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I really liked episode about smekalka😂 That’s similar to what I was always saying) Russians are proud that they can make anything from bunch of shit and sticks, and it is good on itself. The problem is because of their government they HAVE to do it to survive and they just ignore this fact for some reason.
I am ashamed to say that we had something similar with an anti-aircraft gun. They put a perfectly fine radar for fighter aircraft and put it into a ground based anti-aircraft gun. Unfortunately, it had a tendency to lock onto portable outdoor toilets. The higher end ones with electric fans in them to keep the air fresher in the toilets. The radar just loved those fans.
Was this the Sergeant York anti-aircraft system for the US Army? I hadn't heard about outdoor toilets, but the vendor attached radar reflectors to the target to make it easier to hit. It helped a little but the Army was furious when they found out. In addition, there was an episode where during a demonstration before the brass where the gun suddenly turned 180 degrees and aimed at the center of the reviewing stand full of high-ranking officers. Since the best seats were in the top row, you had a number of colonels and generals jumping off the back of the reviewing stand, although there were apparently no serious injuries. The contractor said that this was normal procedure since, in the absence of targets at the site, the reviewing stand was what most closely resembled targets. The Pentagon's response was to cancel the project and several of the officers in charge of supervising the project found their careers very severely impacted. (demotions, courts of inquiry, etc.) There was also the case where the US Army was investigating the sudden increase in transmission failures in the early Abrams tanks. It turns out that some NCO's had found that you could cut a few seconds off the shoot and scoot drills by putting the tank in reverse while still moving forward. In earlier tanks, the round would totally miss the target or the transmission would break. With the Abrams, the gun stabilization system would allow you to hit the target, and the transmission would survive despite being damaged and having its time to failure dramatically reduced. They added a switch in the transmission that would stop you from shifting to reverse while moving forward.
@@bradleyross2274 yep! yep! That's the one! They have good video on RU-vid about it. My memory isn't as good as it used to be, but I believed it was tested at Whitesands Missile Range when I was stationed there as a weather observer and helped another weather data collector try to get his wind speed indicator working as it was directly supporting the test. There was high wind gusts that day and the wind speed indicator was on top of a truck. We couldn't stand up and had to lay on our stomachs for fear of being blown off. As the information about the project was on a need to know basis and as I didn't need to know, I didn't know anything about it's idiosyncrasies until many years later.
@@novat9731 well that's just Russia. Of course it was accepted. It worked in trials. The context of that success is entirely irrelevant. Glory to the Soviet Union! /sarcasm
@@nicholaswalsh4462 if it works for about 5 minutes in a test its good enough for deployment seems to be their modus operandi in ruskieland. im just glad their equipment is nowhere near the capacity as advertised otherwise the airborne BMD drops for the VDV would have gone a lot differently in the recent war
Here in Brazil we have a similar concept to Smekalka, and is as culturally present as in Russia. Here use the "Gambiarra" which is a smart and cheap way to solve a problem using what you have at hand. For example, if you have a broken shower, instead of simply buying another or calling in someone to fix it, you would try and fix it using bycicle parts, or something like it. And this goes so much farther that justa that, you can find it in almost anything over here, and even though it usually is the worst way to fix something, we just say that "it's the Brazilian way".
Sounds like what we in the States would call a "kludge" or "redneck engineering." (Kludges are temporary.) It is the most horrible fix possible (inducing both fear and disgust in those who see it), and yet it works just fine, somehow, and impresses those with engineering skill. To give a kludge example, in the 1940s, it was common for American farm tractor engines to be repaired with a corset rather than the proper part. It got the engine running again, didn't harm the engine, and would last long enough to get paid after the harvest. This wasn't meant as a permanent solution, just to last long enough to be able to afford the time and money for a _proper_ repair. As it turned out, diesel submarines and warships used the same part in their engines. If you were transporting some US Army nurses, it wasn't unheard of for a corset to be keeping the ship moving. (At least, I think it was a corset. It might've been panties. Something with both a lot of stretch and a lot of elastic pull.) Rednecks, however, never bother with the "proper repair" portion, resulting in what you mentioned: a kludge that horrifies yet impresses any engineer. To give a permanent example, one of my friend's brothers wanted power windows in his car. So he got a power drill and a bunch of rods, and used them to turn the crank for the windows... on both sides. One drill for each.
ive never heard of kludge in the states. But redneck engineering? thats the nations rural pastime. Another fun one that i heard some programmers use the word bodge or bodging it, to fix a thing by Jerryrigging a specific solution that doesnt work at scale but works in the situation needed
@@CiaranMaxwellI'd never heard the word "kludge" but the way you described it's the most similar word to "gambiarra" I've ever seen. "Gambiarras" are meant to be temporary too but for lack of resources or ***** to give they too end up permanent.
*While not a "lock on" failure story. When I was in the military.* We some times during night or winter patrols. Used the Eryx missile launcher and attached thermal gen 1. Now, you need to keep in mind that this is the size of a backpack you hold as binoculars. Thermal gen 1 is 10x times better in video games compared to real life etc. However what we did was to set the one color thermal setting to max contrast and sensitivity to ultra low. What this would do is that it would show you a totally black screen. Wow! A black screen, never seen that before... Except, if you scanned over lower temp terrain that also had a tent with soldiers in it using heating equipment. Then you would see sharp edge contours of the actual tent in bright red, you now know where the enemy is. On one such patrol, in the middle of the forest, where nothing but animals and soldiers would be in the area. We scan and saw a *perfect* red square in the sights about 500 meters away. It is pitched black and in the middle of the forest so while we have gen 2, I think, night vision as well. The forest canopy prevents us from seeing anything. We could turn on our IR light projectors, but we are on an attack patrol against a known platoon sized unit. We are 5 guys, they are 30 and we also know they have night vision as well. We would expose our position if we turned IR on, so logically we did not. We instead continue towards the target, super tactically and slow, trying to pinpoint listening posts, tent activity and so on. Nothing! These guys were super duper disciplined on sound it seemed (people need to understand that in these kind of setting. Animals tend to shut the F up because they can tell when humans are "hunting"). So when I say there wasnt any sound. There was ZERO sound. Eventually we got so close to the heat source, think Alien1 jazz hands scene close, we decided to just assault it, take out whatever was there and instantly retreat. We charge, 5 meters later it turns out the red heat square was a window... To an abandoned small wooden container like structure formerly used by lumberjacks and was therefor not marked on the map. We had spent so much time advancing on this "target" that daylight was approaching and we had to abort the mission. Later I, since I was in charge of the squad, had to explain to my platoon leader why platoon such and such had not been woken up by an attack during the night to test their alarm readiness... I had to be a bit more descriptive than just saying: "We attacked a window instead." LoL
@@charierasiplease Ever heard of greenhouse effect ? Or in a forest, that may be only square-shaped object thus getting more interesting, or pitch used on roof so the heated building air keeps war for a long time. Lots of options, and if the house was warmer, wooden frame would lose some heat but during day heavy'ish windows (especially if 3-layered) will stay warm longer.
during early gwot the prior gen Javelins were also used just for their NV aspect. Since Javs were issued more often than nods, you just activate it and look around without firing the missile itself.
@@charierasiplease While wooden structure was semi whole and therefor trapped air. This slightly warmer air radiating heat out through the window was enough to create a sharp contrast in the thermal optics. The thermal optics does not see light, it sees radiated heat. Therefor the forest canopy had no impact (night vision amplifies none visible light via radioactive substance in the googles), but the thick forest also meant less wind. The slightly warmer air behind the window and the window not preventing heat penetrating it, unlike the wooden walls etc, was enough to make it look like a perfect red square in the optics (if a perfect red square has scan lines between each line that is, aka lines that are not rendered at all with any light. Similar to to how Robocop view is in the movies). Heat source does not always mean you think it feels hot. It is more often a temperature difference between two areas.
@@Lobos222 The sensitivity of thermal cameras is amazing. A few years ago I rented a relatively low-end camera to do a building survey looking for possible leaks in a heating system and while playing around with it I discovered I could see exactly where I'd walked in my apartment. My body heat had warmed the soles of my shoes (I was also wearing thick socks and these were thick-soled trainers) enough that the brief contact with the floor as I took each step was able to heat the carpet up enough that I could see a clearly defined shoe print that lasted a surprisingly long time. I then went outside in the dark where I spotted a black cat which ran when it saw me and hid in some bushes which were themselves in shadow. It was completely undetectable to the eye but when I looked through the camera, it was lit up like a Christmas tree and I felt like the Predator!
If the targeting camera is looking for a high contrast image and nothing more, it could just happen to be that the average outdoor toilet is just painted a significantly brighter or darker color than it's surroundings, to the point where it's the highest contrast in the area. Thus when the original target gets obscured the toilet is the most likely thing for the lock to transfer to.
If I had an outhouse, I would paint it in a light color, so it doesn't get too hot in it during the summer. So it is absolutely possible, that the rockets lock onto a light colored outhouse instead of a big building.
Knowing what I know about the Soviet electronics industry, I’m surprised the missile was even able to lock onto the road. The USAF had a much simpler solution: use a plane with a co-pilot. The co-pilot would guide the missile while the pilot took evasive action. This worked fine until more advanced Fire and Forget missiles came out, all based on earlier TV guided missiles.
@@SecuR0M Fast bomber. Not on-time ground attack. You won't using Bronco as strategic city-nuke bomber either even if you could, let's be honest with that
In the Norwegian army, we have a similar word to smekalka, called "hatløsninger", translated directly as "hate solutions". Essensially, these are stupid, short sighted solutions to practical problems you do while you hate your existence (for instance while being on a long exercise) that will come back to bite you in the ass later. Unlike in the Russian army however, these "solutions" are not encouraged. Examples: Not drying your socks properly to save time. Not going to the toilet because it's -26 degrees outside, meaning you then waste a lot of heat to warm up your own excrements. Eating fuel(!) to not have to go on exercises.
@@youngthaiarfssoldier8732 propably means hexamine (ESBIT) tablets, the solid fuel for mini camping stoves and toy steam engines. They are in French and German field rations, I guess Norway also uses them. They make you sick when eaten. (edit: words, precision, research)
"Smekalka". A word I'd never heard before in my life but once I had a rough idea of what it means, immediately brought to mind the image of the Marines going to Iwo Jima who yanked an aircraft Browning machine gun out of a scrapped plane on board and slapped a butt stock on it because they wanted a fast gun like the Germans had. And then I realized that was actually too practical of a decision and I might not have a grasp on Smekalka at all.
I knew two WWII vets I loved talking to after church. One manned a rocket boat on beach assaults. The other patrolled PT boats in the Pacific. The latter told how PT boats had two engines for forward, and one for reverse, but it was standard practice for them to rig up the reverse engine to help the other forward engines to outrun Japanese boats. When inspections were carried out, the reverse motor was simply reported as malfunctioning. There was also a case where they were going to be sent out with one engine busted, and so they snuck out to the local storage facility, explained their predictament to the sentries, and had a friendly theft to get a functioning motor installed by the the time they had to go on patrol. I think these were American versions of smekalka.
@@bluedistortionsThe smekalka is the fact that they put in two motors so that the boat can go both forwards and reverse instead of having two motors that can do both so that there's a backup motor if one is hit.. Smekalka would be like developing a jet without jet streams by turning it into a prop plane. It's more like the 'job done boss' memes.
Another smekalka example is the story of the space pen. “NASA spent 500 trillion dollars on a pen that can write into microgravity. The USSR used pencils!” That cute story ignores the fact that NASA used pencils on their first flights and pencils are REALLY bad in space; small particles get caught in people or sensitive equipment. But, like using pads/tampons for wounds, helps turn a shortcoming into an example of creativity. I suppose smekalka is the word to explain the phrase “necessity is the mother of all invention.” Fascinating
It's an urban legend. Pencils are an awful idea for use in space, because graphite is electroconductive, and floating microparticles in zero gravity cause short circuits.
Specifically, NASA didn't spend a dime on developing the space pen: it was 100% funded by the developer, at which point both NASA and the Soviet space program realized it was a way better solution than prior methods like grease pencils, and both bought them.
In Thai military reserve training one of our drill instructors told us that sanitary pad plus duct tape is our way of bandaging wounds. The reasoning is that the pads come in waterproof plastic packages and they are sterile and remain sterile. Medics do have typical bandages and they are sterile and come in waterproof packaging too. But the pads are for non medics to carry around in case the medics cannot reach them quick enough? Smekalka has a direct translation in Thai. ศรีธนญชัย this is the name of a folk hero who rose to prominence by solving problems with well, smekalka. His smekalka is cruel and calculating and morals or suffering does not factor in his plans, rather than being sadistic, it seemed he was oblivious to morality. The end of his story is him meeting a young monk in training who beyond smekalka, possesses intelligence and wisdom, and a sense of morality, who won against him in becoming the King 's problem solver. He became depressed and died from heartbreak. I don't know if ศรีธนญชัยexists or not but he is used to teach Thai children two lessons. 1. Be smart. 2. Don't be an asshole.
Interesting! I am from central europe, and her in austria, we have conscription. Over23 years ago, on my first day, one of the things we got issued was a steril, water resistantly packed bandage that had a 20x20cm pad covered in foil near the start of the bandage so it won't stick on a wound. In its original package it was (as i said) sterile and water resistant. The package was olive green, and rectangular in shape quite rugged, possible to open without tools, and it perfectly fit in an inner pocket of the cargo pocket we had on our right leg. So each and every solder here had such a package on him at every point apart from under the shower, or in bed. It surprises me that something as cheap and simple is not common world wide. We also were encourraged to use it even if an injury would seem too small for it as we would get it replaced without problem, and we did not have to give it back when our service ended. (still have mine at home soewhere)
Oh god the tampons in bullet wounds thing is particularly funny because it's a common myth in american gun circles that they're great for bullet wounds, but everyone actually serious about trauma care dismisses them out of hand because they're a wildly inadequate amount of gauze for a bullet wound, and flat pack gauze is simple, cheap and effective. At least come up with novel, original genius solutions that turn out to be wildly inadequate!
In the Army of Two games they meant to have tampons inserted as a way of resuscitating your co-op player. It was removed before release afaik, never played the games myself.
You misunderstand the problem being solved, which has nothing to do with bullet wounds. No, the problem is that soldiers are complaining! Simple solution: Tell them to make their own first aid kit out of common household items! Smekalka.
Honestly, the tampon wound patching myth has been so thoroughly debunked on the internet it's honestly amazing that the Russian MoD would advocate its use. Menstrual cycles do not bleed like an arterial wound...
Absolutely love the channel and so glad you're back. I used to be US Navy back when we were doing high tempo operations in the Persian Gulf when our maintenance programs were getting constantly delayed. Because of that we often had to defer or try to figure something out to get whatever maintenance we could done so as to not delay operations. We used to call it a boondoggle and I gotta say it feels a lot like smekalka. Stay safe out there brother.
I am constantly surprised how well that war went. It seems like such a unique combination of circumstances. Or am I wrong? Was it meant to be based on how the coalition and Iraq built their forces over the course of decades?
@@iivin4233 If you're talking about the First Gulf War (the one where Iraq invaded Kuwait in the early 90s and then got bombed to oblivion, it's largely because they overextended themselves not thinking a superpower would show up to stomp all over everything and because the coalition (US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait), having an air force that was ridiculously overqualified for said process, took full advantage of that situation. If you're talking about the Second Gulf War (the one in 2003 based on faked intelligence about WMDs) then the biggest reason is largely the First Gulf War. Iraq's military got pretty much wiped out in that first war, leaving a country of relatively moderate economic weight only a decade or so to rebuild before the Second Gulf War. And again, the coalition was ridiculously overqualified for the invasion. Less so for counterinsurgency operations afterwards because that's a much more complex and nuanced problem and isn't as amenable to being bombed out of existence as traditional armies are, but when you're talking the invasion itself. Either way, things went that well (until the occupation in the latter case) because Iraq was trying to fight a traditional war and was substantially inferior to the alliance attacking them. In a pure invasion, the US would crush something like 190 or so of the 195 countries in the world with just as much ease as long as things stuck to a traditional war. (China being the big exception I can think of, and there's a number of possibles.) This is, of course, assuming everyone decides to not use their nuclear deterrent even in the face of a full scale invasion by the US, and assuming they don't just hunker down and prep for a massive insurgency to make the occupation all but impossible to maintain. Heck, if Russia's miltiary was as powerful in real life as it was on paper, the expectation was that Ukraine would have fallen within a month or so of the initial invasion and that the only hope to avoid annexation was to set up the kind of insurgency that makes continued occupation more costly than just backing off and letting things be...just like it was with Iraq. That's why the US's advice early on was what it was. But through a combination of massive Russian blunders and failures to live up to its on-paper military capacity and Ukrainian tenacity, ingenuity and logistical support from its many allies, the war has turned out to be much closer to a peer level conflict than most analysts anticipated.
@@rashkavar Nice summary. I want to add that the invasion is the easy part, the occupation is the hard part. The US lost 27x as many lives during the occupation of Iraq as they did in the phase before Bush had his "Mission Accomplished" show.
One of the more humorous events in the history of weapons testing occurred when testing the Maverick Missile. A bevy of VIP’s were observing a test where the missile was launched and was supposed to home in on a target on the proving ground. Instead - it locked onto a transformer adjacent to The VIP viewing stands - calling for a panicked plea to evacuate the the stands.
Pretty sure that's wrong. Maverick missiles are exclusively manually guided, either TV-guided (originally using standard TV camera for guidance and later infrared cameras) or laser-guided. They have no internal homing system and all targets must be manually designated. It's also exclusively an air-launched weapon. AGM-65 Maverick. AGM stands for Air-to-Ground Missile.
@@WardenWolf On the contrary, Mavericks are exclusively self-guided. You probably have something like the Walleye in mind, which technically isn't a missile, but does have TV guidance.
As an American, the closest thing I could think of to the mentioned Russian term would be "Jerry-rigged", but it doesn't apply to every situation. It usually only applies to building something. For example, if your car door latch no longer works, you might "Jerry-rig" it closed with a series of bungee cords or some rope. Otherwise, some people might say sarcastically that you had to "improvise". So, the Soviets "improvised" and painted the hangar door yellow.
I had some co-workers who used to call it "jack-legged", which usually meant any hasty make it work for the moment solution that was likely to fail soon after, create a larger problem or necessitate a more involved or costly fix later on. It usually involved little skill or technical knowledge, few tools or parts and minimal time. And was universally hated by the proper technician who would have to execute the proper fix later on, as it only made their job harder or more dangerous.
Fun fact: "jury-rigging" and all its variant spellings come from "jury masts" which were temporary masts rigged up on sailing ships when their proper masts were broken or otherwise inoperable. It comes from the French "jour", meaning "day", since a jury mast was only expected to hold up for the day or two needed to get the ship to the nearest safe anchorage where it could carry out more permanent repairs.
"Jury Rigging" is an old sailing nautical term for temporary repairs in the Napoleonic War Era. Like slipping a piece of sail under the hull with a large hole in it to keep it from sinking. (as much) Also, (mostly) used when lashing two pieces of heavy timber together to keep sailing & keep on fighting.
PSA: The tampon thing? It's one of those LIFEHAX that even some actual western medics buy into. But if you're ever dealing with actual gunshot wounds, do NOT actually do that. It might intuitively sound like it makes sense (it's like putting a cork in to stop the spillage, right?), but the short of it is it will NOT help and will actually make things worse.
@@RandomGuy9 Which is a natural assumption and that's why it needs to be said that it's completely wrong. Tampons are worse than nothing. They make things worse. If things are so bad and you don't have dedicated medical equipment, do improvised tourniquets. Don't dick around with tampons, and certainly don't obtain them specially just-in-case for this occasion.
@@abdulmasaiev9024May we ask how you came to be an authority on this? Why should people take your advice, I have not searched, but this does not appear to be widely known information.
@@joshuaa.5523 I've looked into the topic a bit myself but I'm not an expert. I'm just passing along knowledge I heard from actual experts. Here's one citation: "A search of peer-reviewed medical literature will fail to provide you with any data whatsoever on tampon use. This is likely, because no physician or researcher would recommend such a dangerous practice or suggest something so inferior to products that are battle tested with thousands of hours of research and hundreds of lives saved. " - Andrew David Fisher, "Ill Advised Use of Tampons for Gunshot Wounds", part of BMJ-published response letter to another BMJ article which suggested the use of tampons as an improvised wound treatment in case of a terrorist attack. I'd link it directly but youtube doesn't like that. There's plenty of other sources discussing this issue.
@@joshuaa.5523you should ask a girl how many times a day they usually change a tampon. They are not good at absorbing more than a few milliliters of blood. Packing the bullet wound with gauze or, in the absence of proper bandages, strips of cloth and then applying a tight bandage and additionally applying a tourniquet if required is the proper way to manage bleeding. I would recommend looking up the effectiveness of tampons on penetration wounds on youtube or google if you're genuinely curious on tampons effectiveness(none), there are several videos and articles that demonstrate that they are worse than nothing and that you're better off just applying pressure to the wound if you have no supplies available.
I served in the Royal Australian Navy towards the end of the Cold War, and I admit I feared Soviet weapons at the time…in hindsight our exercises probably gave them much more credibility than they deserved! Back then we had no idea how bad they really were!
Another important term apart from Смекалка is Шапкозакидательство (literally: we will easily beat them with our fur hats), dating back to the Crimean War of XIX century and meaning "DRAMATICAL overconfidence". It had put Russian troops in big trouble again and again, in Crimean War itself, in Russian-Japanese war of 1904, in WWI, in Soviet-Poland war in 1920s, in Winter War, in WWII, in Afghanistan, in Chechnya and now in Ukraine. Maybe it's worth a dedicated video to be made about. Спасибо за видео, улыбнуло. Мир вашему дому.
Is there not anglicized Russian? Russia want's so bad to be European but they refuse to even use the same alphabet? Shit, even Japan and China have anglicized spellings for stuff. Get with the program, Igor.
Lecharles your ignorance is stunning, the cyrrilic alphabet is not restricted to Russian alone and your attitude is quite inappropriate in the context of bot this channel and the ongoing war
@@LeCharles07 There are indeed ways to transcribe text between Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. For Ukrainian language, the official method is actually reversible, so you can get the original Cyrillic text back afterwards. Russian uses a few different letters from Ukrainian, so they have their own methods which are not reversible.
@@LeCharles07 There "shapkozakidatel'stvo" that's the word for dramatic overconfidence. Cyrilic is not that hard, you could learn it in an afternoon since it's not much different from latin alphabet. Who knows, it might be useful to learn before the shit hit the fan and you're suddenly finding yourself as a part of the NATO formation driving toward Moscow.
I mean, smekalka on it's own isn't bad. It's a good thing to have the ability to come up with solutions to some of the poorest situations out there. After all, life is full of surprises and you can't ever be prepared for everything, the problem only starts when you combine it with negligence that leads to having to use such abilities on a constant basis *or* the lack of care for whether your solution momentarily saves your ass rather than solve the problem.
Just when I thought you wouldn't surprise us with proper Russian pronunciations since that MiG-27 video (Gsh being "Gsha" when most not-Slavs, me included, would just spell it out), I got surprised once again with Kh-29 sounding like "Ha-29". Same goes for the entire story itself; I thought nothing could top the M247 Sergeant York mistaking a bunch of fans in toilets for hovering helicopters. And third, that's yet another new Russian word I've learned which perfectly describes Russia to non-Russians to a tee, right up there with "Vranyo". Love your videos, and can't wait to see what else you got in store for the year!
@@SPFLDAngler Paper Skies is Ukrainian. The Ukrainian language is linguistically very similar to Russian, there are many Ukrainians whose first language is Russian, as well as Ukrainians whose first language is Ukrainian but are also fluent in Russian. The Russian language is common in areas of the former Russian empire mainly because Moscow forced them to learn it.
I was always taught the proper pronunciation is Kha, not Ha. Might be regional of course. And tbh there's not a lot of audible difference as the K is soft :)
@@jwenting the Russian letter Х represents a sound that doesn't exist in most dialects of English (voiceless velar fricative), it's usually transliterated as 'kh' but 'h' is an ok approximation of the actual sound
In Romanian smekalka is translated as "descurcarism", in English its roughly "handler" as in being able to handle issues (but not in the correct/proper way), pretty much what you said.
There's an ancient term for a kind of carpenter in English, 'bodger' it was used to describe a village handyman who'd patch or quickly fix things with whatever was available. Today bodger isn't so positive, it's the kind of person who uses duct tape on everything
Sounds a lot like “kludge” to me. I used to mess around with old hot rods and I was constantly coming up with kludge jobs for the transmission cable on my ‘61 Buick in the middle of the night when everything was closed & I was miles from home.
4:00 In the United States we have a joke where the term "Military Intelligence" is an oxymoron, or two words that contrast directly with each other, such as "Jumbo Shrimp".
I'm from Poland. I guess that our word "smykałka" has similar meaning in many ways, but what you are describing Pole would call "kombinować". If, for example, during assembly of the machine, we lack some important part and deadline is approaching, we would try "skombinować część". It is hard to translate to English. The closest thing I can think of is "improvise" if you are talking about activity, and if something is "skombinowane" it is made crudely on the spot or acquired by contacts or illegal means. In Poland, we also all hope for Ukrainian victory. I hope that you're safe wherever you are. слава україні
What you're describing would, in American English at least, be call "jerry-rigging" something. Like, "I had to jerry-rig the lawnmower in order to cut grandma's yard." In other scenarios where a solution is needed on the spot you might say that you, "pulled that one out of my ass."
@@tiberiusgracchus4222 It can be jerry-rigging, but also a person who's called - in english, a "fixer". Legally and illegally obtains certain goods that are difficult to get at the moment - can be anything, gets a "contacts" to "people", a cheeky trader etc.
I think US English "Jerry rig" comes from the nautical phrase "Jury rig" meaning an improvised mast and sails constructed by sailors if their ship's original rigging was destroyed (e.g. in a storm).
Yeah, but "kombinować" is Polish state of mind, broad term including lax attitude to rules and laws, any regulations, proper procedures etc. We somehow made it and luckily everyone is still alive, there is some recklesness of behavior in this term, disregard for official way of doing things ;)
In Brazil, we too have a similar word to smekalka, which is "gambiarra", as most other posters have explained, it's when you give a very improvised solution that is very shoddy and prone to coming back to give you even more trouble in the future.
This reminds me of a few cases I've seen from Eastern Europeans, most notably Boris (from Life of Boris) using a whisk stuck into a power drill in place of a hand mixer. The culture of "we'll make do with what we have", which I now understand is smekalka, is something I've always admired in principle. Now, though, I can see how it gets taken to ridiculous extremes.
Man what a twist, when you mentioned the sand pathway to the outhouse in the beginning I had no idea that was the key to the whole thing! Amazing video. Stay strong.
I am Russian and worked for locomotive hardware manufacturer. We produced equipment used to economy fuel. And we cheated using remote control from car anti-theft system to show system performance to the customer (Russian rail roads). To show low power consumption press 1, to show good performance press 2
I lived in Russia for 2 and a half years and been all around both the Ukraine and Russia. A lot of Dacha toilets are out houses which is normal. However they are often very brightly painted like the traditional dacha houses themselves. It makes sense they were accidentally targeted by faulty munitions
15:54 I face palmed at this moment. Like literally paused the video and slapped my forehead at the sheer, mind blowing, absolute incompetence of this decision
Really glad you uploaded another video, can I have a request?😅 Can you do any video about the VTOL aircraft technology of the Soviet and why they never implemented this system anymore in their military aircraft?
I can answer that. 1) VTOL is hard to start off with, _really_ hard. 2) The Soviets didn't have an engine with a high enough power to volume ratio, so all their solutions had separate engines for vertical and horizontal flight. The problem with that is no matter which flight mode the plane is in, it is carrying a lot of dead engine weight, and the vertical engines take up interior space that would be used for fuel. The result is a plane with limited payload and limited range. None of this is to knock the Soviet efforts, the fact is that the vaunted Harrier isn't nearly as good a plane as its reputation might suggest. It is basically the bare essentials of a plane wrapped around a really big engine. It is difficult to fly, maintenance intensive, and has limited payload and range. But it was just good enough that it was adopted for service and then it somehow gained a cult-like following (particularly in the USMC) that convinced a lot of people that STOVL fighter/attack aircraft were completely practical. And that is how the F-35 debacle began...
13:27 Absolutely lost it at the label in the bottom left corner, took me a while to figure it out! Thank you for your unique videos and shining a light on an airforce very much still clouded in mystery. Hope you're keeping safe.
@@ajshell2 it says "что с ебалом" which loosely translates to "what's up with your fucking face?" And used kinda like "what's up?" But in a derogatory way
This is my absolutely favourite youtube channel. Would instantly join Nebula just to see your content if I wasn't living under the poverty line, struggling to afford even rent and medication. Your content is interesting & well-researched, and done in a really humorous way. I thought I was pretty well-informed about soviet aviation in particular, but I've learned a ton of new information from your videos that I otherwise would have missed. I keep telling people to check this channel out because it's so worth it. As a cherry-on-top, the production value has gone through the roof. I just don't get it why you don't get 10x the views, because you deserve that and more. I'm genuinely gutted I can't see your Nebula content, and moreover that I can't support you financially, but know that I appreciate the work you do a whole lot, and your videos have had a positive impact on my mood. Having completely lost both my income and health, anything to help me forget the hopelessness of my situation is invaluable. Thank you!
@@SPFLDAngler Yes... Internet comes with the apartment, and I'm on a Samsung A8 that I bought used 4 years ago, when I was still able to work, barely. Are you suggesting I should sell the only device that allows me to connect to the internet, which is required for nearly all services now, including electronic ID, for 20€ or whatever a poorly running, very much used A8 is worth? Would that make me fit your world view better? Or is it that I dare to enjoy content sometimes, instead of staring at a wall, being miserable that ticks you off? What a weird dude.
@@yjfuykyilThere's plenty of idiots who think like that dude, and when you spell it out to them like you just did it makes them sound so ridiculous. It's just a case of not thinking before you speak I guess.
Sorry for what you're going through man. Hang in there, you'll make it. These videos are a good escape aren't they? Sounds like you need some support around you, you have a church? God works all things for the good for those who love him. These tough things you're going through will make you a better, kinder, stronger person if you keep your attitude right.
Billions of poor people have internet access. People in Africa, Asia, south America, farmers in rural China have internet. Your comment is shamefully ignorant of you to say. You bring shame to your family and they are uncomfortable with you
Paper Skies, you are creating some of the absolute best content available on You Tube. It is well-researched, presented in clear words and images, and extremely entertaining and informative. Bravo!
I became hooked on political history as a teenager living in Hong Kong when I was studying for my British 'O' Level exams thanks to a wonderful teacher called Mr Gillingham. I studied Russian history as part of that course. I wish that I had you as my history teacher because you teach in a beautifully sarcastic way that makes learning so enjoyable. Unlike you though I wasn't taught how to strip and reassemble an AK47! You had me giggling right from the start of this video and at some point I lost it and started laughing helplessly! I am addicted to your channel both as a historian and one of your fans. Spasibo!
I'm glad to see you back, Paper Skies. I hope you and your dear are well. Slava Ukraini! A sobering and yet amusingly told topic. I guess something similar will be told about the testing of the current Iskander missile, which seems to suffer from all kinds of problems.
Btw. in Pentagon Wars theres even a scene where he has to justify, why a missile locked onto the ventilation of a latrine and almost kills one of his officers. Fits perfectly to this topic
Very nice content, love your channel ❤ Here in South Yemen " Smekalka" can be translated into " Dhbasha" although the word "Dhbasha" has no meaning in Arabic language, but it was used by us in the south in after a comedy show which was aired after the unity by the northern TV showing the daily life of a guy named " Dehbash" who used to "Dhbasha" to fix his day to day problems ... At first it was a funny comedy show that everyone in the south believed it's just an exaggeration for comedic effect, but after the 1994 war, the southerns learned that many things are done this way in the north, from day to day activities all the way to the military... The show was later banned as the southerns used "Dhbasha" to describe the northerns ways in dealing with problems... It's strange to see Smekalka in Russia but not here in south Yemen ! Although the culture of south Yemen was influenced by the USSR in the cold war era, as south Yemen was the only ideological friend to the USSR in the middle east... In fact the "Dhbasha" is taken as an insult when descriping a half a**ed task which was done the wrong way! The south Yemen army which was built and trained by the Soviets and east Germans didn't encourage those kind of activities dispute being a poor country lacking in resources and menpower... To give you some examples to those who are wondering why the war in Yemen is still going on, and how the national Yemeni army failed to finish off a small rebellion while being equiped with what worth millions of dollars of western made advanced weapons from KSA and other gulf countries, the reason is "Dhbasha" lol You could look it up in the internet for Yemeni military Smekalka such as M61 mounted on a Toyota pickup truck or BMP-1 turret on a humvee or jump starting cars using AKs !!
In Portugal we have "Desenrascar" which is the art of finding a quick solution to a problem, which most of the times is far from ideal, but i guess contrary to smekalka is more like a temporary solution rather than creating a shortcut that becomes the norm
I kinda feel an equivalent American English term to "smelkalka" is "jerry-rigging," which is the act of solving problems quickly and carelessly which are poorly-built. "Makeshift" and "ramshackle" could be other equivalents.
All the words you list are the final result of smekalka. Smekalka is an internal psychological trait of a person, as in, “he has smekalka”. Then the smekalka leads to jerry-rigging, makeshift and ramshackle solutions.
All aspects of your videos keep getting better even after you've refined your aesthetic. Really interesting material here, but there are so many anecdotal stories that make the Russian military sound like a true satire of itself, it's all really true. Russian culture is fascinating but crazy.
So good you are back - was so happy to see you in my notifications. If could talk all day about something - we would happily listen! You are brilliant. Stay safe and well with my very best wishes.
Smekalka is best translated as drunken hubris. It's about the same my thought patterns went when I used to drink. Typically after I've sobered up I'd look at the half measures I made with whatever I built the night before, and I'd have to tell myself, why in the fuck did I do it like that.
There's another hilarious example of Smelalka which became known in the Soviet Space Program. The Americans spent tens of millions of dollars to build a ball-point pen that would work in zero-G environments. You see, the ordinary 'biro' won't work very long upside down as it needs gravity to feed the ink past the ball. When the pen is upside down, it will work for a short while before the ink stops moving and the pen dries up. The solution the Americans came up with was to make the ink inside the pen pressurized in such a way that the pen would operate in any direction - up or down or in zero-G and the ink would stop coming out the moment that the astronaut stopped writing. When the Apollo-Soyuz mission took place in the Seventies, the American astronauts connected with the Russian Soyuz capsule and went inside. When the Americans were asked to sign an autograph, they got out their fancy zero-G pens and wrote their signature. When the Russians were asked to sign their autograph, they pulled out a pencil! You see a pencil will work upside down as well as right side up as it applies a layer of graphite to the surface in any orientation. The Russians thought that they were smart as they saved tens of millions of dollars in not devising a special pen. Only they did not know that the Americans had already considered a pencil and rejected it for a very simple reason. Pencils break and when the sharp nibs of pencils break off, they create small pieces of lead and graphite which is extremely conductive and very small. These nibs can get inside the electrical systems and cause short circuits which can cause fires in space. The Russians did not consider the safety of their crews a high priority and thought that pencils would do to save money! The Russians thought that they were savvy, but in fact they were very silly and endangered their crews unecessarily. There was another example that came from the Apollo-Soyuz link-up and that was the computer in the space capsule. The Americans spent millions building a programmable computer to run the automatic systems in the craft. When they went inside the Soyuz capsule and asked what the drum rotating in the corner was, the Russians explained that it was their 'computer'. The drum was made of metal and had spikes on it like a children's music machine. The spikes would then hit buttons at particular points and the buttons would operate the systems on the Russian space craft. Only the little pegs on the drum could be bent by contact with a cosmonaut and if they were, the computer would fail to carry out the tasks or even stop operating altogether. The Russians thought that they saved money by not building a computer and making an automated system that would operate the electronics, but they made it in such a way that even a small nudge by the cosmonaut would bend a pin and make their computer fail.
I think the closest phrase to a "смекалка" in English could be "street smarts" although in case of a Russian word it has a broader meaning and not restricted to just something that streets can teach you. I also just realized that my out house/outside toilet is painted bright yellow with blue accents🙃 Awesome video as always, Paper Skies!
Problem with that is that “street smarts” almost always has a positive connotation, albeit sometimes begrudgingly. Also, “street smarts” are more a kind of acquired wisdom than a knack for improvisation or a short cut. I think “savvy” works pretty well as a direct translation, tbh. It has both sincere and sarcastic connotations.
Street smarts is still a positive term that mainly applies to specific kinds of situations (as in, "on the streets")--notably, it refers to experience/knowledge about handling situations outside of social norms or official/formal solutions. Doing things like cheating on a military weapons trial is nothing like street smarts, it's just a pure lack of integrity.
@@grahamstrouse1165 as a native Russian speaker I have never in my life heard "смекалка" with a negative connotation. If you say that somebody is "смекалистый" or he/she "смекает" it means that this person knows how to come out of a difficult situation with what they have on hands. There is also a phrase "давай, включай смекалку" which you use when you have no idea how to deal with the situation, and you ask your friend to "switch on" their smekalka. Anyways, thanks for the interesting comment.
The Pentagon Wars scene was likely inspired by a real life test with the M247 Sergeant York SPAA system. The radars were quite troublesome (the trees and if at a high enough elevation, the guns could interfere with it), so for one test the target drone was fitted with multiple panels to increase its radar signature and remained in a hovering position. A reporter in attendance compared it to showing a bloodhound's sense of smell by having a person stand in an empty parking lot with slabs of meat taped to his body. The difference here is the Sergeant York was ultimately cancelled for its design flaws and cost-overruns.
My guess is that it keeps missing the actual target but hits in the general area and since the outdoor toilet is in the general area and tend to be a lot less durable then proper buildings they are more easily damaged even from a miss. That combined with confirmation bias because it is funnier to report it hit a toilet then that it just missed the target.
@@caav56 There are cases of missiles hitting toilets, but it is impossible to say if they homed in on the toilet or just happened to hit it. It is not like we have telemetry from the missiles or anything. This is just confirmation bias someone noticed some outhouses were hit by misses and came up with a theory but disregarded the majority of misses that did not hit an outhouse. But the truth is that most Russian missiles miss but hit somewhere nearby the actual target and they are firing hundreds of them. With enough misses they are going to inevitably hit nearby structures occasionally. So unless you are saying they have hit thousands of outhouses in the past year (and I would like to see the evidence) it is probably not actually a case of the missiles being toilet seeking. Honestly given the inaccuracy that Russian missiles have been demonstrating the telling evidence that they are not homing in on toilets is that they have hit some. It is a hilarious story but Ukraine should not start building decoy toilets around important installations as a missile defense.
Tampons for wound treatment is actually also an old biker myth, it's been a thing that outlaws have been using for a loooooong time to avoid going to hospitals after gunfights.
“Most of you probably already know some Russian words” 3:21 “… and judging by the average of my audiences, maybe even …” Me: “сука Блять?” “… perestroika.” Me: “oh ok. Dang we old…”
Would the composting/breakdown of the contents of the outhouse/outdoor toilet make them hotter and a few degrees above the surroundings, thus resulting in their higher contrast and a more favourable target??
This reminded me of an incident that happened when I was stationed in Germany in the mid 70s as part of an USAF Tactical Air Control Party supporting the US Army's 2nd Armd Cav Regt. There is a training area called Hohenfels and on it were several old US tank hulks as targets. Once when we arrived for an exercise we discovered that one of the tank hulks had been painted yellow and so we asked why. The story we were told was at previous exercises by other Army units, the USAF fighters like F-4s and F-100s (this was before the A-10 was fielded) had a hard time seeing WHICH hulk they were to attack (probably due to their airspeed) so someone decided to paint one of the hulks yellow to help! We had a good laugh at that but I don't think the F4 pilots doing an additional duty as Ground Forward Air Controllers appreciated it when we briefed them on how to ID the target hulk!
To be fair, in actual combat the enemy tanks would likely be moving, putting out diesel smoke, running hot engines that would show up clearly on thermal cameras, and other actions that would identify them.
Fun fact! In Portugal 🇵🇹 we have a direct translation to smekalka which is "desenrascar" and looking at history makes sense because the portuguese people also always had to find a way to overcome the lack of resources
This is aviation history not the World of animals channel Просто розвалив!)))) Дякую за твою роботу, те що ти показуєш нашу боротьбу світу дуже багато значить!
Throughout history, sieges had to be abandoned when the besieging troops suffered from dysentery, typhoid, cholera, or other gastro-intestinal illnesses due to poor sanitation. So a toilet-seeking missile is not entirely crazy.
We have an equivalent in Brazilian Portuguese to Smekalka... "Jeitinho", the ability of creating a practical "cheat" to get around something or get something done, but not in the proper way. To go around red tape and maybe bribe a few people to get permission to do something, for example. "Jeitinho" usually involves some for of unorthodox or slightly illegal "bending of the rules" to achieve a result, if possible, without raising awareness or to just move on and forget how it was done :) It may not surprise you, during the military dictatorship on the 1960s and 1970's, a lot of Brazilian life depended on every now and then make use of "dar um Jeitinho" to work. And it is a matter of incredible pride to be able to use Jeitinho to get out of problems, its seen as a sign of incredible resourcefulness when put in a hard spot. I don't know of any examples in the military, but I am sure they are plentiful.
We went through almost the same struggles while developing the Walleye tv guided glide bomb. It also had a simple solution and has since become a legend at China Lake.
This reminds me of something I read years ago about an American skater who got hurt at a competition in the Soviet Union. She ended up in a Soviet hospital and was basically getting no care - until one of the top Soviet skaters came to the hospital and brought his own equipment and medicine. Perhaps we should define "smekalka" as "do everything by yourself, for yourself".
@@esmeecampbell7396 The USSR was not a communist state. Such a state has never existed, and probably never will. Many countries have had a Communist party, and generally once the Communist Party gains power it rapidly becomes the *only* party, but communism as described by Marx in "Das Kapital" rapidly breaks down into dictatorship or oligarchy. It becomes "From each according to his abilities, to me/us according to our whims".
@@jarvisfamily3837 the age old "no true Communism" always makes me laugh. It was exactly what Communism is, collectivist and command economy, it required a secret police and regular executions to keep populace in fear, a totalitarian dictatorship because people quickly realised they would never get the life they were promised and had replaced one elite for another. It was Communist. It just wasn't the fictional and impossible Marxist fantasy...
I think it's ironic how the biggest thorn in the Soviet military and even modern Russian foot is the idea of how if your item that you invented fails you end up having to risk being put in jail or even just executed so you end up cutting corners or cheating to make it work. And then when it's finally needed for a specific operation all those flaws come to the surface because so many corners were cut. Instead of going for a functional and well-rounded weapon typically it's barely functional and just needs to impress high command to be adopted. I mean threaten someone with death and tell them that their family will spend their entire lives in the gulag if you fail and you'll find that those pieces of equipment work very well during testing but then have a really big issue of actually following through in battle. I'm pretty sure the majority of weapons testing works under perfect conditions but once it gets into adverse conditions then everything goes downhill and you really see the flaws. In the end it really doesn't surprise me that Russia is having its ass handed to it on a silver platter by what was originally just a task force of civilian soldiers defending their home country. And then once those civilian soldiers got their hands on actually tested and well-thought-out devices from allied countries they end up literally wrecking everything that Russia can throw at them. Like how the javelin or the n law literally steamrolled all of Russia's armor.
In the mid-1990s, just after Ukrainian independence, I made a trip to Sevastopol. I was operating a computer database for an archaeological project west of the city. While I was there, beginning with landing at the airport in Odesa, I was pretty unnerved by the "Russian way," even though it was now Ukraine. They were still recovering from the USSR approach to things. What that meant was that as we landed in the Odesa airport, I saw a long line of passenger jets, which appeared to be positioned in an order based on decrepitude. One end of the line was largely a pile of parts, recognizable as a plane only by the wings. At the other end were a couple of apparently intact planes. The engineers and mechanics were scavenging parts up the line to keep the "best" planes operating. More worrisome, in Sevastopol, you could drive up the fjord, and see submarines - mostly kilo-class - docked along the far shore being maintained in the same fashion. The city was still talking about a visit by US(?) naval ships. The main wonder was how quiet and clean they seemed to be. The USSR ships smoked and clanked, so intensely they could be heard, and their smoke plumes seen well before they were hull-up on the horizon.
"This is aviation history and not World of Animals channel" is one of the best comments I've ever heard about Russian actions in the Russo-Ukrainian war.
In my experience, I've heard multiple US Marines and Sailors praise the idea of using tampons to treat bullet wounds. However, I've never heard of anyone actually trying it, and after seeing tiny 5.56mm entry wounds, I'd likely feel like an idiot trying to shove a tampon into that in most instances.
@@TinLeadHammer The germans used it operationaly on the Hs 195 missile, and the americans used worn out B17 and B24 filled with explosives, and controlled from a mothership. President Kennedys brother was killed in such an action.
@@egoalter1276 The germans had prototypes of tv-guided bombs to. The americans udes a whole airplane with 2 cameras in it, one for guidance, and one for instruments.
I've read once in Facebook about people laughing at Russians for not being able to buy body armor while an ex-Australian soldiers commented that they had to buy their own body armor.
Funny Video, but smekalka is actually something else: trick the system with minimal effort to achieve a desirable outcome . Let's take your example with the yellow gate, the goal is to show off the capabilities of the new missile. The right way: acknowledge the flaws and go back to the drawing board, leading to loss of funds/time/respect, but eventually creating a product up to the specs. The smekalka way: paint the gate yellow, get the funds and (maybe) work in the background on flaws, to get a good product. Unfortunately, the whole eastern block still operates on smekalka way, Ukraine as well. For example, the right way: officially working in a foreign country, paying taxes in Ukraine. The smekalka way: working in a foreign country and declaring not having any income in Ukraine and thus not paying any taxes.
At a guess, I would hazard that the missiles hitting toilets are Kh-29D, with an imaging infrared seeker (same TV guidance as the 29T, but with IR image instead of visible spectrum). an outhouse in a cold climate, especially one which has been used has a lot of "composting" goin on in the pit beneath it, is going to be a pretty warm object and should show up fairly brightly on an imaging IR sensor. Combine that with the low resolution of such sensors and the fact that actual targets nearby might be the same temperature as the ambient environment, and i could easily see a pilot visually acquiring a tank, slewing the seeker to it, and then locking on to a much brighter outhouse near the tank.
I remember hearing that in the winter war, finnish armies used music to fight off the russians, apparently they used 'sakkijarven polkka' (an old finnish folk song i think) to find where mines were, because the mines were programmed to go off when they hear a 3 note tone, and the finnish song had enough low and high tones ro confuse the bombs, so basically finnish soldiers played sakkijarven polkka day and night to mess with the soviet mines, the chaos finally ended like 3 days later when the soviets brought in proper anti-mine equipment, a perfect example of smekalka
Happy smekalka! I recall in the 80’s some comments about close-up observations of the latest soviet-era fighter at an aviation show - a pitot tube appeared to be a piece of garden hose. Commenter said the approach by aircraft manufacturers in the West would be to spend tens of thousands of dollars designing a custom solution specific to that one aircraft, whereas the pragmatic Russian aircraft maker was good to go with something found in nearly all backyards. All well and good I guess unless that rubber hose fails in sub-zero/high altitude temperatures.
Actually in the British military medics are taught they can use tampons as wound dressings. With that said everyone in our unit had wound dressings taped to their belt.
Your explanation of smekalka immediately makes me think of that old joke that America spent a million dollars on creating a pen that could write in microgravity (which is false, it was a private company that developed it and then got a contract from NASA) while Soviet just used pencils. I mean, the reason you want a pen instead of a pencil in microgravity is that pencils create graphite dust as you write, and you really don't want conductive dust to find its way into the electronics of your spacecraft. I wonder what brilliant idea the Soviets came up with to handle that issue?
In the US we're very cynical, it would definitely cause resentment to be expected to fight a war successfully with equipment acquired on our own, but I can see how healthier societies would take that as a badge of honor.
We Americans have a similar phrase: if it is stupid and it works, it isn't stupid. Also using pads and tampons as first aid is a thing. It's just meant to be a backup, not your go to solution.
