The Russian spinoff of the blockbuster hit “Fury” is not going as expected.
Anyone who has experience driving any number of ground-based military vehicles knows that despite their myriad capabilities, the number of blindspots necessitates a ground guide — oftentimes multiple.
Tanks have gadgets and gizmos aplenty and whozits and whatzits galore. But you want blindspots? It’s got twenty.
Such was the case for one unfortunate Russian soldier endeavoring to load a World War II era Soviet T-34 tank onto a vehicle transport truck, a cringeworthy moment captured in a recently-circulated video from the country’s 2018 Kursk military parade. The concept may have been simple enough, but so many things went awry with the execution.
First, the operator was steering from the enclosure instead of from an exposed position.
Second, even using an exposed vantage point, the tank operator’s collection of blind spots should have warranted a handful of ground guides. Yet there was only one — two if you count the frantic set of hands that quickly vanish from the small opening on the tank’s nose.
The vehicle’s elevated approach on the ramp means the driver’s vantage point would have been assisted by a lone ground guide, but only if the guide possessed the mystical power of levitation.
Then again, with the widely-accepted steroid consumption by Russian olympians, maybe levitation isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
Additional angles of the mishap can be seen below. It’s unknown what punitive measures were taken against the driver or ground guide, but chances are high they were banished to the Siberian wilderness — because Russia.
J.D. Simkins is the executive editor of Military Times and Defense News, and a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War.
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russian tank fliprussia military paraderussia kursk paraderussian tank accidentt-34 tank flipt-34 soviet uniont-34 world war IIt-34 tank
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