About the army, they often joke that they wear a round one in it, and a square one for a ride. However, in war, nothing is ever done just like that. Even the strangest things at first glance have some kind of practical rationale. For example, during the Afghan war, Soviet soldiers regularly loaded trucks with sandbags. Why could they need such a burdensome extra load that took up space, hindered sitting comfortably and reduced the car's ability to transport really useful loads.
"Charters are written in blood." Despite some pretentiousness, this maxim is actually absolutely artless. Such is the harsh reality: in order to save others in the future, now some must perish. Unfortunately, people have not yet learned how to develop without stuffing cones.
The simplest example in Russian history on this score is the Finnish War, which today many for some reason consider devoid of any meaning and frankly shameful. But the mistakes made in this conflict later helped the Red Army to better prepare for the winter campaign of World War II. Suffice it to say that caps with earflaps and mittens-crabs came to the Red Army from Finland. The experience of using skiers' units also migrated from there.
The same applies to sandbags, which are placed on the bottom of trucks and cars in hot spots. This is not some kind of light load, but an impromptu reservation in case of a mine explosion. The experience of armed conflicts in the second half of the 20th century has shown that more and more importance is being given to guerrilla methods of warfare, which are inextricably linked with the organization of ambushes and mining of roads.
Despite the seeming primitivism of the measure, ordinary sandbags may well save the people sitting in the kunga. Even with bags, people do not expect anything pleasant from a bomb explosion, however, several tens of kilograms of sand really dampen the blast wave well, and most importantly, slow down the fragments. Fortunately, army vehicles are very powerful and the "burdening load" has almost no effect on driving performance.
In fact, Soviet (and not only Soviet) soldiers thought of putting sandbags in case of an explosion long before the Afghan war. The anti-explosion measure was invented “in the field”. By the end of the 1970s, a description of this technique was already included in all training manuals for organizing counter-guerrilla warfare.
If you want to know even more interesting things, then you should definitely read about why the Swiss grenade was banned all over the world by the decision of the UN.