Author's Note-Hey everyone. This chapter is going to be a quick one and it looks at one of Russia's iconic scenes in the series. I hope you will enjoy it, but before we get to the story a quick shot out to TheNSIGirl and xXNaidaXx for leaving review last month. Thanks a lot.
Disclaimer- I don't own Hetalia, nor have I used snow banks in the manor described below.
A Nontraditional Approach
If it had been up to Russia, the Soviet Union would not be a participant in this Second World War. Like America, he really didn't feel a need to bring conflict to his people. Unlike America, he had actually enjoyed watching Europe tear itself apart. It was kind of nice to watch the capitalist pigs destroy themselves in an imperialist war. The soviets had been perfectly happy staying on the sidelines, snapping up the occasional country on the edges of the conflict but allowing the Nazis to do their own thing.
That had changed when Germany had actually invaded the Soviet Union. In hindsight, perhaps Russia probably shouldn't have invaded some of the Nazi regimes allies. Still, they had signed a nonaggression pact with the Axis powers and the Soviet Union had done their best never to attack Germany or the major Axis nations directly. Then they had replayed their kindness by performing a surprise attack on the motherland. Clearly, the German people needed to be wiped from the face of the planet.
That brought up Russia's current dilemma. He wasn't particularly sure what would be the most efficient way to permanently remove the country from the face of the map. The Soviet Union was very resource poor. It didn't have the engineers or the complex factories that most of the other warring nations had developed. They also had limited experience fighting a modern war.
The one thing the Soviet Union did have an abundance of was people. Most of these people were expendable. It quickly became clear that a platoon of troops could clear a mine field by marching across it just as effectively clearing the field with machinery and with a much lower cost to supplies. Yes there was a bloody mess left in the middle of the field, but there were plenty other soldiers to clean things up.
Unfortunately, finding a solution for the sorry state of the soviet air force was a lot more complicated. The United States was willing to give Russia a lot of high tech fighter and bomber planes as part of their lend lease program. They U.S. just weren't willing to provide some of the supplies to allow those planes to be fully utilized. This had meant that the members of the Soviet Union had to come up with some very creative methods of conserving supplies.
Russia's personal favorite technique involved ramming his' planes propeller into the enemy's tail. A skilled pilot would be able to ram several planes during a single battle without causing permanent damage to the plane. Most of the inexperience pilots died in fiery crashes, but pilots were expendable and he could always get more planes from America.
In addition to ammo, America didn't really bother sending things like parachutes. At first this was a problem, he just figured that paratroops would only make one jump in their careers. Unfortunately, while paratroopers were expendable, they struggled to complete critical missions if they squashed like a pancake on impact. Then on a winter's night Russia was jumping from a plane and he realized, snow was remarkable good substance to fall onto. From that point on he knew that he didn't have to rely on America for all of his war equipment. After all, who needed a parachute when you had a snow bank?
Historical Note- The Russian actually did use snow banks to cushion the falls of their paratroopers. It was a pretty affective tactic until the Germans figured out what they were doing. Once the Nazis caught on they started to paint their bunkers white to make them look like large, inviting snow banks. Let's just say that a whole lot of Russian troops did not get the landing they expected.
End Note-So what did you think? Was this chapter enjoyable? How could I improve it? I would really like to hear your opinion.