The Soviet Moose Cavalry almost rode into World War II

At the Battle of Krojanty in the early days of World War II, Polish cavalrymen famously charged a Nazi mechanized infantry unit, disbursing them and allowing an orderly retreat for other Polish units in the area. It was one of the last-ever cavalry charges, and perhaps the last truly successful one. But cavalry was still very much on the minds of some Soviet war planners – especially in the brutal fighting the Red Army saw in Finland.

(Laughs in White Death)

Anyone who's ever seen a moose in person, especially in the wild, knows just how huge and intimidating these creatures can be. Imagine how large and intimidating a giant moose could be while charging at you at full gallop – some Soviet leader did. And the USSR briefly imagined how useful the moose could be in the deep snows of Finland.

"Ask any local," one moose farmer told the BBC, "and he will tell you that a tree is the safest place to be when you are facing an angry elk."

Near Nizhny Novgorod, the Soviets started a farm to domesticate moose for that purpose. But they soon found – as Charles XI of Sweden did – that moose aren't big fans of gunfire. They tend to run the other direction.

Moose are great for counter-espionage however.

But the moose had been used for centuries in Scandinavia as transport animals. After all, horses weren't native to the region, but moose were. They proved to be too much effort for the Swedish military to handle though. Moose are more susceptible to disease and harder to feed, for one.

The Soviets decided that the moose they attempted to domesticate for milk would serve another purpose, using them as transportation and pack animals. They even thought the moose could be used as a meat animal – after all, much of the Soviet population was starving. The effort to train them for milk was relatively successful, but the effort to use them for meat wasn't. Just as moose are too smart to run toward gunfire, they are also too smart to be led to a slaughterhouse.