I saw a lot of this splicing type in old military radio transceivers ("portable" for a given value of portable - usually some kind of backpack weighting ~30Kg - and the batteries were in another backpack).

That splicing works for solid-core conductors, but it doesn't have the same strength on stranded wire, as it is more flexible. It could work on tinned thin stranded wire (as it makes a kindof-solid wire) but if you tin it then you can just solder it and that's it. The referenced standard[1] also contains the splicing for stranded wire, and some requirements about when and how to use each.

[1] http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/codeq/doctree/87394.pdf

If you haven't noticed already, you are now aware that the two intertwined wires in the second and third section of that illustration is topologically impossible.

It's a pretty darn good technique though, useful when your wire harness is going through some minor tension. Extensively used during our underwater robot build :)