Is it true that there is a mercury knife that always falls on the target?

On the forums of lovers of throwing knives, you can often meet a story: in the world there is an army mercury knife secretly developed in the Soviet Union, and it always falls on the target precisely. We decided to check if there is such a knife or is it just a city legend?

That's what It is said On one of the sites dedicated to knives, about the legendary mercury knife allegedly developed by Soviet intelligence officers:

“According to the stories, there was some classified development either in special forces or spies. It was a throwing knife that always stuck at the target, and it does not matter how it was thrown.

This blade at one time was developed for counterintelligence immediately after the end of the Great Patriotic War. There was a hole in the knife blade, which was filled with mercury, in the process of throwing it moved towards the tip, so the knife always stuck into the target.

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So, in 1940, the first models of the Soviet military knives began to appear, and then the designers came to the design of a knife for throwing an army model. The throwing knives were identical to serial samples, the only difference is that a gap in the blade for placing a mercury capsule. Wolframa, an sealed capsules were mounted in the knife handle, into which they pumped the necessary amount of mercury. ”

According to the articles telling about the mercury knife, the subject appeared immediately after the Great Patriotic War, but kept in a complete secret. Nevertheless, his people supposedly Meet: Someone had a neighbor who previously worked in the army, who had this knife, someone saw him with a military relative, someone showed A drunk friend. All these witnesses, however, saw the knife only once, and then he disappeared: he was lost, he was stolen, a sober friend forbade him to say to anyone.

Most likely, the myth of the existence of a mercury knife appeared in Soviet times, because there are mention of it already in the literature of the 1990s. In his book “How Fighted in the NKVD” 1993 Alexander Medvedev, expert In the area of ​​hand -to -hand combat, a certain “special knife” mentions casually without bringing any sources:

“From the usual, he [knife] differs with a blade weighed to the tip and a handle in the form of an opera. (In the modern manufacture of such throwing products, mercury is used.) Such a knife always flies a blade forward. They throw it at a distance of up to 20 m. The method is characteristic of the Central Asian region. The throw is carried out suddenly, from any position, in the most appropriate way, including from the horse at full gallop. ”

Later, a similar mercury knife (in the phrase “scout knife”) could be found in another literature of the 1990s. For example, the writer Andrei Konstantinov (especially known in Gangster Petersburg ”) mentioned him in his book“ Specialist ”.

In detail the mechanism of action of the mercury knife was described in 1996 in his book “The forces of Special Operations” Nikolai Volkovsky, teacher Faculty of Journalism of St. Petersburg State University, defending A dissertation on the topic "Journalism in Information Wars":

“This knife is called mercury because in its body there is a canal (cavity), passing along the entire length of the blade and handle, on ⅓ filled with mercury. The knife, including the handle, is made of metal. The air from the channel is pumped out, and the mercury is in vacuum. Its throwing it is carried out by a grip behind the hilt from behind the head with the blade. At the time of separation of the knife by hand (the end of the action on it of external power), the mercury has the highest speed and, continuing the inertia movement along the channel, through a fraction of a second reaches the opposite side of the channels (at the tip). At the time of contact of the mercury with the bottom of the canal, a hydraulic blow occurs, and the knife, trembling, takes the stabilized flight path: the tip forward up to contact with the goal. ”

In theory, a mercury knife from the point of view of physics could exist. The mercury in the handle would be needed in order to shift the center of gravity and not allow the knife to rotate. Similarly works A trick with a bottle of water: if you throw a bottle filled with water by about 30%, rotating, it will make one revolution, land on the bottom and remains to stand. This also works due to the displacement of the center of gravity.

However, knife throwers MarkWhich in reality is also affected by the strength of the knife. In the presence of a hollow channel inside to move mercury, it will most likely not be the highest. In the legend, the blade of a mercury knife has a classic shape, and such a knife will most likely turn out too fragile, They think skeptics. And if you make the cavity too small, then to stabilize the center of gravity of mercury Maybe Just not enough.

Today, the majority of cold weapons lovers still refer to the legend of the mercury knife skeptical. Memes are made on this topic, people laugh at the fact that no one has evidence of the existence of a knife. Although new publications continue to be released.

So, for example, a story appeared about modern mercury knives - a development called HYDRARGYRUM-KNIFE-999-HG. According to an anonymous storyteller, in 2004 he met at courses in advance of the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia to a certain Yegor, who also came to study. He had a secret mercury knife of the new model with him. After drinking, he decided to show him, and the narrator himself allegedly took photos on the "old phone." 

At the end of the story author speaksWhat has passed for almost ten years, so he decided to share history. True, the story itself Walked On the Internet already in 2011, just six years after the alleged events.

In 2020, the myth of this development exposed Rezat.ru portal. The authors examined the photographs allegedly taken by the narrator on the “old phone” in 2004 (by the way, their quality is suspiciously high), and showed that sources for pictures, scheme, as well as photographs of the knife are taken from the Internet, and mercury and devices for it in a knife are applied from above using graphic editors.

The mercury knife of Soviet intelligence, which supposedly always falls on the target, apparently, the city legend, taking its origins at least in the 1990s or in Soviet times.

Legend

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. The legend of the mercury knife: exposure
2. Mercury knives: the secret of Soviet intelligence