The origin of the terms "cargo 200", "cargo 300" and others: facts and versions

The mournful name "cargo 200" is now well known not only to military veterans who have passed "hot spots", but also to a wide range of citizens. Here cinema, writers and journalists working in the relevant field have tried their best. At the same time, the question of where the use of the term actually originates, as well as other "digital" designations of army cargo (and even some categories of passengers), remains a mystery to many.

I'll make a reservation right away: information with a more or less high degree of reliability is available only regarding the name “200”. And even then, even speaking about the origin of this number, we will have to face a number of versions, hypotheses and assumptions. What do we know for sure? It is known for certain that the terrible words "cargo 200" began to sound in the lips of the Soviet military during the war in Afghanistan. This was the name given to the bodies of our soldiers and officers, transported to the Soviet Union in zinc coffins, who laid down their heads far from the Motherland. Why exactly 200? Let's look at the explanations in order of most plausible.

Everything went from the order of the Minister of Defense of the USSR of 08.10.1984 No. 200 "On the introduction of the" Guidelines for the registration of military transport in the Ministry of Defense and settlements for them. " Here's the first two hundred - the order number. Some people believe that the name originated from him. However, it seems more likely that the explanation, according to which the terrible figure is due to the fact that, in accordance with the above-mentioned regulatory document, during the transportation of the deceased (deceased) soldier of the Soviet Army aviation the transport should have issued a baggage ticket for 200 kilograms of cargo. When transported by rail - a similar ticket for 300 kilograms of luggage.

It is well known that the bodies of our soldiers left Afghanistan, which had become fatal for them, almost exclusively by air. Hence the term. In addition, the weight of a special zinc container for storing the remains, laid in a wooden box for transportation, was usually the same 200 kilograms. There is, however, also a version that the name came from the number of the form of the accompanying document for the cargo (invoice), but in the appendices to the order I mentioned, it is listed as number 2. It does not add up ...

Well, if we figured out the most unpleasant designation, which gave rise to a whole layer of more than specific army jargon and folklore (“add hundreds”, “double up” and the like), at the very least, the rest is much more complicated. Wounded comrades in combat conditions are called "three hundredth". Why is this so? There are meager justifications, again, about some kind of "forms to be filled out during transportation to medical institutions", but I did not find any documentary evidence of them. "Cargo 300" - and that's it. "Cargo 100" usually refers to transported ammunition, and the most varied, from cartridges and grenades to bombs and missiles.

Further - even more bizarre. The words "cargo 700" and "cargo 800" have firmly taken root in certain circles. There are no discrepancies here: in the first case, we mean serious material values ​​transported by the military (large amounts of money, precious metals), and in the second, something that poses a particular danger to others. Usually, weapon mass destruction, objects threatening chemical or biological contamination.

The hardest part is with the “middle of the list”. I have heard at least three interpretations of the term "cargo 500". In one case, it was interpreted as transported medicines. In another, it was simply called healthy servicemen. Someone undertakes to claim that this name is used when talking about prisoners transported for interrogation. However, in other sources, the captured enemy is classified as "cargo 400", while contradicting those who thus name their fighters who received a shell shock.

Nobody even tries to interpret these figures, explain them and link them with any numbers of orders or other documents, weight, and other indicators. It turned out as it turned out. For short and abrupt negotiations conducted in conditions of hostilities by extremely metered radio exchange, such short and understandable only by its designations is the very thing. Once or twice it affected, stuck, and so it went.

A couple of times I have heard about a very special "load 150". In these cases, the comrades named so were alive, not wounded or shell-shocked. True, they are categorically incapable of independent movement. Of course, we were talking about the fighters who "took on the chest" beyond any measure and this term is certainly comic. What can you say here? If any of us is destined to ever play the role of a load, then let his number be only 150!

Comments

[RUnnm]

To be honest, a lot of time has passed since the school and I will not say the number of the order, but also about the registration of military transport, it contains in the appendix the rules for processing documents and, accordingly, codes. 200 is the serial number of the code for transporting the body of the deceased, and certainly not the maximum permissible weight.

[svp67]

Quote: RUnnm

and, accordingly, codes.

That's all, that's the whole answer. Then everything was already computerized and the corresponding CODES were entered. so that the story is almost detective, and the answer, as always on the surface

[RUnnm]

Well, at the expense of computerization, you flattered VOSO of those times. It's just that the documents do not indicate the name of the cargo (understand correctly, I am writing this, not from cynicism), namely the digital code. So that the carrier, the same railway, does not know about the structure of the cargo.

[svp67]

Quote: RUnnm

Well, at the expense of computerized, you flattered VOSO of those times.

Not at all ... the codes were already being introduced, although the computerization was still low. The same is true for VUS and CODE of military personnel ... And with many other things. We worked for the future. Not everything in the USSR was bad

[RUnnm]

Eh, it would be great if our modern "good" would at least slightly hold out to the then "bad".

[svp67]

Quote: RUnnm

Eh, it would be great if our modern "good" would at least slightly hold out to the then "bad".

Do not rub salt on the wound ...

[tihonmarine]

Quote: svp67

Not everything in the USSR was bad

Not everything is as many people think now.

[Alexey RA]

Quote: RUnnm

Well, at the expense of computerization, you flattered VOSO of those times.

In Soviet times, computerization took place under the auspices of ACS - automated control systems. All ministries and departments acquired their own automated control systems, and turbine rooms with computers were an indispensable accessory to research institutes and buildings. governing bodies.
He himself helped to disassemble, EMNIP, ES-1035 (in "Giprorybflot" at the very end of the 80s) - the institute needed a place for new PCs.

[Akkypamucm]

Honestly laughed the phrase "so that the carrier does not guess." I am that very Vosovite, from 95 to 97 dozens of coffins from Chkalovskaya were transported to railway stations to be sent home. And as for the conductors of luggage and mail-baggage cars, both civilian and military coffins - the conditions of transportation are the same “matryoshka” - a coffin, zinc and a wooden shell. By air 200 kg, by rail / sea 300 kg ... the difference is due to the price, which the Moscow Region then reimbursed to the carriers of the Ministry of Railways, Aeroflot, RechFlot

[cost]

it feels like there is not a single staff on the forum.
Received the name in accordance with the standard weight of the transported container with the body of a soldier (200 kilograms) (paragraph 4, clause 65 of the Guidelines for the registration of military transportations in the Ministry of Defense and settlements for them, approved by order of the Minister of Defense of the USSR No. 200 dated 08.10.1984 );
And lists of irrecoverable losses of personnel (form No. 2 / BP).

[antivirus]

specification for a bicycle on 3 sheets and in two trailers of the DT75 tractor (150 kg)
will change soon: cargo 007- to 077. the cipher must be understood by one and not understood by another

[The leader of the Redskins]

Once he took part in the transportation of "200" from plane to truck. It's hard both physically and mentally ...
And they explained to us about the numbers:
200. - weight of body and zinc coffin.
300 - the weight of the wounded and the orderly with medical equipment.

[ccsr]

Quote: Leader of the Redskins

And they explained to us about the numbers:

There are coding tables in which, to shorten the text, there are certain sets of numbers, up to the numerical designation of the positions of various commanders, and I do not exclude that it was in one of them that the number "200" indicated a dead soldier. This was required for the compilation of daily loss reports, and it is quite possible from there that the term "cargo 200" came into use. In addition, there are tables according to the urgent reports, and perhaps it was there that the subparagraph about the dead was listed at number 200. I will not argue that this was exactly what happened - most likely the mobilists of the 40th Army know about this better, those who served in Afghanistan and they can confirm or refute my assumptions.

[tatarin1972]

In the reports, the dead were listed as "zero twenty first".

[cost]

Absolutely right, Mikhail.

Code of the list of irrecoverable losses of personnel (form No. 2 / BP MO USSR).
Missing 014
Deaths from wounds 015
Deaths from disease 016
Fatalities from other causes 017
Captured by the enemy 018 and 019
Deaths in a hospital 020
Killed in action 021
...............

[cost]

Michael
This is how your nickname looks like

Best regards
Dmitriy
RSComrades, I ask you not to be surprised. It's just that the private messaging features don't allow you to upload an image.
I'm sorry to trouble you

[your1970]

Quote: ccsr

This was required for the compilation of daily loss reports, and it is quite possible from there that the term "cargo 200" came into use.

This is exactly from those tables and went. Unfortunately, over the years, I do not remember the codes with a breakdown, alas ...
There were officers and privates, cartridges and grenades, equipment, including tanks and infantry fighting vehicles.
Those tables had everything, there were even captive spirits with their own code ...

[ccsr]

Quote: your1970

This is exactly from those tables and went.

I assumed this from my own experience, and although I have never been to Afghanistan, I know very well how it happens, because I myself prepared documents from the urgent report card when I served in the GSVG. Apparently my assumption turned out to be correct if you yourself faced this and remember how different reports and tables are filled in and how codes are used.

[your1970]

I saw them in Afghanistan and Kushka, you are in the GSVG. ....
It's just that there weren't massive numbers of killed / wounded in the field units in Germany. Therefore, they became known from Afghanistan ...

[Lexa-149]

It turns out that if a soldier weighing 80 kg broke his arm, then he was given 220 kg of plaster?))))

[The leader of the Redskins]

??
It turns out that the wounded - 80 kg, the orderly - 80 kg, the orderly's bag, stretcher, plaster cast, and so on - the rest. But I repeat - the officers explained this to us. I do not pretend to be the last resort.

[Lexa-149]

I'm sure they were joking.)))

[Nyrobsky]

The main thing is that no one would have to be under these code values ​​and live as long as God measured, leaving this world due to old age.

[vladimirvn]

I was carrying a load of 200 to the parents of the deceased in the 90s in the Czech Republic .. The stress is still the same. But when I was met by a vonkomachik without a leg, I let go. We were not the only ones who fought. And then the parents. And the whole village gathered. And I had to explain why and why. I almost got my face full. And then everyone drank and cried.

[A. Privalov]

In the early 70s of the last century, during my service, I had to travel a lot around the country and more than once draw up documents for railway transportation, shipments, etc. Each cargo, in addition to a brief description, number of seats, weight, volume, etc., was supplied with an intricate digital code from the MPS reference book. There was also a section "Military transportation". I did not see any cargo 200 and 300 there. It is possible that these designations appeared later.

[Parvis rasulov]

Under the load 100 meant the GRU special forces units based on the VUS 100. The captured Mujahideen were denoted by the load 400, the load 500 was a medic and finally everything connected with medicine. A load of 300 wounded and a load of 200 are dead.
The number of soldiers sent to the rescue was called pencils, three pencils are 15 people, but if a team was walking to you on the radio, he sent 20 pencils and one box, it meant that he sent five to the BMP or to the armored personnel carrier, such cipher codes were in the radio negotiations adopted by the armed forces in Tajikistan in 1992-1999 all these radio ciphers were borrowed from the Afghan war. Finally, the technique that the tank, that BMP, armored personnel carrier called a box, Mortar there is no difference, this caliber 82 mm or 120 mm was called a tray, howitzers and guns were always called cucumbers and the difference was not this amount of shell or the amount of volley, if shooting at a snail was always for some reason transmitted as cucumbers like toss a couple of cucumbers on G5 on a snail

[Doliva63]

VUS 100 is a motorized rifle, SPN - VUS 107, sort of.

[Sofievka]

Strange all the same memory, I saw a couple of minutes, the warning signal "Gray Granite" the flight of ballistic missiles (sound-5 minutes), not in the subject, of course, but remembered for a lifetime, 40 years DMB air defense aviation

[Alexey RA]

Quote: Sofievka

Strange all the same memory, I saw a couple of minutes, the warning signal "Gray Granite" the flight of ballistic missiles (sound-5 minutes), not in the subject, of course, but I remembered for the rest of my life

This is remembered for a long time. My father said that when he came to work in the "box", he was first sat down for studying the diagrams and cyclograms of already working products - so to speak, to get up to speed. For him, it was, as he said, a purely technical task, a kind of theory ... exactly until the moment when he saw the "general start" command, which issued a "start" to everyone connected to the system throughout the country. It was here that he got through - he remembered both this command and his reaction 30 years later.

[Doliva63]

Quote: Sofievka

Strange all the same memory, I saw a couple of minutes, the warning signal "Gray Granite" the flight of ballistic missiles (sound-5 minutes), not in the subject, of course, but remembered for a lifetime, 40 years DMB air defense aviation

I periodically watched (scoreboard) and listened to the signal Zarevo 666 - the threat of a nuclear strike. The developers had a kind of humor. When you sit in the room for a duty, it’s like a normal working moment - checking the operation of the alarm. But when you hear it on the street, it is completely different: you think - that's all, you've come. And at the same time the team is going to an unplanned area! Yes, not in the morning, as always, but in the late afternoon, on Wednesday or Thursday. We really thought it was war. While the outfit was opening the gate, the fence on the right / left was already demolished by cars.

[Split]

Good, if regrettable article. Many things I did not know, thanks to the author!

[raif]

Servicemen in a state of alcoholic (less often drug) intoxication were called "400th" in 201 mechanized infantry division in Tajikistan - I heard this many times at the turn of the century. then he served until 2006 as part of the OGV (s) in the Chechen Republic and heard exactly the same among the personnel of the Internal Troops and units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
and yes - talk to those who took Grozny for the first time. few people used callsigns - they were not trained. so I have losses "," four killed "- went in plain text. And the enemy has long known all these cunningly primitive codes