I wanted to continue the theme of training the Paratroopers of the times of the legendary Vasily Filippovich Margelov …
Everyone, probably (well, or many) watched the films "In the zone of special attention" and the like, where a wonderful actor Volunteer played the role of an airborne warrant officer-scout Valentyr … He is such a simple Soviet Rambo, humane, but SUPERMAN! And he fights like a god, and throws knives and blades! And the opinion about a paratrooper who is ready to throw everything that is capable of flying and sticking and crushing bricks and boards with his hands, elbows, legs, or even his head has firmly entered the mass consciousness … How true is this?
I don’t presume to talk about "specialists" - I myself have not been there, and those whom I know prefer not to spread about their training! I am talking here ONLY about ordinary airborne forces - that is, the Airborne Forces of the second half of the 70s of the last century - about what I know firsthand, but I experienced it on my dearly beloved skin! So that's it. He began his service in training in Gayzhunai, where for the first six months he studied VUS-030, namely the gunner-operator of the BMD. It is clear that the lion's share of the time spent in the training was devoted to the study of the BMD materiel, first of all the towers with all the belongings: the Pturs, the "thunder" gun, the PKT machine gun paired with it … - I already wrote about this … But there was no time to throw knives, sapper blades and other similar "weapons" … Six months passed and I got into the unit. To the capital city of Kirovabad, (now Ganja) of "fraternal" Azerbaijan … My first company commander loved, so to speak, "to show the goods with his face!" - and at the location of the company there was a wooden shield, into which the people happily (and extremely ineptly!) threw knives and sapper blades. This circus did not last long: the company commander went up (UP AND VBOK), and in his place they sent us Senior Lieutenant Stolyarov, who had previously commanded the Reconnaissance and Diversion Company. The first thing he did was ordered to remove the wooden shield from the location of the company … Having built the company, he explained to us that we were simply wasting time on nonsense! Anything effective throwing weapon can be mastered in a few years of hard training. I mean, to master it SO that in a real situation it would bring some benefit, such as a silently removed sentry. To the question about the sapper blade in hand-to-hand combat, he also answered simply: he asked, who in the company can use it best? Hearing the answer, he called the named guard, ordered him to hang a shoulder blade in a case on his belt. The cover was OPENED. Then he ordered to attack him from behind. Small did not have time to pull out the shoulder blade even halfway, as he lay, dumbfounded, twisting his head, and not understanding where the blow had come from. We didn't ask him any more stupid questions … The command was to stop the circus and get down to business!
Now about breaking bricks! For some reason, many believe that the landing is only busy transferring the building materials that are so necessary for the Motherland into dust … On the one hand, having some kind of delivered blow, breaking a brick with a blow of the edge of the palm, fist, or the base of the palm is not so difficult … If a brick not silicite, increased strength and not soaked and frozen through. Any more or less developed young man, if you show him the technique of hitting and explain some of the nuances, will break these bricks - Mom, do not worry! but why? it is clear that having SUCH a blow, he will surely, if he does not kill, then cripple the person who bent down and substituted the back of his head. But it is unlikely that anyone in a fight, and, moreover, in battle, will substitute the back of the head, and even wait until the paratrooper tries on, vomits his breath, and with a sharp cry-exhale will inflict a fatal blow! So, gentlemen, breaking bricks, as well as throwing various knives, Sapper blades, toprs and others like them, is nothing more than a SHOW, which the valiant Soviet Army has always been famous for. On all sorts of holidays, such tricks are demonstrated by the guys who have been dragged into these, with gilding to say, "combat maneuvers" for two or three months, and which have not and have not been used in real troops.
In conclusion about the "Specialists" …. One of my acquaintances "stuntman" (From the "Cascade" Group) by combat specialty - a sniper, on barbecue in the woods sluggishly mumbled: "knives? … to throw? - did not suffer such garbage …" hand and the knife with which he cut meat, stuck into a willow branch three centimeters thick, which grew twenty meters from the place of our conversation …
Conclusions, as they say, do it yourself …
