“You wait until nighttime, and you will see how we are killing these Iranian dogs,” an Iraqi officer said with a broad grin. “We are frying them like eggplants.”
He then took us on a tour of dozens of thick electrical cables his troops had laid through the marshy battlefield, a spaghetti network that snaked in and out of the patchwork of lagoons. He showed us the mammoth electric generators that fed the exposed power lines from positions just behind the Iraqi front lines. And, when the Iranian Revolutionary Guards made their regular evening advance, the officer and his men demonstrated the macabre genius of their invention.
Iraqi gun batteries fired just enough artillery to force the Revolutionary Guards from their marsh boats, and, when hundreds of them had been forced to continue their advance through the lagoons on foot, the men manning the Iraqi generators flipped a few switches and sent thousands of volts of electricity surging through the marshland.
Within seconds, hundreds of Iranians were electrocuted.
But the horror show did not end there. The following morning, Iraqi troops began another grisly routine that the officer called “the morning road detail.”
They made their way through the marshes, gathering up the dead Iranian soldiers like dynamite fishermen harvesting a day’s catch. Working methodically, the Iraqis piled the corpses on top of one another in the water in head-to-toe stacks, five bodies high and five across.
Together, the human piles formed long rows, the width of a troop truck, the top layers above the water’s surface. Each row extended in a straight line through the marshes from the Iraqis’ positions toward the Iranian border. Finally, the rows were sprinkled with lime and covered over with a foot-thick tier of desert sand.
It was the Iraqi method of road building, using the bodies of their enemies to construct assault routes for tanks and trucks.
I mean, it was a well documented event. Perhaps you just don’t know as much about electricity or roads as you think?
It’s a shallow salt water marsh, so it’s not like conductivity is going to be a problem. As far as utilizing human remains for roads, it’s not exactly an isolated event. You can find contemporary and historical examples of it fairly easily.
Bollocks. Not how electricity works. You put a power cable into swamp water and that electricity is flowing straight into the ground. Nobody who touches the water will get hurt, that’s literally how grounding works. Look into how the earth wire prevents shocks and you’ll see what I mean.
Maybe they built the road out of bodies, I guess it’s possible, I just doubt it because of the stupidity of the electricity part.
Bollocks. Not how electricity works. You put a power cable into swamp water and that electricity is flowing straight into the ground. Nobody who touches the water will get hurt, that’s literally how grounding works. Look into how the earth wire prevents shocks and you’ll see what I mean.
My dude, all you would have to do is float the end of the power cable…
Electricity doesn’t automatically flow to the ground, that’s a common misconception. It flows through all available paths, paths of lowest resistance just get higher amounts of the current. Humans are unfortunately a better conductor than swamp water, meaning they would get the majority of the current.
Again, I don’t think you know as much about electricity as you assume.
I’ve looked it up and all I can find are examples of people drowning because they were near the power source and their muscles spasmed. A far cry from dropping a cable from a generator and instantly zapping hundreds of people. Any other examples?
because they were near the power source and their muscles spasmed.
Okay… So you have admitted that people can be electrocuted in large bodies of water, meaning your initial theory was incorrect. Now your dispute is the scale and intensity?
Wouldn’t that be explained by a power source with a much higher output? Kinda like the several industrial sized generators They described in the article I linked?
Any other examples?
How often do you think people have purposely killed people with this tactic?
I guess you could look up the electrified lock systems they use in the great lakes to kill invasive species? Though I don’t really know why you’re so sceptical?
I’m not sure why this guy’s so reluctant to accept something that sticking a bunch of high voltage cables in a swamp isn’t something Iraq would’ve done in that war. I don’t even mean in a “oh they did immoral things way”, I mean in a “they were basically doing ACME shit the entire war” way.
Did Iraq probably heavily inflate the number killed? Absolutely. Even if they weren’t trying to, they had tons of barbed wire and floating mines in that swamp, so kinda hard to distinguish what killed who when all you care about is building corpse road. But they also absolutely electrified a swamp during the battle of the marshes, and it absolutely did kill people.
I think you are misunderstanding the nature of electrical grounding. If they had laid wires at the bottom of the marsh, then yes it likely would have grounded. However if you float the wires to the surface then the water and the nonconductive particles in the water act as resistors. When the soldier enters the area they act as a conductor, acting as the path of least resistance from the source to the ground.
Does it count as electrocution if you drown from a shock? Maybe I guess. Looked up the great lakes thing but I’m still not buying it. Never mind, thanks for the internet argument!
Does it count as electrocution if you drown from a shock?
I would think the important bit of information is that they were shocked…which according to your theory isn’t possible.
The only difference between a shock and an electrocution is the voltage. Wiring for a dock as the examples you brought up were likely only from a 120v supply, if it has been 220v or higher they likely would have died from electrocution.
Looked up the great lakes thing but I’m still not buying it.
Lol, I guess that what happens when you try appealing to a stone.
Most of us live in places where the AC power is returned by the neutral line, and earth only in case of fault
You could put an active on one end of a swamp, and a neutral on the other end of the swamp, and electrocute (in the original meaning) your Nazis or whatever. Which war are we talking about, I’m three bollocks deep?
No I’m from UK so it’s AC. Yeah if you had neutral on the other end of the swamp you’d be getting closer but still doubt you’d get to electrocution levels. That’s how the electric barrier in the great lakes works that the guy was on about. But that’s a short distance, with the water surrounded by rock, and it only gets about 2 volts. For a swamp I would expect too much current to be leaking into the earth and nowhere near enough current to be flowing through the people. Judging by the downvotes I guess I’m wrong and the Iraqi army have some insanely powerful swamp electrifying device that’s completely undocumented and was only used once and has never been repeated since.
Anyway I’m out of this argument, don’t drag me back in!
He then took us on a tour of dozens of thick electrical cables his troops had laid through the marshy battlefield, a spaghetti network that snaked in and out of the patchwork of lagoons. He showed us the mammoth electric generators that fed the exposed power lines from positions just behind the Iraqi front lines. And, when the Iranian Revolutionary Guards made their regular evening advance, the officer and his men demonstrated the macabre genius of their invention.
Iraqi gun batteries fired just enough artillery to force the Revolutionary Guards from their marsh boats, and, when hundreds of them had been forced to continue their advance through the lagoons on foot, the men manning the Iraqi generators flipped a few switches and sent thousands of volts of electricity surging through the marshland.
Within seconds, hundreds of Iranians were electrocuted.
But the horror show did not end there. The following morning, Iraqi troops began another grisly routine that the officer called “the morning road detail.”
They made their way through the marshes, gathering up the dead Iranian soldiers like dynamite fishermen harvesting a day’s catch. Working methodically, the Iraqis piled the corpses on top of one another in the water in head-to-toe stacks, five bodies high and five across.
Together, the human piles formed long rows, the width of a troop truck, the top layers above the water’s surface. Each row extended in a straight line through the marshes from the Iraqis’ positions toward the Iranian border. Finally, the rows were sprinkled with lime and covered over with a foot-thick tier of desert sand.
It was the Iraqi method of road building, using the bodies of their enemies to construct assault routes for tanks and trucks.
I mean, it was a well documented event. Perhaps you just don’t know as much about electricity or roads as you think?
It’s a shallow salt water marsh, so it’s not like conductivity is going to be a problem. As far as utilizing human remains for roads, it’s not exactly an isolated event. You can find contemporary and historical examples of it fairly easily.
Bollocks. Not how electricity works. You put a power cable into swamp water and that electricity is flowing straight into the ground. Nobody who touches the water will get hurt, that’s literally how grounding works. Look into how the earth wire prevents shocks and you’ll see what I mean.
Maybe they built the road out of bodies, I guess it’s possible, I just doubt it because of the stupidity of the electricity part.
My dude, all you would have to do is float the end of the power cable…
Electricity doesn’t automatically flow to the ground, that’s a common misconception. It flows through all available paths, paths of lowest resistance just get higher amounts of the current. Humans are unfortunately a better conductor than swamp water, meaning they would get the majority of the current.
Again, I don’t think you know as much about electricity as you assume.
I’ve looked it up and all I can find are examples of people drowning because they were near the power source and their muscles spasmed. A far cry from dropping a cable from a generator and instantly zapping hundreds of people. Any other examples?
Okay… So you have admitted that people can be electrocuted in large bodies of water, meaning your initial theory was incorrect. Now your dispute is the scale and intensity?
Wouldn’t that be explained by a power source with a much higher output? Kinda like the several industrial sized generators They described in the article I linked?
How often do you think people have purposely killed people with this tactic?
I guess you could look up the electrified lock systems they use in the great lakes to kill invasive species? Though I don’t really know why you’re so sceptical?
I’m not sure why this guy’s so reluctant to accept something that sticking a bunch of high voltage cables in a swamp isn’t something Iraq would’ve done in that war. I don’t even mean in a “oh they did immoral things way”, I mean in a “they were basically doing ACME shit the entire war” way.
Did Iraq probably heavily inflate the number killed? Absolutely. Even if they weren’t trying to, they had tons of barbed wire and floating mines in that swamp, so kinda hard to distinguish what killed who when all you care about is building corpse road. But they also absolutely electrified a swamp during the battle of the marshes, and it absolutely did kill people.
Oh I don’t put it past Iraq, I’m sure they’d have been up for it. I’m just reluctant to accept the physics
Why?
I think you are misunderstanding the nature of electrical grounding. If they had laid wires at the bottom of the marsh, then yes it likely would have grounded. However if you float the wires to the surface then the water and the nonconductive particles in the water act as resistors. When the soldier enters the area they act as a conductor, acting as the path of least resistance from the source to the ground.
It’s pretty basic physics.
Does it count as electrocution if you drown from a shock? Maybe I guess. Looked up the great lakes thing but I’m still not buying it. Never mind, thanks for the internet argument!
I would think the important bit of information is that they were shocked…which according to your theory isn’t possible.
The only difference between a shock and an electrocution is the voltage. Wiring for a dock as the examples you brought up were likely only from a 120v supply, if it has been 220v or higher they likely would have died from electrocution.
Lol, I guess that what happens when you try appealing to a stone.
Do you live in an earth return electric place?
Most of us live in places where the AC power is returned by the neutral line, and earth only in case of fault
You could put an active on one end of a swamp, and a neutral on the other end of the swamp, and electrocute (in the original meaning) your Nazis or whatever. Which war are we talking about, I’m three bollocks deep?
No I’m from UK so it’s AC. Yeah if you had neutral on the other end of the swamp you’d be getting closer but still doubt you’d get to electrocution levels. That’s how the electric barrier in the great lakes works that the guy was on about. But that’s a short distance, with the water surrounded by rock, and it only gets about 2 volts. For a swamp I would expect too much current to be leaking into the earth and nowhere near enough current to be flowing through the people. Judging by the downvotes I guess I’m wrong and the Iraqi army have some insanely powerful swamp electrifying device that’s completely undocumented and was only used once and has never been repeated since.
Anyway I’m out of this argument, don’t drag me back in!