Russian Paratroops

gavmeister13 · Post by **gavmeister13** » Tue Dec 02, 2003 10:12 am

Did the Russian paratroops really jump out of low flying planes without parachutes into the snow? It sounds a bit unrealistic.

derGespenst · Post by **derGespenst** » Wed Dec 03, 2003 10:05 am

They really did, and found it really was.

Pirx · Post by **Pirx** » Thu Dec 04, 2003 10:15 am

Don't think that Russians are idiots. They sent first men in space, and won wwII.

derGespenst · Post by **derGespenst** » Thu Dec 04, 2003 10:37 am

No question about that, Pirx. The fact that the Russians tried that doesn't make them idiots. Their willingness to try things regardless of losses is one of the things that made them such a formidable enemy.

Liam · Post by **Liam** » Fri Dec 05, 2003 12:42 pm

It doesn't actually sound that crazy if you consider how deep snow might get in parts of Russia. An RAF crewman fell a considerable distance from a bomber into a German snowdrift and survived, so a slow, low-flying aircraft's stick would have a pretty good chance of surviving intact in a deep snowfall. Plenty of special forces troops use low-level sea-jumping from helicopters as a standard tactic for speed and surprise and that is not a million miles away from what the Russians were doing.

Ramirezzz · Post by **Ramirezzz** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 6:34 am

I´m sure it´s impossible. there is a lot of snow In Russia in winter, but SO deep it is not. if you, standing on the ground, fall into a ,mmm, 50 cm deep snowfall, you will definitly hurt yourself. Can you imagine a free fall from minimum 10 meters from the aeroplane fliyng 180 km/h? Russians were´nt kamikaze, you know.

Such things aren´t described in any of the articles or books about the Russian airborne units during WWII, which i know.

derGespenst · Post by **derGespenst** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 8:26 am

Let's not forget, Ramirezzz, we're saying they tried it, not that it worked. It didn't work - casualties were huge, the operation foundered and they never tried it again. Just that once.

Ramirezzz · Post by **Ramirezzz** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 9:48 am

ok, you tell me please who and when tried do it ,and I´ll believe in the posibility of such tricks. sounds but pretty impossible. Real facts please

John Kilmartin · Post by **John Kilmartin** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 3:14 pm

Hi,
I don't know if I would like to try it for fun but if one were jumping into say 2 metres or deeper snow from say a height of less than say 12 metres it could be done fairly safely. I witnessed many fellows jumping from a third story window into a bank of snow for fun when I was in university. I don't know where you would be able to find suitable conditons for such a drop on a large scale. That is to say any area that would have few enough trees for the planes to fly that low and accomodate a drop of more than say a hundred men would have drifting snow . While some of the snow would become deeper most if it would be shallower and I wouldn't be volunteering to take the chance. Even a small drop of say 15 to 20 men would depend on suitable conditons such as a recent snowfall in an area either near the coast where there are sometimes rapid accumulations or in moutain areas that accumulate snow slowly and then only on the side opposite the snow shadow.

Ramirezzz · Post by **Ramirezzz** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 4:06 am

this topic was already been discussed on the
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 9dff6639c4

Henk85 · Post by **Henk85** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 5:57 pm

I've seen in a WWII history film and one of the footages shows that Russian troops were standing or lying on the roof of the plane and grabbed the planes upper/right/left side of the plane with their hands so they won't fall, and then when it was time for them to jump, they did.

phylo_roadking · Post by **phylo_roadking** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 6:33 pm

That wasnt WWII footage, it was from the 1937 or 1938 Army manouvers, and the drop was staged for the "benefit" of foreign observers, including Basil Liddell-Hart. The Russians had no dedicated transport aircraft at the time, and used their biggest bombers as drop aircraft, the troops exiting onto the huge wide-cord wings via the open dorsal turret. The slow airspeed of the bombers in use meant that the parachutists were just clining on as if to the saddle of a fast motorcycle...and they DID have parachutes, after all!

Something like 1500 parachutists were dropped in all, and they were the star of the manouvers...except Liddell-Hart records it took THREE DAYS to find them all again!!!

phylo_roadking · Post by **phylo_roadking** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 6:37 pm

P.S. the RAF chap in question mentioned above was Flt. Sgt. Alkmeade, who had to bail out of his aircraft three miles up....sans parachute because as tail-gunner there was no room for his chute in the turret, he would have had to get back into the fuselage and attach it to his harness...except the plane was on fire. So he jumped.

He passed out on the way down and missed the fun, but - he hit the top of a pine tree and his velocity was braked by falling the branches before being thrown off into a 15ft. snow drift. He survived the fall with just a broken arm.

Tom Houlihan · Post by **Tom Houlihan** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 6:45 pm

phylo_roadking wrote:He survived the fall with just a broken arm.

If I may quote Monty Python (Life of Brian), "You lucky, lucky, bastard!"

Reality is quite often much more strange than fiction!

phylo_roadking · Post by **phylo_roadking** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 7:08 pm

Actually, its funny what appears out of the past now and again. Just the other day a documentary was on the telly and I was only giving half an eye to it....when the guy talking started recounting a familiar story -
it was Alkmeade's SON. I remembered the story from my youth MANY years ago, and hadn't heard it since.

***Ah, THATS what the programme was! Took me a moment to remember. It was a series of five or so programmes, following a group of modern RAF pilots, male and female, through a special training course to see if they had "it" to make it into a WWII Lancaster crew!***

Feldgrau.net

Russian Paratroops

Russian Paratroops

how low how deep