Which is only the second weirdest thing I saw soviet paratroopers doing.
I’m curious now, what was the weirdest thing?
During the Cold War soviets experimented with dropping soldiers from helicopters into snow. Without a rope or parachute. Just jump and pray. Went as smooth as you imagine. There is also that legend which almost certainly happened, but there aren’t any records of it. In one occasion during WW2 Russian paratroopers have been deployed from a plane from low altitude without parachutes. Again on snow. And only a third of them died.
Now, this has been denied by the soviets. But if we look at what else the Kremlin has said over the last century, we can safely assume that it absolutely happened.
Reminds me of the (probably apocryphal) story about the Ghurkas. They were told they’d be jumping behind Japanese lines, and they were a little apprehensive because they didn’t think the ground would be soft enough. But when they were told they’d have parachutes they felt better.
Hopefully we can develop some non credible footage of this event using a highly credible AI
You mean my clan in Battlefield 1942 wing riding on the Bomber to drop onto the far flag on Bocage was historically accurate?!
Other than the war part of it, where do I sign up?!?!?!
Reminds me of a bi-plane jump I did at the World Freefall Convention in the mid-late '90s in Quincy, IL. Reach up, grab a bar attached to the wing, plane goes inverted, you hang from the wing and then let go. It was as cool AF as you might imagine. Second only to the Hot Air Balloon jump. The Jet was fun because it was a 727 but it felt like any other high and fast jump. But those two? Gold man.
Any pics or anything? Sounds nuts
Sadly not really. 1995 man, no digital cameras. I think I have one somewhere of me and my buddy in the jet, but it just looks like two dudes sitting ass to nuts on the floor of a plane with a bunch of other people hahah and one of me half dropping trow to show off my hip tattoo in tent city.
Ah well. Not that I doubt you, just wondering if they still do that and what it looked like.
Keep on keeping on
That is kinda awesome?
If it’s stupid and it works…
Guess that depends on how you define “works”. Russians do a lot of stuff that’s stupid and “works” – see eg. the entire Ukrainian invasion.
I mean, it hasn’t worked yet, it just hasn’t fully failed.
That actually looks like a lot of fun
