Posted on 11/25/2001 6:39:49 AM PST by HAL9000
U.S., allies need 200,000 servicemen to fight guerillas in Afghanistan (23.11.01 18:24:51)MOSCOW. Nov 23 (Interfax-AVN) – The anti-terrorist coalition headed by the United States will need at least 200,000 servicemen to fight the Taliban in case the regime resorts to guerilla warfare, chief of Arms and Hardware Operation of the Russian Armed Forces and head of the Main Ordnance Department in the Ministry of Defense Colonel General Sergei Mayev told Interfax-Military News Agency on Friday.
The general believes the grouping should employ bases in Mazar-e-Sharif, Bagram, Kabul, Konduz, Shindand, Jalalabad and other localities; a developed communications network is critical, too. Operating units and formations are to be manned with no less than 100,000 servicemen of Special Forces detachments, paratroopers, air-mobile units, as well as those of the Army and attack aviation. As many as 70,000-90,000 servicemen will provide logistic support to the combat units.
Mayev said his viewpoint was to a great extent determined by his experience in the war in Afghanistan. From 1986 to 1988 the general was chief of armament and deputy commander of the 40th Soviet Army in Afghanistan.
Due to the limited number of the Soviet troops in that country, they could not quickly eliminate Afghan guerilla detachments and got engaged in prolonged anti-guerilla operations, the general said. The number of the Soviet contingent was 70,000 servicemen in the beginning of the campaign to increase to 100,000 in the end.
Mayev says the workd was now witnessing the most crucial moment of the anti-terror operation in Afghanistan. Decisive measures are to be taken to destroy combat-capable units of the Taliban forces and eliminate the command and control echelon of the adversary, the general said. He believes it is vitally important to do it now, that the Taliban fighters are confused and disoriented, otherwise the anti-terror coalition will be engaged in prolonged anti-guerilla operations, too.
NeverGore
He asked me approx. two weeks ago didn't the American advances seem too easy......
I explained that unlike the Russians we were not attempting to occupy nor sending in our troops but using the Afgan's to cleanse their own country....Plus the US technology was vastly superior to 70's soviet era equipment....
He still seemed very disturbed as though it shook a bedrock belief.....
Keep this in mind though, every ex-soviet soldier that served in Afganistan (and their families)is cheering us on.....They HATE the Afgans........
NeverGore
One of the most interesting articles to be published in the Soviet press on the war was a 1 February Komsomol'skaya Pravda interview with Major General V. Filatov, chief editor of Voyennoistoricheskiy zhurnal [Military-historical journal], who predicted that the war would end in a major U.S. defeat.12 He commented that the U.S. was moving steadily toward its "second Vietnam," which would be worse than the first: "Even if Iraq is defeated, which I doubt, other Arab countries will enter the war against the so-called international force.
Speaking in a 21 February interview on Moscow Radio, Colonel General Stanislav Petrov, Commander of Soviet Chemical Troops, expressed the opinion that the war had already gone beyond the limitations of the UN resolution authorizing the use of force in order to restore the sovereignty of Kuwait. Petrov called for an immediate cessation of hostilities without any preliminary conditions, noting that the continued use of military force would only escalate the tragedy and result in additional casualties.... In spite of the heaviest air attacks on Iraqi military and administrative centers its Army is still capable of fighting back....My opinion is that the means used in this war go beyond the level which is necessary to achieve the goal. This is a war for the complete destruction of the Iraqi military and economic potential
Major General Viktor Filatov, the editor of Military-Historical Journal, provided one of the most colorful and wrongheaded reports of the war. Filatov was covering the war as a special Soviet correspondent in Baghdad. Writing in Sovetskaya Rossiya, he reported that the Iraqi army had shown "its bravery and courage" in a series of counterattacks which "smashed" allied forces in the Persian Gulf.68 Filatov observed that the U.S. was bent on bombing Iraq "back into the stone age" as it had tried to do to Vietnam. He called American soldiers "the barbarians of the 20th century" and asserted that American forces had not actually entered Kuwait on February 24, as announced, but remained inside Saudi Arabia on the defensive. Filatov noted that those allied forces that did attack were halted by the Iraqi Army. "[A]fter resisting the initial power allied assault," he concluded, "the Iraqi 3d Army Corps launched its counteroffensive, which has been going on for eight hours."
That is some examples
What they said afterwords
Colonel Aleksandr Tsalko, who headed a Soviet Air Force Training Center prior to assuming his duties as a Soviet People's Deputy, observed that the crushing defeat of the Iraqi Army made it clear the Soviet military doctrine and the entire model of military development were obsolete. On a 1 March Moscow Radio broadcast he stated: Some military authorities in this country continue to believe that the outcome of a war is determined by a clash of huge masses of ground troops. It is sheer madness. The war in the Gulf clearly showed that the Iraqi Army was simply overwhelmed by air strikes and the troops had to keep their noses buried in the sand.
A conference of the Moscow City Council on 3 March discussed the lessons of the Gulf War. According to speakers, the war showed that Soviet military doctrine and principles of military development had "considerable drawbacks" and that prevailing Soviet views on modern war had become "outdated."76 The war also showed the advantages of a highly-professional army over a mass army based on universal military service. Participants in the conference included Soviet and Russian People's Deputies, members of the Democratic Russia Movement, and military servicemen. They pointed out that the previously announced military reforms were actually not taking place for lack of relevant legislation.
So really....a Russian Generals words mean an opinion. We should not change our tactics or wage war there way.
you beat me to the punch! ROFL and have rug burns!
The Russians captured all the cities in Afghanistan in less than a week. They had completely ousted the Mujihadin by 1986, despite the supplies we were giving through Pakistan. Almost all Afghan fighters were in Pakistan then, wondering how they could continue. That's when we supplied them with Stingers, which helped them remove Russian air supremacy. We don't have a superpower working against us, supplying the Taliban. I don't think the Russians are right, since we are not planning to sit in Afghanistan with our troops, like they did, but to say that we have accomplished more than they did in ten years is wrong.
We may make a token effort at nation building but substantially we aren't going to stick around after we have destroyed the status quo in Afghanistan.
We'll let the tribal war loards go back to what they do best.
Do you not recall only THREE weeks ago many calling for Tommie Franks resignation? Our casualties have been minimal. No aerial losses, at least from SAMs, Stingers,etc. Only 2 large areas yet to be reduced, and Kunduz will fall any time. Whenever Taliban masses they get wasted. All this whining about Americans not wanting to fight or not knowing how to fight is just so much HORSESHIT! Even when we loss, we win. In Vietnam we inflicted a loss rate of 21 enemy SOLDIERS for everyone we lost. Ditto for Somalia. And apparently, ditto for Afghanistan-so far. Sure a lot more needs to be done. GWB said so, and we all know it. But we accomplished more in three weeks than USSR did in TEN YEARS!!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.