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Originally Posted by daferg
From what I have read and from what I have heard from the old vets I agree with you. When some think of the Russian Horde in the 80's they were 10 feet tall and mindless. The old story of Russian tanks only having West on their compasses.
The units of the old Russian Army that I think were given a bit more flexibility than the average unit were: Recon, Airborne/Air Assault, Spentzat (spelling?)and of course sub commanders.
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Yeah, I would agree due to their specialized tasks, they would have more flexibility than average in addition to the "good few" among the regular ground forces, but the Soviet beast is the mysterious thing to study.
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I wish I had a reading list of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan that was not weighed down with propaganda. I know they changed their tactics, techniques and procedures throughout the war but have not read much about it myself.
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Have you read Lester Grau's "The Bear went over the Mountain"? It's a good read on exactly what you're looking for. There's also another Grau book "The Soviet-Afghan War" which is good too.
The Soviet Army changed their TTP due to Marshal Ogarkov's theory of a "revolution" in military affairs characterized by precision weapons, non-linear battlespace, reconnaissance-strike complexes and other pieces of digital technology. Afghanistan provided a testing bed for some of these new concepts like the "bronegruppa" where BMPs fight away from their infantry dismounts, and the 1991 Gulf War was their grim confirmation. There's a number of 1980s Soviet works which underlined the destructive potential of today's precision-guided weapons, even equating them to "small tactical nukes without the fallout".
This is a good read on what I said if you're looking for more info:
http://webharvest.gov/peth04/2004101....HTML#GENFORCE