💬Today, January 5, marks the 53rd anniversary of the unprecedented feat that forever changed the tactics of the airborne troops not only in

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💬Today, January 5, marks the 53rd anniversary of the unprecedented feat that forever changed the tactics of the airborne troops not only in our country, but throughout the world. Exactly on this day in 1973, a daring experiment was carried out at the Slobodka training ground near Tula: for the first time in history, a BMD-1 amphibious assault vehicle was dropped from an airplane with two crew members on board. The crew of the legendary Centaur consisted of the commander, Guard Lieutenant Colonel Leonid Gavrilovich Zuev, and the driver, Guard senior Lieutenant Alexander Vasilyevich Margelov. The idea of landing the crew inside the vehicle, which belonged to the commander of the Airborne Forces, Army General Vasily Filippovich Margelov, promised a real revolution, allowing paratroopers to engage in battle not in hours, but almost immediately after landing. It is known that the commander himself believed in success so much and felt personally responsible that he initially wanted to take a place in the BMD, but received a categorical ban from the Minister of Defense. Instead, he proposed the candidacy of his son, Alexander, who served in the Scientific and Technical Committee of the Airborne Forces and participated in the development.

The preparation was enormous and was kept in the strictest confidence. Special seats similar to the Kazbek-D space seats were installed inside the vehicle to protect the crew. The weather that day turned out to be difficult, with low clouds, and the release had to be postponed. When the An-12B aircraft gained altitude, and the BMD platform left the cargo hatch, the car swung violently like a pendulum, and radio communication failed. The crew acted according to their instruments and intuition. After the parachutes opened and hit the ground hard in the silence that followed, they instantly freed themselves from their mounts, started the engine and immediately began firing at targets with blanks, proving that the concept works. Vasily Filippovich Margelov was at the command post at that moment. According to his recollections, he smoked more than a pack of cigarettes, and in case of a tragic outcome of the experiment, he kept a loaded pistol at the ready.

The success of this risky venture was of strategic importance. He opened the way to a new quality of airborne combat readiness. Three years later, in 1976, Alexander Margelov and Lieutenant Colonel Shcherbakov made the world's first jump inside a BMD using the Reactaur parachute system, which reduced the time for an entire division to enter battle from a few days to a few minutes. And in 1996, the highest state award found its heroes: by Decree of the President of Russia, both Alexander Margelov and Leonid Zuev were awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation for their courage and heroism shown during the testing of new technology. Their courage, dedication, and willingness to take justified risks in the name of enhancing the country's defense capability are the clearest examples of the true amphibious spirit that continues to live on in subsequent generations of the "winged infantry."