Experimental systems were developed during the war. The AGS-17 was mounted on trucks and BTRs. Various ordnance racks were developed for helicopter gunships. New mine-clearing gear, mine plows and mine rollers were tried with varying success. Dogs were trained to detect mines and guerrillas. The Soviets developed a new helmet, which provided better protection.
Force structure: The Soviets experimented with several force structures during the Afghanistan war. They constituted self-sustaining separate motorized rifle brigades and separate motorized rifle battalions for independent actions. They formed mountain rifle battalions. They experimented with combined arms battalions and motorized rifle companies with four line platoons. All of this was done to come up with an optimum troop mix for counter-insurgency and independent actions. Materiel support brigades and battalions were formed to provide more effective support to the combat units. Airborne, air assault and SPETSNAZ forces were refitted with roomier BTRs and BMPs instead of their BMDs. Forces were up-gunned with extra machine guns, AGS-17 and mortars. The Soviets used these new formations as a test bed and the post-Afghanistan force structure for the Russian Army currently envisions a mix of corps and brigades for maneuver war and non-linear combat and divisions and regiments for conventional, ground-gaining combat.
Morale: During the war, draft-age Soviet youth increasingly tried to avoid the draft and Afghanistan duty. Large bribes were paid to exempt or safeguard the children of the privileged. A disproportionate number of youth from factories and collective farms served in Afghanistan. The conscript’s morale was not great when he was drafted. At the training centers, they were told that they were going to fight Chinese and American mercenaries. When they got to Afghanistan, they soon discovered that they were unwelcome occupiers in a hostile land. Morale further plummeted at this realization. As in other armies, the field soldiers were too busy to get into much trouble, but those soldiers in the rear with routine supply, maintenance and security duties had too much time on their hands. Many conscripts developed a narcotics habit in Afghanistan. They financed their habit by selling equipment, ammunition and weapons. Many turned to violent crime. Soviet soldiers robbed merchants and passers-by. At Soviet checkpoints, the soldiers would search Afghan civilians’ luggage for weapons. Routinely, Afghans carrying large amounts of money were “sent to Kabul”. That meant isolating the civilian and his luggage behind a wall and out of sight of the checkpoint. Once there the civilian was killed and his money taken.
Officers’ morale also suffered. Although an officer got two years service credit toward his pension for every year served in Afghanistan, he saw that the officer corps had been given an impossible task and would be the scapegoats for its failure. There was constant tension within the officer corps at base camps as they vied for the affections of the female PX cashiers, nurses and secretaries. Afghanistan service saw the rebirth of the Soviet World War II tradition of the field wife. But, with a shortage of women, competition was fierce and sometimes violent among the officers. Vodka was the officers’ drug of choice and some quarrels were settled with grenades and small arms.
In the field, villages were razed and the occupants murdered in retaliation for ambushes or suspected aid to the guerrillas. Some of these seem to have been officially sanctioned while others appear to have resulted from a break-down in discipline.
Hearts and minds: The Soviet policy seems to have been to terrorize the population, not to win them over to the government’s side. Despite all the press photos showing Soviet soldiers with Afghan adults and children, genuine fraternization between Soviets and Afghans was discouraged. During field operations, the Soviets called in artillery and airstrikes on villages without warning the inhabitants. Press gangs followed many sweeps and Afghan youth were conscripted into the Afghanistan Army on the spot. The most-infamous Soviet crimes against Afghans were prosecuted, but many more were ignored. Often, Soviet actions seemed deliberately designed to harden the resolve of the resistance.
And in the end, the soldier and officer returned to a changing Soviet Union. Many were unable to fit back into this staid, bland society. Many of the officers asked to go back to Afghanistan.
The war in Afghanistan lasted almost 10 years and inflicted heavy casualties on all sides. The effects of the war will last for decades. The tactical lessons that the Soviets learned are not uniquely Soviet, but equally apply to other nations’ forces caught in the middle of a civil war on inhospitable terrain.
Footnotes
1. The Basmachi were resistance fighters in Central Asia who resisted the imposition of Red rule from 1918 to 1933. The Bolsheviks attempt to extend their revolutionary order into Muslim Asia was resisted by hit-and-run raids and ambushes. A good English-language account of the Basmachi resistance is in Dr. Robert F. Bauman’s Russian-Soviet Unconventional Wars in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Afghanistan, Leavenworth Paper Number 20, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 1993 (ed.). [return]
2. G. F. Krivosheev (editor), Grif sekretnosti snyat: Poteri Vooruzhennykh Sil SSSR b voynakh, boevykh deystviyakh i voennykh konfliktakh [Removing the secret seaclass="underline" Casualty figures of the Armed Forces in war, combat action and military conflicts], Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1993, p. 397–398. [return]
Glossary
This is a list of common abbreviations and terms used in the book. Since the Soviet system is very different from the U.S. system, many of the translated terms are approximations. Where necessary, I have often included the transliterated Soviet term for the specialist.
AAslt – Air Assault [takticheskiy vozdushnyy desant]. Helicopter-borne assault into an area.
AAsltB – Air Assault Battalion [Desanto-shturmoviy batal’on].
AAsltC – Air Assault Company [Desanto-shturmovaya rota].
AAG – Army Artillery Group [armeyskaya artilleriyskaya gruppa]. A temporary group of three to five artillery battalions under the control of the Army Chief of Rocket Troops and Artillery for a particular mission. During army operations, a gun AAG and a MRLS AAG are usually formed.
AO – Area of Operations [naznachennyy rayon]. The area in which a unit is authorized to conduct combat.
Airborne – Parachute-trained forces [parashutno-desandy] deployed by parachute or helicopter.
AOR – Area of Responsibility [zona otvetstvennosti]. The area that a unit is responsible for securing and controlling.
BMP – A tracked infantry fighting vehicle [boevaya mashina pekhoty].
BrAG – Brigade Artillery Group. A temporary group of two to five artillery battalions under the control of the Brigade Chief of Rocket Troops and Artillery for a particular mission.
BRDM – A four-wheeled armored reconnaissance vehicle.
bronegruppa – An armored group of 4–5 tanks, BMPs or BTR or any combination of such vehicles. The BMPs and BTRs are employed without their normally assigned motorized rifle squad on board and fight away from their dismounted troops.
BTR – An eight-wheeled armored personnel carrier [bronetransporter].