The Soviet Union had designed the RPDM-59 (“Ракета Анти-Дед Мороз”) in 1959, the first Anti-Santa missile fielded by a major military power. With a 100-yard diameter shrapnel burst that could easily destroy even an armored sled loaded with metal toys, the weapon had been intended to cripple the Western economy by interrupting the flow of Christmas presents. Problems with IFF led to accusations that the missile was intended to bring down Ded Moroz, the Russian Santa Claus, and though an improved model, the RPDM-66, had been under development, the program was ultimately canceled in 1965.

However, the RPDM-59’s jolly-seeking ability–intended to aid interception if tinsel were deployed as chaff–was further iterated and improved throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. Rather than a stand-off surface-to-air missile, it was incorporated into a short-range man-portable guided rocket (MANPADS). As part of the general War on Humor that had been waged since the October Revolution in 1917, the system was seen as an efficient way of targeting and assassinating dissidents as well as those who had access to black market Western humor.

Eventually fielded as the MG-77 (NATO code name “Mageseeker”) it was the first anti-levity missile introduced into general service. Built on a modified, shortened, version of the K32 Strela-2 platform, the Mageseeker was an 8-lb. missile with a range of roughly 10,000 ft. with either a 2-lb. directed-energy blast fragmentation warhead or 1-lb. high explosive (HE) warhead. A depleted uranium-cored armor-piercing SABOT warhead was tested and deployed in small numbers. The explosive was powerful enough to kill everyone in the same building as the mirthful person painted by the RPDM-59 jolly-seeking radar unit, which in turn spurred development of the MG-77b, a smaller variant based on the RPG-7 platform intended as a single-target killer.

Both the MG-77 and MB-77b were combat-tested in the Angolan Civil War and found to be highly effective against the South African backed UNITA rebels there, especially after KGB agents spread a number of particularly effective knock-knock jokes translated into Umbundu. However, successful as those troop trials were, the MG-77 and MB-77b were total failures when deployed to Afghanistan starting in 1980. The total humorlessness of the fundamentalist mujaheddin fighters arrayed against the Soviet troops, as well as the rampant black humor among Soviet army units, meant that friendly fire incidents were the norm rather than the exception.

While quickly withdrawn from frontline service after a particularly embarrassing incident where the head of the 277th Guards was killed by an MG-77b after making a lewd joke about a subordinate’s wife, a large number of M-77 and M-77b systems were nevertheless manufactured and stockpiled during the 1970s and 1980s, as it was felt that they would be useful in a future war against NATO. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, though, most of the systems were scrapped and spare parts were no longer manufactured. But, as the assassination of the vice president of the Republic of Georgia at a roast in his honor in 2007 proved, either system can still be a potent weapon in the right hands.

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