What just does not come across on the Internet in our time. Not so long ago I was lucky enough to stumble upon a photograph of Soviet soldiers sitting with a bow and crossbow somewhere in a trench. What just did not happen to read in this regard. Over the years, not only the Great Patriotic War, but also the history of the Soviet Union acquires more and more myths. So, let's try to dot the "and".
"-What's next?! Nicholas II did not participate in the Great Patriotic War!!!
-What front?
- First Heavenly! - from the BadComedian sketch for the scandalous film "Matilda".
The very first thesis that I happened to come across in search of information about bows and crossbows in the Red Army during the war was the assertion that rifles in the Soviet Union, of course, were not enough, and therefore the poor "soviet" bastard was forced to fight almost with pitchforks and stones. One could look for information about the release of firearms in the USSR before the war and during the war for a reinforced concrete refutation of this “thesis”, if I may say so... However, we will go from the other side and provide an even more sensational photo: Finnish soldiers in 1939 DO NOT ENOUGH RIFLES in the war with the USSR, and therefore they have already switched to GIANT SLINGSHOTS! (Why it was needed, we will actually explain towards the end, don't worry)
Well, now seriously. At first it seemed that the photograph with the Red Army soldiers armed with bows was generally a modern photograph, taken as a joke on some kind of military-patriotic event, where the guys-designers for the sake of fun made several artisanal bows and photographed. If you look closely, the bows in the hands of the Red Army soldiers look very rude. A real medieval combat bow is a very complex and elegant weapon.
Another extremely dubious thesis that I came across was that some “super detachments” of Yakuts and Tuvans allegedly fought with bows, which made night raids with bows on the Germans. And one can even believe in this if the bows in the hands of the soldiers of the Red Army were made in accordance with all the rules. The photo clearly shows that both the bow and the crossbow are “handicraft”, improvisation, a handicraft of a person who actually actually understands nothing in the design of a real medieval bow, except for the general principle of the throwing weapons.
I already wanted to brand and smash the photo with a remake that was processed in Photoshop, when suddenly I was lucky enough to stumble upon to an advertising tourist site dedicated to recreation on the Russian lake Seliger, which is located between Moscow and St. Petersburg. On this resource, a lot of archival photographs were posted, which, according to local authors, cover the battles on Seliger in 1941-1942. Among other photographs, there was also a picture of Red Army soldiers with bows. But the most interesting thing is that the guys there posted a lot more pictures from different angles of the same “archers” and “crossbowmen” of the Red Army.
>>>>Ideas for life | NOVATE.RU<<<<
The quality and angles of the photographs there already caused much less suspicion that this was a remake. So most likely the pictures are archived. But the most important thing is that in other photographs you can see how the lads fasten some sheets to the arrows. This detail is very important. With a high degree of probability, it suggests that a Soviet propaganda detachment fell into the lens of the military correspondent's camera in 1942.
A campaign squad is a group engaged in the dissemination of military propaganda in order to demoralize the enemy. Campaign leaflets were delivered to the positions in a variety of ways: they were scattered from aircraft, were thrown with the help of cannons, mortars, vacuum ampoules, as well as numerous improvised funds. Including homemade bows, crossbows and even slingshots. Actually, the "super slingshot" of the Finns during the Winter War was made for the same purposes - throwing agitation and propaganda at the positions of the Soviets. In general, soldier's ingenuity is an international thing.
If you want to know even more interesting things, then you should read about why soviet soldiers did not like the famous PCA.
Source: https://novate.ru/blogs/200422/62766/