Excellent article on Afghanistan

[hoplitis]

Mr Scott,
Be patient,
Military operations and "state building" or "regime change" initiatives are judged by their results. We know that the Soviets failed in Afganistan. We don't know what will the US/West accomplish in the end.
All we know, though, is that the clock is ticking ...
In comparison our more professional and equipped armed forces (both in hardware/training and doctrine)are tunning down their presence in Iraq. Our we satisfied by our results there? Is Iraq stable? Would you take your family for vacations there?

[Snipey]

More like a horrendous article that cannot get its facts straight:

"One could not have designed a military less well-prepared to deal with such a conflict than the Red Army of 1979. The Soviet military had not fought a war since 1945. Soviet company, battalion, brigade, division, and even army commanders had no experience in combat."

If you fought in the war from 1944 - 1945, you would be roughly 19 in 1945. In 1979 you would be 54 or 55. You'd be leading the army, and would still have experience, you don't retire at 55. Vyacheslav Borisov commander in the 2008 South Ossetia War at the age of 54. In addition, the Soviet divisions did fight in Hungary, Vietnam, parts of Africa, etc.

"Soviet conscripts were notoriously brutal, drunk, and unprofessional." - that just sounds like a pointless Ad Hominem that's unsourced.

"But SPETSNAZ units were not equivalent to our Special Operations Forces." - that's odd, and not true. Even this game points out it's not true.

"There was no Soviet doctrine for counter-insurgency because Soviet ideology could not foresee the USSR fighting against a revolution." - oh really? What about counter-revolution? What about Hungary in 1956? What about Nazi insurgency in 1944?

"The Red Army had recognized the limitations of its soldiers since the 1920s. It addressed them by requiring operational-level headquarters to design missions that would be relatively easy at the tactical and sub-tactical levels." - yet another fallacy, for instance see Operation Bagration.

It's a common myth I see, where the Russian Army is always underestimated. Hitler in the 1940's. Chechens in 1999 (Dagestan War). Georgians in 2008. Allies in 1920's. And that's just in the past 100 years.

The real reason for the Red Army's defeat was two-fold. The initial Red Army strategy in Afghanistan, to use shock forces to take key points and expand Soviet influence from these keypoints with the use of artillery, was not accepted by the Brezhnev Government. This left gaping holes in Soviet supply lines. The second reason was that the central government, under Brezhnev and later Gorbachev, made the same error that Nicolas I government made in the Russo-Japanese War, the army could not be properly supplied.

I want to see Al Qaeda defeated, I don't think there's a sane person out there who's rooting for Al Qaeda. But in order to defeat Al Qaeda, we cannot have military articles being called "excellent" - especially articles that constantly underestimate other armies. Pat MacArthur, the American General that brought the Phillipines under American control stated: "Never underestimate your enemy". (I think someone said that before him too.) If people constantly write articles underestimating the Red Army for political purposes, what's to stop the same people from underestimating Al Qaeda's abilities? Poor research is poor research, irrespective who you write about. We already made that mistake with Fallujah, with the Sunni Triangle, let's not make the same mistake again Al Qaeda, where it really counts. Let's stop writing crap, at least until bin Laden is toast and Al Qaeda is destroyed.

[Anthony_Scott]

I respectfully disagree on several points, all of them technical. first of all, even at the height of Red Army liberties during the Great Patriotic War, they still suffered from a truly adequate professional NCO corps. Although the Red Army in 1943 and onward did allow lower ranked enlisted personnel more leeway, in the end it was the sheer numbers of men and tanks that made the destruction of Army Group Centre so decisive. Many experienced NCOs were lost due to attrition and the brutal Red Army discipline. It was a war within a war to keep experienced NCOs around to teach the raw new conscripts even the beginnings of soldiering that their Wehrmacht or Western Allied forces took so seriously.

Soviet strategy in Afghanistan was motivated by chronic supply shortages as you noted but also by a lack of effective dismounted infantry training, appropriate air assets and doctrine, and the evre-present unprofessional nature of the Soviet conscript, whose main intrests were drinking and getting home as soon as possible. Also, the STAVKA itself was out of it's element fighting a war like what they had in Afghanistan instead of fighting the mass tank war that it had trained for versus NATO. Again, Soviet military training was always more about tanks than fighting insurgents and also the last time the Red Army has to fight a counter-revolution was in the 1920's.

The ongoing lack of a truly dedicated NCO corps continues to plaque the Russian Army and that hardly seems to have gotten better. I have known individual NCO's from Russia who were utterly competent, professional, and dedicated professionals much alike our own here in the US. Day to day operations seem to be run by subaltern officers who seem to be filling billets meant for seargents and corporals. The vaunted SPETZNAZ are one of the few truly professional elements in the Russian military and they have indeed made changes to their training since Afghanistan but when they went into Afghanistan. Their training had not prepared them for what American and British specops training has always prepared for, namely creating friendly forces with locals and then using them to fight the war themselves. From the article:

The Soviet military was self-consciously a pro-revolutionary force because the Soviet Union was ideologically a revolutionary state. There was no Soviet doctrine for counter-insurgency because Soviet ideology could not foresee the USSR fighting against a revolution. To the extent that Soviet forces thought about intervention in internal conflicts, they thought about helping Marxist revolutionaries overthrow US-backed dictators. They knew virtually nothing about setting up indigenous armies or training indigenous forces. Apart from brief interventions in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and East Germany (all executed as massive and brief mechanized operations), the Red Army had not faced an insurgency since the Basmachi Rebellion of the 1920s.

Finally, the Russians were incredibly vicious during the war. Their only recourse to failed operations seemed to be dropping mines and sowing terror amongst the Afghan populace which only caused more anger and resentment. The tales of wholesale destruction of villages and violations of Afghan women have passed into legend. With such conduct it seems only logical that the Afghanis would respond in kind. Our soldiers, airmen, Marines are fighting with far different tactics and our special forces are using far more effective methods. See these articles for more:

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/200...rinsurgency-o/

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/200...sting-afghani/

The Soviet Army of 1979 was totally incapable of doing what our specops guys are doing now because of a fundamental difference in training ethics and styles of Western and Russian Armies. Russian commanders just did not have the training or resources to nation-build.

I hope this was not too long-winded. The nature of the Russian Army continues to be one of my passions and I have a great amount of respect and admiration for the Bear. I also know that we still have so much to learn about one another.

[Snipey]

While the Red Army had no official NCO corps, I think you will find this true story interesting, it comes from "My Just War" by Gabe Temkin, who was a Polish Jew fighting in the Red Army, and who later became an American Professor, publishing one of the best books on the Red Army in the English Language. If you want to know what life was like for the average Russian infantryman, it is a must read. ISBN: 0-89141-645-5. Anyways, back on topic, the particular summary starts on page 169 and goes until page 172:

Sixteen Red Army Scouts crossed the Prut River, fully equipped at night. They were looking for "tongues" - enemy soldiers who would tell the Red Army what's going on. They caught two sleeping Romanian soldiers in a machine gun pit. They tried to ambush the rest of the Romanian soldiers in the village, but failed to do so, when one of the Red Army soldiers decided to kidnap a pig for dinner, and the latter protested very loudly, waking up the whole village. After a brief firefight, where no one was hurt, the Romanian soldiers fled. After the Colonel, on the other side of the river, recieved the two "tongues" he ordered the contingent back. However the contingent's leader had too much initiative to just turn back.

The Red Army Scouts then set up the HQ, the perimeter, and instead of going back as ordered, went scouting. Temkin was placed in charge of finding and holding an HQ suitable building, and given six men. Temkin wasn't an official officer. Soon the villagers were surrendering. Far from the myth-driven Red Army brutality, the relations between the villagers and the Red Army were as warm as they could be.

Another order came from the Colonel, stating "you have accomplished what you were supposed to, no point in sitting there, drinking and resting..." Instead of following the order, the commander (who was a senior Lt.) of the sixteen scouts promoted himself to Colonel, and stated that he will now be accepting Romanian POWs. He sent his scouts, to every building, telling them about the HQ "where the Colonel was now resting". Not only did he establish good will with the villagers, but he also captured a total of nineteen Romanians.

The punishment for disobeying two direct orders? None.

Stories, such as the one described above, happened with great frequency in the Red Army, especially after Stalin gave the Red Army a free hand in conducting its own affairs. For instance, the Red Army also operated Churches, with Stalin telling the NKVD to lay off; examples included rumored quotes such as "with the Nazis nearby we have no time to examine whether that's a Church or a military HQ". The Churches were shut down in 1946, and the repression of religion began again, but in 1942-1945, there was freedom of religion in the Red Army.

So while the Red Army may have lacked an NCO system, after the Battle of Stalingrad, the Red Army had initiative, and allowed men who were not officers to lead. It was very open minded to experimentation. In addition, after the Battle of Stalingrad, senior men taught the new recruits the basics of fighting, combat, and what not to do.

In Operation Bagration for instance, the casualty rate (of irreversible casualties, not including lightly wounded and those sick with malaria and other deceases) was two to one in favor of the Red Army. In other words, for every Red Army soldier killed, the Wehrmacht lost two soldiers. At the Battle of Belgrade, the rate was three to one. Moreover, the Red Army did not enjoy a 2 to 1 numerical advantage over the Wehrmacht, until 1945, except in a few cases.

Now as for Afghanistan. The extreme major of Red Army soldiers serving in Afghanistan volunteered. They weren't looking to go home ASAP. I will concede that the STAVKA in Afghanistan, performed horrendously. However the American version of the STAVKA in Vietnam, also performed quite poorly. Back than niether the US, nor the USSR could fight and win such a war, with the strategies that they were employing.

The problem with the current Russian Army training is that Russia has all kinds of units, from the GRU SpetzNatz, such as Battalion Vostok that took out Georgian units three times their size and suffered two light wounded casualties, to the conscripts. The tales of destruction of Afghan Villages are a bit embellished though, and it wasn't done on a wide and systematic level. Nor were the Red Army casualties in Afghanistan severe. The whole "terror" claims of the Red Army in Afghanistan are severely exaggerated.

There are some reasons why the US may succeed. First and foremost, is that unlike the USSR, the US can lead a coalition against bin Laden. Second is that scouting techniques are improved. Third is that the US has experience that they can rely on, from the lessons of Vietnam. I agree with the part you quoted. And the Red Army does need to improve it's dismounting techniques.

However the Russian Army of today, could have tackled and won the Afghan War. Few people realize how poorly the Brezhnev and Gorbachev leadership perforemed at the strategic level, which was the number one cause for the Red Army's loss in Afghanistan. I cannot use words to describe their poor performance. If one was to study the Russian Army in action in the Second Chechen War, one would see that the problems of reconnaisance, of dismounted combat have shown great improvement. In the 2008 South Ossetia War, the Russian Army broke all expectations, for the first time since the Battle of Vienna. (Actually occured on May 8th, there are other reasons that Russians want May 9th to be Victory Day then Stalin's politics.)

An intelligent debate can never be long winded, and you are partially correct in the Russian/Red Army's lack of NCOs. However I hope that Temkin's story sheds new light on why the Red Army may not have needed that NCO knowledge as much as their British and American counterparts.

[Snipey]

Also, I'd like to point out that the Red Army did very well against Japan, and not only at Lake Khasan and Khalkin Gol, but also during the Invasion of Manchuria, where in a matter of weeks the Red Army captured more men then the allies in a matter of years. But they had a high quality overall strategy, excellent scout reports and stellar coordination. The Red Army that attacked Japan in 1945, could have also defeated Afghanistan.

[Imp]

The vaunted SPETZNAZ are one of the few truly professional elements in the Russian military and they have indeed made changes to their training since Afghanistan but when they went into Afghanistan. Their training had not prepared them for what American and British specops training has always prepared for, namely creating friendly forces with locals and then using them to fight the war themselves

Wholly agree & guess what US of this era were not much good at it, they still leave it to others like the Brits if they can.
Its just so much flag waving Hollywood style taking known issues with the Soviet Army & saying they applly uniformly across the board. If I wrote as I suspect is these guys viewpoint you could say virtualy everything said applies equally to the USAs efforts in Vietnam a bit earlier.
The diffrence is simple USSR as think Snipey said were cripled by supply (Kremlin) while we go in with total overkill. Do you think the Soviets used a helo gunship to take out one man. Its mad I have seen videos planes or multiple vehicles shooting at a group of 4 or 5 men. They never saw this sort of firepower it was a more traditional war man against man & when the USSR did try using helos the MANPADS good old USA supplied them with were used.
That & the time that has passed & hence yes changes in training means they should do better, whether its enough we will have to wait & see.
In fact if I was a Russin journalist I would be urging for massive arms programs as 5 years from now the Likes of USA will be good at fighting terrorists but stopping big armoured forces could be a problem. They have way to many specialists great at what they do but thats it period.

Thats taking a few facts & washing over it just like this article, not really the place for this it tells you nothing for scenerio design tactics are controlled by you & forces used there are far better sources.

Ha just read the previous 2 posts phone went while doing this.

[Marcello]

Oh my...
First of all I would not call the first article posted "excellent". It may be excellent by the Weekly Standard
standards: while still being a propaganda piece and superficial at least it does not regurgitate the typical clichè or is "in your face" with the propaganda. Still, it's a bunch of political hacks with big agendas to push (everyone is biased of course, but there is a question of degree).
For scenario design it is clearly useless. For such purpose I would suggest the far more relevant and professional link:

The Bear Went over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan

It describes neatly (maps included) and in a well organized manner several engagements which fit well with SPMBT game scale (company and battalion level actions).

Is Iraq stable? Would you take your family for vacations there?

To be fair Iraq is probably as good as it gets. It is not like that before big evil Saddam came to power everything was fine and dandy. Iraqi history is a history of military coups, permanent insurgency (give or take the odd temporary truce) and generally people not being nice to each other.

After all it was not Saddam who was quoted saying:

I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes.

More on the rest later...

[Marcello]

The main differance between the Red Army of 1979 and it's Western counterpart was the quality of it's training and the focus of the doctrine. The Red Army was never designed for COIN, it was a heavy army designed to bash through NATO defenses.

If you are implying that the western armies have been doctrinally focused on COIN, sorry that does not fly.
Since WW2 the doctrinal focus was on stopping the Red Horde From The East: that was the primary task, sometimes pursued at expense of everything else (see for example the emphasis put on nuclear forces at the severe expense of conventional ones in the early Cold War).
COIN was an after thought most of the time; yes there were the green berets etc but it was a small niche and did not really influence deeply the Army as a whole.
Vietnam, the only major COIN (and mind you, COIN was just a fraction of what was going on there anyway) experience before Iraq, left the US Army with a sour taste when it came to COIN and the general reaction afterwards was "let's forget about and focus on the Fulda Gap".
The upper side of that was the US Army splendid performance in 1991. The downside was the mistakes post 2003, when the US military had essentially to relearn COIN from scratch.
Now COIN is a primary mission but it is just because of contemporary circumstances.

We are not using terror tactics to try and beat the people into submission

You could easily define a lot of what was going on in Afghanistan in the 80's as "terror tactics" and "beat the people into submission". But then a lot of what was going in Vietnam would fall under that category. From the liberal use of massive amounts of firepower in populated areas to the relocation of population.

Finally, the Russians were incredibly vicious during the war. Their only recourse to failed operations seemed to be dropping mines and sowing terror amongst the Afghan populace which only caused more anger and resentment. The tales of wholesale destruction of villages and violations of Afghan women have passed into legend.

Legend is a apt term. As you will probably recall the US was engaged in a proxy war against the USSR which included, shocking suprise, heavy use of propaganda. And Afghanistan is not a great place for fact finding missions after the fact.
No doubt there was an extremely indiscriminate usage of firepower by the soviets, at least by current standards, and lots of atrocities to boot. But contemporary tales were filtered throught the anti USSR propaganda and that cannot be overlooked in a critical analysis.
Mining operations for example were extensively carried out by the mujahedeen too (mines were one of the most sought after weapons back in Pakistan).

[Marcello]

Russian commanders just did not have the training or resources to nation-build.

The Najibullah regime outlasted (if briefly) the USSR itself while the US & Co were pumping aid to the Mujahedin even after the soviet withdrawal years earlier. Which means that at a minimum that the Army that the soviets had trained was at least somewhat effective. I would not bet much on the current crop in Kabul faring better.

The extreme major of Red Army soldiers serving in Afghanistan volunteered.

I doubt it. Any source for that?

What about counter-revolution? What about Hungary in 1956? What about Nazi insurgency in 1944?

It should be note that Hungary did not put up an organized resistance and the local conditions were not favorable to an eventual insurgency.
Whatever "Nazi insurgency" may have been around in 1944 was a small scale thing, just like anti soviet leftovers in the Baltics and such which were not eliminated until years later. Such things barely registered on the radar, if they did register at all. Large scale COIN abroad was something new indeed.

In addition, the Soviet divisions did fight in Hungary, Vietnam, parts of Africa, etc.

Soviets did fight in Vietnam, Korea and others places, but not as divisions or in major force generally.

[Anthony_Scott]

Originally Posted by [QUOTE

The extreme major of Red Army soldiers serving in Afghanistan volunteered.

Unlikely, except perhaps for SPETZNAZ units. Recall the Soviet military was a conscript force in it's majority and it would be unthinkable for men to volunteer to return to the war zone.

What about counter-revolution? What about Hungary in 1956? What about Nazi insurgency in 1944?

Both invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia were considered "internal affairs" of the Warsaw Pact, and at any rate were "classic" operations, ie a permissive country with extant communist infrastructure and the local resistance was doomed from the start.
Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_...Czechoslovakia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungari...lution_of_1956

The abortive Nazi resistance of 1945-1946 were handled with great efficiency and ruthlessness by the occupation forces of the allies and also suffered from not having the support of the German people. One would suppose 12 years of Nazi brutality was enough.

In addition, the Soviet divisions did fight in Hungary, Vietnam, parts of Africa, etc.

Soviets did fight in Vietnam, Korea and others places, but not as divisions or in major force generally.[/quote]

Indeed, Soviet aviators did fly combat missions over Korea during the war in the 1950's, although they were forbidden to speak Russian and had orders not to be taken alive. During the stress of combat against USAF Sabres the pilots would quite naturally forget the former and use Russian freely.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiG_Alley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-15

In Vietnam Soviet troops numbered some 3,000 and the Soviets provided material, including the SA-2 that shot down USAF B-52 bombers. Their role in combat is unknown, although it is known that during the Son Tay raid that some Soviet advisers may have been killed but that has never been determined with any certainty.

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#Soviet_Union
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivory_Coast

Soviet operations in Africa were the Ogaden War, involvement in Angola, and operations during the Congo Crisis of 1962, although personnel deployments were nowhere near those seen in the above mentioned Hungarian and Czech operations. Socialist interventions in Africa were largely proxy affairs, with Cuba providing the bulk of the land forces.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogaden_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozambican_Civil_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angolan_Civil_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Border_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_(1985–1991)

During the Cold War, if you said you were socialist or communist and hated the USA then the Soviets would support you, which is why Afghanistan is such a one-off. The US pretty much dropped Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal, with Pakistan being left
with the job of relocating the refugees.