dropped 23,000 tons of bombs on the German armies attempting
to invade Russia, with most of the women who piloted the Po-2s being aged between 17 and 26.
It's crazy to think that such outdated planes could present such a threat in the face of the
Luftwaffe. However, the Soviets’ use of old technology to take on terrifying new threats is
far from the only example. For our next strange technique, we turn to the British and their
use of tools that have existed for millennia: Hammers and bags.
Where the Luftwaffe may have been one of the most impressive technological
achievements that Germany brought to the table in World War II, the First World War saw a naval
advancement that wreaked havoc on British, French, and American troops—the Unterseeboots, or U-boats.
Armed with powerful torpedoes that could sink a ship in minutes, the German U-boats spent
most of World War I prowling the Atlantic Ocean on the lookout for targets. They were
Germany’s chief naval weapon during the war, especially given the British approach of
blocking German ports, and their goal was simple: Take out as many ships
carrying supplies as possible. They were extremely effective.
In May 1915, the German U-Boat U-20 sunk the Lusitania off the coast of
Ireland. A passenger liner, the boat sunk with 1,200 people on board – including
128 Americans – all of whom lost their lives. The attack was a signal of intent from
Germany. It would attack ships indiscriminately, claiming that any it sunk were legitimate wartime
targets because they carried war materials. By the end of the war, the U-boats had sunk
around 5,000 merchant ships, claiming the lives of around 15,000 Allied soldiers in the process,
and had even managed to bring a European war to the shores of the United States. In fact,
you can still find several shipwrecks near the North Carolina coast in an area dubbed
by some as the Graveyard of the Atlantic. So, what could the allies do
to combat this terrible threat? That’s where the British
hammers and bags come into play. The key to the U-boat’s success was that
it could submerge itself underwater during a time when submarines weren’t commonplace
in naval warfare. Using periscopes, German sailors could navigate undetected until they came
into range of an allied ship before firing their torpedoes. The damage was done before the victim
could do anything about it, leaving the U-boat free to sail away and find another target. The
approach proved massively effective. For instance, SM U-9 managed to sink three British armored
cruisers – killing 1,500 people – alone in about an hour on September 22, 1914.
Still, the U-Boat had a weakness. Before the days of radar and electronic
navigational equipment, the periscope built into each boat was essential. Without
it, the German sailors had no idea where they were going. And, crucially, that periscope
had to emerge above the water’s surface, giving the British a potential target.
The initial ideas were strange in their own right. For example, the British Board of Invention
and Research suggested training seagulls to spot the periscopes. Once spotted, the seagulls
would swarm the periscope, indicating where the U-Boat was while also obscuring the pericope’s
lens. There was also an idea to pour paint in the water where the British suspected U-Boats to
be, with that paint then covering any periscope lenses that emerged.
Neither idea worked. The more effective idea was to treat the threat
as if it were a giant game of Whack-A-Mole. The tactic was simple. The British sent out small
boats to search for U-boat periscopes. If the British spotted one, they would cover it with
a bag before whacking the bag with a hammer, destroying the periscope’s lens and
leaving the U-Boat unable to navigate. There’s no word on how effective
the technique proved to be. However, it’s worth noting that at least
one senior officer—based on the HMS Exmouth—enlisted the services of blacksmiths to
build large hammers that sailors on the patrol boats could use to smash periscopes.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. And, just like the Soviets and their
Night Witches, the British found a way to use outdated tools to take on a technologically
superior threat. This streak of ingenuity for the Allies continued into World War II, as they
were forced to find a novel way of transmitting messages to the frontlines:
Using carrier pigeons. Parachuting carrier pigeons, to be exact.
If you visit the National Air and Space Museum, you might have a chance to rummage through
its archives. There, sitting alongside around 75,000 technical manuals, you might find a
document called Handing and Release Home Pigeon from Aircraft in Flight. Carrying a “Restricted”
security clearance label, the manual was first given to American military personnel in August
1943 and contains some interesting instructions. Detailed in the manual are methods for creating
paper messages that could be attached to homing pigeons that a soldier would keep on their person.
There are also instructions on how to properly release one of these pigeons from an aircraft,
whether that craft was in flight or on land. The concept behind this
technique was simple enough. When a pilot needed to transmit a message – either
in an emergency or because they needed to sneak it in behind enemy lines – they could strap it to
a carrier pigeon and send the bird on its way. It wasn’t a new idea. Almost all armies involved
in World War I had used these pigeons, perhaps the most famous example being Cher Ami. Used by
the famous “Lost Battalion,” Cher Ami delivered a message from soldiers pinned down by German forces
to their allies, who had unfortunately started accidentally shelling the battalion. The message
was simple: “Our artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heaven’s sake, stop it!”
Free from bombardment from their own side, the Lost Battalion defended its position
long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Still, by World War II, you might have thought
using carrier pigeons would be outdated. You couldn’t be more wrong.
In fact, not only were the pigeons still used, but they received
equipment that they’d never had before: Parachutes.
The British pioneered an interesting use for homing pigeons during World
War II. In addition to using them to send messages to the frontlines – in the same ways America did
– Britain also started loading carrier pigeons into boxes before parachuting them into enemy
territory. The hope was that either Allied troops or at least people who were friendly to the Allied
cause would find the pigeons, write messages, and then send the birds on their way to take
the written notes back to the United Kingdom. Pigeons were no longer restricted to
sending messages from command posts. They become intelligence operatives, gathering
information – however unwittingly – for the allied troops to use in their attacks.
According to the BBC, Britain dropped around 16,000 of these parachuting pigeons
into France, though only 1,800 made it back home. Many thousands more were either found
by Axis soldiers or died in their containers while waiting for somebody to release them. Others
were killed over the English Channel, becoming the victims of a squadron of German hawks explicitly
trained to take out any carrier pigeons they saw. The unreliability of that technique led to
further evolutions in the ways that British and American troops used carrier pigeons.
Paratroopers started wearing the pigeons on their chests – using specially designed “pigeon
vests” – so they could jump into enemy territory, gather information, and then send the pigeon
on its way with a written note. When the vests started to run out, some even resorted to stowing
their pigeons into socks, with holes cut into the toe end so the pigeon could pop its head out.
This approach proved far more successful, with some reports claiming that 95% of the
messages these pigeon vest-wearing birds delivered to the right hands were successfully delivered.
And with that bird-brained idea, we come to the end of our examination of some of the strangest
techniques and tactics used in modern warfare. The clear thread running throughout is that
all were outdated at the time of their use, whether due to a mistaken belief that
boiling bullets still worked or because no better equipment was available. All of
this shows a surprising amount of ingenuity, even if the boiling bullets tactic that
opened this video never actually worked. Now check out “Real Reason Why The Soviet
Union Collapsed.” Or watch this video instead!
