Ob's stürmt oder schneit; Ob die Sonne uns lacht...

[rain_gryphon]

I'm amazed to learn that the Soviets fielded remote controlled unmanned tanks in WWII. When I first saw that earlier on wikipedia, I thought it was a hoax, but googling on 'teletank' brings up a host of supporting documentation, so...

I'd consider myself to be more knowledgable than average about the history of the Second World War, but this is absolute news to me. The rationale of doing it to reduce Soviet casualties is in sharp discord with my notion of communist morals - the Soviets always seemed willing to me to send their men in waves, and overwhelm with sheer numbers.

I'd wondered back during the bombing of Libya why no-one had ever tried remote controlled tanks, as that seemed an obvious idea to me.

*****

In the process of searching for that post, I was reminded that on April 13, 2011... I was thinking about Trump for President. I don't even recall what prompted that.

*****

And, I shall smugly note that I called this one exactly correct. Once we got what we wanted, they can butcher one another to their heart's content.

Comments

[mejeep.livejournal.com]

I too keep finding more technological surprises from WW II. My focus is crypto. Everyone knows of the Enigma machine and the Bombe that cracked it (thanks to movie The Imitation Game). But Colossus broke the Lorenz and that was more of a computer than anything of the time. And the US cracked the Japanese Purple machine.

As to the tanks, the article says they were easily defeated by later anti-tank devices. And what if the enemy jammed the radios, or worse, turned them around!

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Considering they were of Soviet construction, it's kind of amazing that they worked at all. I do notice that they never sent them against the Germans.

I've been in the grip of an enthusiasm for early tanks these past few days, which is how I stumbled across this.

If you're at all interested in old tanks, I highly recommend Landships (http://landships.info/landships/index.html). It covers tanks and other devices of the First World War, long before there was any consensus on what a tank should do, or any standardization of design or capabilities. There are some truly bizarre contraptions on display here. One of my favourites is the French barbed-wire crushing machine (http://landships.info/landships/tank_articles.html?load=tank_articles/Boirault.html).

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

Great article, no, I didn't know this either. In fact, there are so many things that come to light that I wonder what history books I was reading and why they didn't mention things like this. I only learned about these in the last few years:
1) Vmail (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-mail)
2) Balloon Bombs (http://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/01/20/375820191/beware-of-japanese-balloon-bombs)

The first I found by accident when looking up if vmail was a contracted name for voice mail. The second was on PBS.

[whitetail.livejournal.com]

A hand-drawn V-mail Christmas card sent to my mother from her first husband – a 1Lt with the 506th Parachute Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, US Army – stationed in France, December, 1944. He was KIA two months later in Alsace-Lorraine.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

That's wonderful! Thanks for sharing that!

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

What a treasure! Thanks :o)

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I'd been aware of Vmail, but it had never occurred to me that it gave advantages in security. I always thought of it as a weight-saver.

The whole balloon bombs thing was so sadly desperate.