standing on top of a mountain can really boost the range of the stinger.
Disagree. At first, mass battles occured only in early 80-ies, until Mujahadeen side understud that they can not win such battles. After that they adopted guerilla tactics, started to use ambushes on Soviet convoys, hit&run tactics and so one. Soviets just had nobody to attack with classical combined arms attacks, if they even wanted such.I voted yes.
A large reason to the faliure of the Soviets in Afghanistan, In my opinion, is their tactics. This was the first time the USSR fought a war against rebels, and their tactics of fighting mass battles agains NATO proved to be obsolete.
Some other reasons for their faliure mite be the weapons that they used.
In order to fight rebels/terrorists effectivly you need a large variaty of guided air-to-ground and ground-to-ground weapons- somethng the USSR had only a limited amount and variaty of.
The US and Israel, for example, proved to be very effective against rebels/terrorists because they devloped new tactics and use a wide variaty of guided air-to-ground and ground-to-ground weapons.
Particularly, Mujahadeen moved around as civilians or shepherds...The Soviets did lose the war. They were unable to take the initiative anywhere outside of their bases, and the mujahadeen were able to move anywhere at anytime.
Soviets won battles of Panjshir, but weren't able to establish loyal administration there, i.e. to stabilize their conquers politically.There were many places in Afghanistan that never fell to the Soviets in spite of repeated attacks (Panjashir Valley (sp?) and the Wakhan Corridor). When it became apparent that the Soviet Army could not do more than they had already accomplished, the Soviet leadership (quite rightly) pulled them out.
If we take a look into history, we see that none army ever entered the war, being ready for it. The solutions, both tactical and technological, always have been find, developed and implemented during war. So was also with Soviet Army in Afghanistan.Unfortunately, the Soviet Army was doomed to failure due to the fact that it was an army that was designed from the individual private up to the General Staff to repel invaders along long fronts. As such they were heavily mechanized which made them very dependent on the roads, (which the rebels owned) and any movement into the mountains away from the roads was deadly. The Afghan conflict could not be fought or won by such an army, and I think that the Kremlin showed breathtaking stupidity in ordering their army in. From what I have heard, the only units that did well were special forces units, and that was because they were the only ones who were able ot fight in the mountains without mechanized support. At least the Americans in Vietnam were able to better adapt to the situation, and their effective use of helicopters gave them an advantage in mobility that the Red Army in Afghanistan could not even dream of. In fact, the Mujahedeen, most of whom were on foot, seemed to be far more mobile than the fully mechanized Soviet Army. Pretty sad, really.
here here! :salute2:The red soldiers did there job, and whooped the afghans up and down the country. They lost the same way we did in vietnam.
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