Friday, March 29

The death strip of Donbas and kyiv: defenses of the Roman legions against Russian tanks


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“Putin, asshole.” A few weeks ago, ABC reported that the Pravda brewery, located in Lviv, had decided to switch from wheat to gasoline and start mass-brewing Molotov cocktails. The quote that heads this article is the one that can still be seen today on their labels. Because, in the middle of a war, even profanity is allowed. This explosive, used en masse during the WWII by the Soviets, it is just one of many centuries-old weapons being used by Ukrainian troops to try to drive Russian infantry and tanks out of their territory.

But the list is immense: ‘Czech hedgehogs’, caltrops

All this amalgamation of devices has helped create a kind of death strip that resists the invader.

czech hedgehogs

Among the easiest defenses to build, the ‘Czech hedgehogs’ have always stood out. In ‘Absolute War’, historian Chris Bellamy states that his technical name was ‘yozhy‘, which began to be manufactured in the IIGM with three pieces of steel beams welded together in the shape of a cross and which had two objectives: to stick like a stinger in the chassis of the combat tanks and prevent their passage, and to hinder the roads. The expert underlines their impeccable relationship between effectiveness and price, since they could be made from old train rails and at a negligible cost. Its maximum height was one and a half meters, although the chronicles of the time tell us of some with twice the height.

The well-known historian Antony Beevor defines them in his magnum opus, ‘D-Day’, as a kind of “hedgehogs made of steel beams”. And the truth is that they need little more description. Although the ‘Czech hedgehogs’ sowed the fields of the Siegfried Line and the Maginot Line –the defenses of Germany and France against their neighbors–, the truth is that they have gone down in history thanks to the fact that Erwin Rommel used them massively to defend the beaches of Normandy. In the words of the ‘Imperial War Museum’, they were extremely effective in stopping the advance of the battle tanks, although, if they were located at low tide at the end of the sand, they could “also destroy the lower part of the boats used in the landings’.

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Normandy beach defences, including the Czech hedgehog
Normandy beach defences, including the Czech hedgehog – ABC

Holy Trinity-flavored defenses –good, nice and cheap–, Czech hedgehogs have been seen these days in the snapshots that come to us from the war in Ukraine. During the first days of the conflict, Kyiv Y Odessa They ended up infested with them. What is striking is that, as correspondents from different information agencies confirmed a few days ago, they have been built by a local real estate company, KHAN. “We know we can’t fight, but we want to be useful,” explained one of the company’s workers. Today, that the Russian army has withdrawn from the north, the same is happening in the defensive lines that separate Donbas from the self-proclaimed independent republics of the east.

But the ‘Czech hedgehogs’ are already old acquaintances of the Ukrainian territory. Hundreds of them were established in 2014 in the Donbass fringe by the government, and by the pro-Russian rebels of Donetks and Luganks. And they were also used by the demonstrators who took part in the euromaidan to fend off police charges in the square near the Presidency headquarters. “They have erected parapets with bags filled with snow, which immediately turns to ice in low temperatures. Barbed wire and ‘Czech hedgehogs’, a kind of iron blade, have been placed outside the wall, ”Rafael Mañueco explained for ABC eight years ago.

Dragon’s teeth and caltrops

But the Czech hedgehogs, made by the dozens by local craftsmen, have not been the only classic defenses against armor that the Ukrainian side has opted for. As published by ‘The Times’ at the end of this April, the kyiv high command has located hundreds of ‘dragon teeth‘ on the banks of rivers. Conceived centuries ago to stop the cavalry, in practice they are small solid structures with a pyramidal shape that, placed by the hundreds on the road, impede the advance of the battle tanks. They were tough, as a Sherman tank needed about fifty shots to finish them off, according to Beevor.

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Similar to the ‘dragon’s teeth’ were the thistles: a kind of pointed metal tetrahedrons that were thrown hand over fist on the ground and whose objective was, in principle, to puncture the horses during their advance. Today they are still seen in campaign, as evidenced by the photographs that come to us from Ukraine. Mike Bishop and John Coulston confirm in their work, ‘Roman Military Equipment’, that its use was widespread at the time of the republic by the Roman legions. This is also attested by the author of the fourth century Flavius ​​Vegetius René in his treatise on tactics ‘De re militari’. To be more specific, in the ‘Defense against tanks with scythes and elephants’ section:

“The chariots armed with scythes were used in war by Antiochus and Mithridates and terrified the Romans at first, but later they made fun of them. Since such a cart doesn’t always find flat, level ground, the slightest obstruction stops them. And if one of the horses is injured or killed, it falls into enemy hands. The Roman soldiers rendered them useless by means of the following countermeasure: at the moment the battle began, they scattered caltrops on the battlefield, and the horses that pulled the chariots, running at full speed on them, were unfailingly wounded. A thistle is a machine composed of four spikes arranged so that, when thrown, they rested on three of them and presented the fourth upwards».

infected holes

Needless to say, the trench lines they are the most basic element to orchestrate a defense in depth against the enemy. Today, Donbas is plagued with them; ditches built and fortified since the conflict against the pro-Russians began in 2014.

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Its origin is in the First World War, a war that went from speed to stagnation. After early German advances across Europe at full speed, positions stabilized in the late summer of 1914. It was then that the mentality of the contenders changed. The new weapons favored this turn, since a well-placed machine gun could crush entire battalions in a few minutes. Thus, the rapid advances promoted by units mounted on nags and bicycles were left aside and a confrontation based on the positioning of thousands of soldiers along gigantic battlefronts was opted for.

German infantry soldiers firing from a trench+ info
German infantry soldiers firing from a trench – ABC

From then on, the soldier’s companions were the trenches. For the next five years, the fighters were forced to live in these unpopular holes. They were their houses; and some not too cozy. In practice, they were stinking holes that covered them from enemy fire and allowed them to resist the bayonet assault of waves of opponents. But also infected places where rats abounded, diseases proliferated and hygiene was as scarce as food and water.

“What interests me most in the trenches is the human element. How have the men of our time been able to get used to this life? Sometimes living here is called what is often dying. The sadness of the trenches is so gloomy that it demands a kind of silent heroism, something like an ascetic humility, to be endured without fainting. A soldier tells me: ‘Four or five months in a quiet trench is death’”, explained the ABC correspondent at the IGM, Alberto Insúa. Life has changed a lot since those days. Far away are the humidity and the stench. Although the danger remains.

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