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.
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.