potatoandstuff: thatonegunblog: Blue Tape Blue tape has sort of become an inside joke in regards to
potatoandstuff: thatonegunblog: Blue Tape Blue tape has sort of become an inside joke in regards to Soviet firearms and military history, particularly in the Chechen and Afgan war eras of the Soviet Union. The joke is about the mystery surrounding the Soviet soldier’s use of a blue tape to attach two or more magazines side-by-side. Many reenactors think that the blue tape was some sort of war paint. The fact is that there were only two types of tape made in the Soviet Union, blue tape, and black tape. Of course the Russian solders would have preferred to use the black tape, but it was very hard to come by, so they used what they could get their hands on; blue tape. Many reenactors attempting to re-create the look will use blue masking tape or “panters tape” when the actual tape used by Russian troops was more like our “electrical”, or “vinyl” tape. The Russians referred to it as “insulation tape” because just as our electrical tape was, it was made to be used on wiring. Another little known fact is that because no other types of tape were available, the blue tape was also a joke inside Soviet Russia. Here is a quote from a video of two Soviet historians talking about blue tape. First guy: “It was said, if you have any mechanism, uhh, to work properly, it needs only one component, in addition to any, it needs blue tape. So, it can be any mechanism, uhh, from the mechanics to electronics and uhh, anything. So there is one secret component, in Russian military and in Russian civil life.” Second guy: “Yes, this thing can fix anything.”To sum it all up, the blue tape was blue electrical tape, and they only used it because it was the only thing they had. And the fact that is was basically the only tape in all of Soviet Russia, it also became the Russian equivalent of our beloved duct tape.I hope this cleared some stuff up for you. @bolt-carrier-assembly where did you end up finding the blue tape? Some Russian web store. -- source link