Lessons From the Russian Experience in Chechnya: 94-95

[MKSheppard]

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6453/chechnyaA.html

A. Strategic Lessons:

Lesson 1: Military operations could not solve deep-seated political problems. Almost two years of covert and open military operations in Chechnya failed to prevent the local government from asserting its administrative and political independence from Moscow. In the end, Boris Yeltsin was forced to remove all Russian military and interior forces from Chechnya. Although the two sides still openly disagree on Chechnya’s ultimate status, Russian newspapers report that “Chechnya today is living its own life, separately from Russia.” Even the protocol that surrounded the signing of the final agreement suggested a meeting between leaders of sovereign states.

Lesson 2: Local military commanders could not get clear policy guidance to which they could work steadily and logically. Just after the entry of Russian military forces into Chechnya in mid December 1994, Izvestia was reporting “a visible split” within the top leadership of the Ministry of Defense over the nature and wisdom of the operation. Later that same month, the new Russian military commander in Chechnya found his headquarters in “tumult and disarray.” Poor or conflicting policy guidance continued over the next two years; e.g., when Yeltsin’s national security advisor announced a cease-fire in August 1996, the Russian regional military commander was saying that no such agreement had been signed nor had he been given orders to cease hostilities.

Lesson 3: The confusion generated by the minimal or conflicting policy guidance was exacerbated by poorly defined lines of command and control. There was no direct, unified chain of command for the operations in Chechnya. Command and control was spread among the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Defense, and the Federal Counterintelligence Service (successor to the KGB) with the result that commanders as a rule did not know who was on their flanks nor the missions of neighboring forces. Poor lines of communications were also responsible for many incidents of “friendly fire.” Additionally, the North Caucasus Military District Command structure (the district which included Chechnya) was by-passed and operational decisions were sent directly from the Russian Minister of Defense to local commanders. Similarly, the overall operational headquarters did not have an on-going staff planning relationship with the assault units which entered Chechnya from separate axes. Poor coordination between units and services ultimately led to slow rates of advance and sometimes opened avenues through which the Chechens could escape.

Lesson 4: Overall Russian command lacked continuity and was plagued by too much senior leadership at the operational level. Russian units fighting in Chechnya experienced over eight major changes in senior command between the start of operations and August of 1996. The former Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Airborne troops, Colonel-General Achalov also claims that there was “too much [flag-level] leadership” on the scene. (Other sources say there were as many as 100 general officers on the operational scene. If true, that would work out to about 1 general officer per every 3,000 to 4,000 Russian soldiers in Chechnya.) Achalov goes on to explain that the presence of so many general officers was a problem because “they confused one another” and “lied to put themselves in the best light.”

Lesson 5: Contrary to initial expectations, operations in Chechnya were neither of short-duration nor low cost. At the outset of the operation, then Defense Minister Pavel Grachev publicly boasted that he could “settle” Grozny in just 2 hours with one parachute regiment and subdue all of Chechnya in 72 hours. He was later proven wrong by his own admission. Instead, it took two months to subdue Grozny the first time only to lose it to a second rebel counterattack in August of 1996. Operations were also far from low cost. The first Russian assault column to enter Grozny, for example, lost 105 of 120 tanks and armored personnel carriers The Russians lost about 70% of the 200 tanks committed to the New Year’s Eve 1994 assault on Grozny. Overall, Russian sources estimate that the Russian Army lost about 18% (400 vehicles) out of its total armored vehicle force of 2,221 over the course of the campaign. Russians casualties were also high -- perhaps constituting as much as 12.5% of their total entering force in Chechnya through March of 1995 -- six month before the second battle for Grozny where Russian casualties were “appalling.” Civilian losses were also high. Then Russian National Security Advisor, Alexander Lebed, estimated that 80,000 civilians were killed in the fighting in Chechnya and another 240,000 wounded through September 1996.

Lesson 6: When Russian security operations began achieving results, the Chechens started attacking targets within Russia. By May 1995, Russian security forces controlled major Chechen cities and had begun extending operations into rural villages and the Chechen cause was looking bleak. Therefore a 100-man Chechen raiding party seized hostages in the Russian town of Budyonnovsk in June 1995. After Russian security forces botched a hostage rescue attempt, the Chechens escaped with a major propaganda victory. The Budyonnovsk operation was repeated in January 1996 when Chechen President Dudaev’s son-in-law seized a hospital and maternity home in the town of Kizlar. Events in Kizlar played out as they had in 7 months before in Budyonnovsk: an unsuccessful rescue attempt by Russian security forces, large numbers of Russian civilian casualties, escaping terrorists, and a major Chechen propaganda victory.

Lesson 7: It was difficult to unite police and military units into a single, cohesive force. Efforts to combine disparate Ministry of Interior (MVD) Internal Troops with regular Army units encountered problems at several levels. First, MVD troops were not designed, equipped, or organized for large-scale combat operations nor did they regularly train with units from the Armed Forces. There was also considerable antagonism between the Army and MVD forces, with the military regarding MVD troops as incompetent and unreliable.

Lesson 8: Distinct advantage accrues to the side with less concern for the safety of the civilian population. Initially, Russian security forces obeyed orders issued at the outset of operations to minimize civilian casualties. Chechen fighters took military advantage of this Russian reticence about producing civilian casualties. There were numerous instances of Chechen civilians stopping truck convoys, puncturing fuel tanks and tires, and even setting vehicles on fire in the early days of the conflict without provoking a violent response from Russian security forces. Lacking non-lethal crowd-control equipment and apparently confused by inappropriate rules of engagement, Russian troops stood by and took no action. Chechen commanders sometimes also deployed guns close to schools or in the courtyards of apartment buildings to discourage Russian attacks. This was a relatively painless exercise for Chechen commanders since most of the ethnic Chechens had already fled the cities to stay with relatives in the countryside; the residue therefore was mostly ethnic Russians.

Lesson 9: Concern about civilian casualties and property destruction declined as casualties among security forces rose. Early Russian concerns about harming civilians and destroying property declined over time as troops became increasingly frustrated trying to distinguish enemy fighters from similarly attired non-combatants and as their own losses mounted. Indeed over time, there were increasing reports of “rampaging” Russian soldiers engaged in looting, arson, indiscriminate arrests, torture, and summary executions of civilians. Initial Russian use of heavy weapons in cities was also very restrained. This self-imposed restraint eventually dissolved; e.g., 4,000 artillery detonations per hour were counted at one point in Grozny. (By way of comparison, Serbian shelling of Sarajevo only reached 3,500 artillery detonations per day.)

Lesson 10: Chechen forces received extensive outside assistance. The Russians claim that the Chechens got as many as 5,000 volunteers from 14 different countries, some with combat experience elsewhere in the Caucasus or Afghanistan. In the two years prior to the Russian incursion, Chechen forces amassed a significant inventory, including: (1) 35 tanks, (2) 40 armored infantry vehicles, (3) 109 artillery pieces, GRAD multiple rocket launchers, and mortars, (4) 200 air defense weapons, and (5) vast quantities of small arms and man-portable anti-tank weapons. According to the Russian military, up to 80% of these weapons were unintentionally provided by the Russians themselves when the Chechens seized them from unprotected military warehouses and largely abandoned Russian military bases in the region. The Chechens supplemented these seizures through purchases from corrupt Russian military officers and arms dealers. After the invasion, Russian soldiers remarkably continued to supply Chechen forces with consumables either out of greed or carelessness. On one occasion, drunken Russian troops sold a tank and an armored combat vehicle to Chechen separatists for $6,000. On another occasion, Russian troops unloaded (and apparently left behind) boxes of ammunition from armored infantry vehicles to make more room for looted household articles.

B. Operational Lessons:

Lesson 11: Having well-developed military doctrine for urban warfare is not enough in and of itself. The Soviet military had considerable post-World War II experience operating in cities: Berlin (1953), Budapest (1956), Prague (1968), and Kabul (1979). The Russian military also inherited an extensive body of formal urban warfare doctrine from its Soviet predecessor. Despite this sound theoretical grounding in urban doctrine, “no one ever taught anyone anything” claims Colonel General Achalov (the former Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Airborne Troops) when assessing the “blunders” in Chechnya.

Lesson 12: Situation-oriented training would have improved Russian military effectiveness. Russian tactical training standards for squads, platoons, and companies mandate a block of 151 hours of total instruction, of which only 5-6 hours were suppose to go to urban warfare. Given overall reductions in Russian training , it is unlikely that most troops ever received those meager 5-6 hours of instruction. Nor were there any mockup training ranges of the city or individual blocks, as prescribed by Russian military doctrine and World War II Soviet Army practice. Instead, Russian troops had to rely on sources like the instructional pamphlet prepared by the Main Combat Training Directorate of the Ground Forces for those fighting in Chechnya which was printed in such limited numbers (because of lack of funds) that soldiers had to share them and pass them along on an ad hoc individual-to-individual basis. The situation is probably best summed up by Colonel A. Kostyuchenko of the Ground Troops Main Combat Training Directorate: “it so happened that for our part the tactics and methods of conducting combat operations in a city found no place in combat training programs.”

Lesson 13: Inadequate training in even the most basic maneuver and combat skills inhibited Russian operations. Poor Russian combat performance can be traced, in large measure, to an overall lack of training in fundamental military skills. The Army conducted no division level exercises in the two years prior to the Chechnya campaign. In that same period. regimental, battalion, and company exercises were also reduced by over 75%. There were also no joint exercises between MVD Troops and the Russian Army. Even individual skill training was down with the consequence that some half-trained units refused combat or their commanders held them out. Operational deficiencies, due to training short-falls, were not just confined to ground force units. Russian accounts of Air Force operations in Chechnya also reveal that pilots were not psychologically prepared for combat, had “squandered their skills in employing their weapons”, and had problems flying in adverse weather because of reduced peace-time training. Such readiness concerns also led 11 Russian generals to tell the Russian Duma that Russian forces were not prepared for such operations.

Lesson 14: Urban combat is an extremely manpower intensive and produces significant attrition of men and materiel among the attackers. The Russians discovered that a 5:1 manpower advantage (consisting mostly of infantry) was sometimes not enough since they had to guard every building they took. Attrition rates for both men and material were also high. For example, Russian military officials, known for understating losses, admitted that 200 soldiers died and another 800 were wounded in about 3 days of fighting during the second battle for Grozny in August of 1996. These causality figures are in line with earlier Ukrainian estimates that Russian security forces lost 600 dead and 300 POWs in the December 31, 1994 attack on Grozny. Materiel losses were also extreme; e.g., element of the 131 “Maikop” Motorized Rifle Brigade lost 17 of 20 armored vehicles in just one day of fighting near the Presidential Palace during the first battle of Grozny.

Lesson 15: Overwhelming firepower can make up for organizational and tactical deficiencies in the short-run if one is willing to disregard collateral damage. When all else failed, the Russians fell back upon their least inventive option -- overwhelming firepower -- to take Grozny. Use of massed artillery and air-delivered ordnance, while rather heavy-handed, allowed Russian security forces to gain control of Grozny after two months of fighting.

Lesson 16: The sudden requirement to deploy to Chechnya, coupled with the unique supply problems posed by the Chechen operating environment, overwhelmed the already fragile Russian military logistics system. The Russian Office of the Inspector General concluded that the Ministry of Defense’s efforts to carryout a partial mobilization of the transportation system to support Russian security forces in Chechnya was “an outright failure.” This was hardly a surprising finding since Colonel- General V. Semenov of the military council of the ground forces had sought to have the entire campaign postponed before it commenced on the grounds that military equipment was in a sorry state, more than a third of the Army’s helicopters could not fly, and emergency supplies had already been partially consumed. These deficiencies in the logistics system translated into some soldiers entering Grozny without weapons or ammunition for machine-guns on armored vehicles. Russian Army supply officers were also unprepared for the abnormally high demands for hand grenades, smoke grenades, demolition charges, and disposable, one-shot anti- tank weapons generated by fighting in cities. Similarly, Air Force units entered the conflict with only 50% of the prescribed norms for fuel, ammunition, spare parts, and food. The military logistics system also failed to supply enough clothing for troops going into the field. Even the graves registration and burial system broke down. Mistakes were so common that parents and wives had to travel to Chechnya to identify their loved ones from a pile of bodies “stacked like cordwood.” Parents or wives were also sometimes forced to pay for the burials as well since many military regions lacked the money to do the job as required by regulation. These inherent, structural limitations of the Russian military logistics system were exacerbated by the difficulties of operating in Chechnya. Poor roads limited ground transport and military supply convoys were subject to ambush as well as to delay by crowds of unarmed Chechen civilians blocking roads. Poor weather also restricted shipments by air.

Lesson 17: A lack of high-quality intelligence made operations more difficult and dangerous for Russian security forces. During the pre-invasion planning phase, senior Russian officers were forced to rely upon 1:50,000 and 1:100,000 scale maps because they lacked better-suited 1:25,000 or 1:12,500 scale maps. There were also little current intelligence from aerial or satellite intelligence because the satellites had been turned off to save money and few aerial reconnaissance missions had yet been conducted. Lower-level commanders fared even worse. Many received neither maps nor photographs while others received maps in published in 1984. Eventually, the Russian Army’s cartographic service had to prepare a new set of maps from aerial photographs taken during the course of the fighting. The lack of adequate maps made it more difficult for Russian forces to coordinate their actions or to surround and fully cut off Grozny.

Pre-invasion intelligence assessments of Chechen military capabilities were apparently woefully inaccurate as both senior and troop-level commanders were shocked by the degree and intensity of Chechen resistance in Grozny. After the initial assault on Grozny, some Russian POWs did not even know where they were while others asked reporters “Can you please tell me who is fighting whom?” Despite these early intelligence failures, little was done to rectify the situation beyond initiating more aerial surveillance. As late as March of 1996, the Russian Minister of the Interior was still complaining that poor reconnaissance and intelligence had allowed Chechen military forces to enter Grozny again without warning. Interior Minister Kulikov went on to say that the “outrageous negligence” of local authorities had resulted in “heavy fighting and losses.” Kulikov’s blistering attack produced few results since Chechen military forces recaptured Grozny in August of 1996, again with no intelligence warning.

Lesson 18: The spatial qualities and perspective of urban and conventional warfare are very different. Urban warfare is more “vertical” in that operations routinely reach up into buildings and down into sewers. The “vertical” character of fighting in an urban setting worked both for and against Russian troops. On the positive side, Russian troops were able to attack buildings from the top downward thereby achieving surprise and allowing them to by-pass strong, ground-level defenses. On the negative side, “the whole city [was] armed with a grenade launcher in every third floor window.” Also snipers operated regularly from roof-tops, deep within upper-floor apartments which made them difficult to spot, and from basements. Chechens operating in this manner posed a serious problem since the guns on many Russian armored vehicles lacked sufficient elevation and/or depression to deal with these threats. Also, as we shall discuss in later lessons, few Russian armored vehicles were capable of resisting top attacks.

Lesson 19: Composite units were generally unsatisfactory. At the start of campaign, few Russian units (even elite units like the Kantemirovskaya and Tamanskaya Divisions) were up to authorized strength. Battalions were often manned at only 55% or less. Consequently, many units were “fleshed out” with last minute additional personnel and equipment. According to one report, up to 60% of the tanks and armored vehicle crews were formed on the way to the initial offensive. Similarly, the Chief of Staff of the 805th Guards Artillery Regiment complained that his battalions only received a small percentage of the trained crews necessary to fire its weapons. Many of the last-minute additions to the ranks of the 805th Guards Artillery Regiment, including officers, had to learn their trade “on the fly.” In some cases, soldiers did not even know the last names of their comrades before entering battle. Some military districts also resorted to creating ad hoc regiments of “volunteers” and sending them to Chechnya. The Volga and Transbaikal Military Districts, for example, packaged genuine volunteers with conscripts into new, ad hoc regiments and sent them to Chechnya under armed guard. These ad hoc regiments generally exhibited poor unit cohesiveness, were difficult to command, and sometimes lacked essential equipment. In the opinion of Deputy Minister of Defense Colonel-General Boris Gromov (hero of Afghanistan), “the considerable forces that were mustered piecemeal across Russian were simply unable to collaborate without training.”

Lesson 20: Fratricide was a serious and continuing problem throughout the campaign in Chechnya because it was difficult to tell friend from foe, especially in cities. Fratricide occurred frequently, sometimes on a large-scale among Russian forces in Chechnya because, in the words of one Russian commander, it is “unbelievably difficult” to differentiate friend from foe. In one particularly egregious case, and MVD regiment fought a six-hour battle with an Army regiment. Part of the problem stemmed from both sides using equipment (tanks, APC, IFVs, etc.) of the same origin. Chechen forces, for example, wore Russian pattern camouflage coveralls and other items of military dress obtained from former Soviet Army stores in Chechnya. Usually this was not a deliberate attempt to disguise Chechen fighters as Russians, although there were instances of Chechens using this ruse to carryout operations to discredit Russian soldiers with the local populous. Wide-scale use of non-standard uniforms within Russian forces made combat identification even tougher, especially with elite troops who affected a “Rambo” look. Russian troops were also allowed to employ civilian clothing to make up for the inability of the supply system to provide standard issue or to overcome poor military quality control standards. Fratricide was also caused by poor coordination between different branches of the security forces. Although the Ground Forces made up the majority of the troops at the beginning of the campaign, federal forces also included MVD troops, Naval Infantry, and Spetsnaz reconnaissance troops under the control of the military intelligence branch (GRU). Miscommunications between ground forces and tactical air support crews also led to numerous cases of fratricide.

Lesson 21: Standard Russian military unit configurations were inappropriate for urban combat. The nature of urban warfare led the Russians to employ a novel configuration of assault detachments consisting of infantry reinforced with heavier fire support and combat engineer assets than found in standard formations. The recommended configuration for such a group was: (1) 3 motorized rifle platoons, (2) 1 tank company, (3) 1 flame-thrower (Shmel) platoon with 9 launcher teams, (4) 2 Shilka or Tunguska air defense guns, (5) 1 UR-77 line-charge minefield breaching vehicle, (6) 1 combat engineer squad, (7) 1 medical team, and (8) one technical support squad.

Lesson 22: Foregoing peacetime maintenance is a false economy. The Russian Army in Chechnya suffered the consequences of poor peacetime maintenance of armored vehicles and automotive equipment. On the road march into Grozny, for instance, two out of every ten tanks fell out of formation due to mechanical problems. In another case, the Russians were only able to find one regiment’s worth of functioning armored vehicles from an entire division’s inventory.

Lesson 23: The potential of special forces for urban operations was never realized in Chechnya. Both foreign and Russian military observers agree that special forces, properly used, would have been of great value in Grozny. Nevertheless, this potential was never realized in Chechnya. For one thing, units like the “Alpha Team” and the “Vympel” team were never sent, despite the previous success of the Alpha Team in capturing the Afghan Presidential Palace in Kabul with “little blood.” Spetsnaz troops, which were deployed, would have been excellent in reconnaissance and covert operations but were, instead, wasted spearheading the assault column into Grozny on New Year’s eve because conventional force commanders did not know how to exploit Spetnaz capabilities properly. Even when Spetnaz were committed in their traditional reconnaissance role, serious problems developed. Teams were frequently inserted without adequate means to extract them, usually due to poor of coordination or cooperation with helicopter units. Teams also often lacked proper radios and other essential equipment.

Lesson 24: The nature of cities tends to channel combat operations along narrow lanes of activity. Combat conditions in Grozny were characterized by narrow fields of view, limited fields of fire, and constricted avenues of approach. This meant that operations tended to be channeled along certain pre-ordained lines of march -- approaches which were well-known and heavily defended by Chechen fighters.

Lesson 25: Psychological operations, especially disinformation, was central to the strategies of both the Chechens and the Russians. Both the Russians and the Chechens realized from the beginning that domestic and foreign perceptions of the war were almost as important as the actual situation on the ground. Thus, both sides tried to shape the news media’s coverage of the war. For the Russians, this meant a well orchestrated campaign of withholding information and spreading deliberate disinformation. This campaign ran from military officers in the field through government-controlled news services up to senior government officials. The Russians: (1) spread false information about the timing and nature of military operations, (2) used “black” operations to mask Russian involvement, (3) lied about the type of weaponry used against targets in civilian areas, and (4) underreported the extent of their own military losses. The Russians also sought to shape perceptions by hindering the activity of news correspondents in the war zone. Other Russian psychological operations included: (1) dropping leaflets from aircraft and employing loudspeakers to appeal to the citizens of Grozny to lay down their arms and not provoke Russian forces, (2) jamming Chechen radio broadcasts and destroying the local television station, and (3) conducting useless talks to gain time and to intimidate the Chechens. Likewise, the Chechens too used disinformation. Additionally, they staged major news/propaganda events like the raids on the Russian towns of Budyonnovsk and Kizlar to embarrass Russian security forces. There were also reports of Chechens, dressed in Russian uniforms, carrying out acts to discredit Russian forces with the civil population.

Lesson 26: Strategic bombing can be used in urban operations to shape the battlefield, especially during the early phases. The Russians employed MiG-31 (Foxhound), Su-27 (Flanker), Su-25 (Frogfoot), Su-17 (Fitter), and Su-24 (Fencer) short-range bombers to strike 873 Chechen targets, including: (1) bridges, (2) petroleum facilities, (3) ammunition dumps, (4) road networks, (5) fortified areas, (6) military equipment repair facilities, (7) command and control facilities, and (8) enemy air fields. The Russians also employed Tu-22M3 (Backfire) long-range bombers to close approach and escape routes around the cities of Gudermes, Shali, and Argun.

Lesson 27: The Russian Air Defense Force “closed” Chechen airspace even before Russian troops entered Chechnya. The Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Defense Forces claims that his commanded was ordered as early as August of 1994 (5 months prior to Russian security forces entering Chechnya) to “close” Chechen air space to ensure that further mercenaries, weapons, or ammunition were not airlifted into Chechnya.. This meant that opposition forces would be limited to on-hand equipment if the air blockaded remained effective.

C. Tactical Lessons:

Lesson 28: Rigorous communications security is essential, even against relatively primitive enemies. Apparently much of Russian tactical radio traffic was broadcast in the clear. This allowed the Chechens to enter the Russian tactical air control radio net in order to redirect Russian air assets against their own troops. At other times, Russian forward air controllers broadcast their own coordinates in the clear only to have Chechen artillery fire directed against them shortly thereafter.

Lesson 29: Night fighting was the single most difficult operation in Chechnya for infantry forces according to Russian after-action assessments. This was due both to a shortage of night vision equipment as well as inadequate training. As a result, some units used vehicle headlights and other visible light sources to conduct night operations -- a tactic explicitly forbidden in army directives. Such use of tank headlights and other vehicle-mounted searchlights was initially rationalized as a means to shock Chechen forces. Instead, it usually just made Russian forces more vulnerable to Chechen counter-fire.

Lesson 30: Tanks and armored personnel carriers cannot operate in cities without extensive dismounted infantry support. The Chechens fielded anti-tank hunter- killer teams, equipped with “massive amounts of antitank weapons”, which keyed upon the engine noise from Russian armored vehicles. Once these hunter-killer teams had converged upon Russian armor, they would volley fire RPG-7 and RPG-18 anti-tank missiles from above, behind, and the sides. Russian armed vehicles had trouble dealing with these forces for a variety of reasons; e.g., poor visibility from the vehicles and insufficient elevation/depression of on-board armament. As documented elsewhere in this paper, armor columns not accompanied by dismounted infantry experienced staggering losses (e.g., as much as a 70% tank loss rate in the initial assault on Grozny). As one Russian airborne commander noted after the battle, “without infantry cover, it was really senseless to bring tanks into the city.”

Lesson 31: Forces operating in cities need special equipment not usually found in Russian tables of organization and equipment. The Russians came to believe that each soldier needed a rope with a grappling hook for entering buildings. Additionally, light-weight ladders were found to be invaluable for assaulting infantry.

Lesson 32: Firing tracer ammunition in cities makes the user a target for snipers. Russian forces eventually stopped using tracer ammunition in night fighting since it directed enemy snipers back to the source of the fire. Later, Army policy in Chechnya banned using tracer ammunition altogether either at night or during the day because of the severity of the sniper problem.

Lesson 33: Trained snipers were essential, but in short supply. The Russian Army, although well prepared on paper for fighting a sniper engagement, proved totally unready for the quantitative and qualitative demands of sniper operations in Chechnya. Russian snipers were both under equipped and poorly trained for the conditions they faced in Chechnya. Besides the traditional technique of firing from roof tops, the Chechens used unexpected tactics in their own sniper operations. Chechen snipers fired from well within the rooms of buildings, not from the window ledges as the Russians counter-sniper teams expected. Consequently, Russian sniper operations were a good bit less effective than anticipated.

Lesson 34: Obscurants are especially useful when fighting in cities. Russian forces made extensive use of smoke and white phosphorus to screen the movement of forces during city fighting. Indeed, every fourth or fifth Russian artillery or mortar round was either smoke or white phosphorus. (The Russians claim that white phosphorus offers the added befit of being toxic, readily penetrated Chechen protective masks, and was not banned by treaty.) They also found tear gas very useful in Grozny.

Lesson 35: Armored combat engineering vehicles can perform important, specialized urban combat missions. The Russians found that armored combat engineering vehicles were indispenable for removing obstacles (a serious impediment to urban movement) and for mine clearing. The Russians employed the IMR which is a multi-role engineer vehicle fitted to tank chassis. It has a bulldozer plow on the front as well as traversing crane in place of the turret. This crane has a bucket or cargo boom at the end depending upon the job at hand. (There are two versions of this vehicle: (1) the IMR built upon a T-55 chassis and the IMR-2 based on the T-72 chassis.) The Russians also extensively used the UR-77 which is a minefield breaching vehicle based on a modified 2S1 self-propelled howitzer chassis. This vehicle has a rocket propelled line charge launcher mounted on the rear of the hull for explosive breaching of minefields. The Russian Army recommended that every assault group include 2 IMRs and 1 UR-77.

Lesson 36: Recovering damaged armored vehicles is especially difficult in cities. The Russians discovered that ruble/debris, narrow streets, sniper fire, and the shortcomings of recovery vehicles themselves made armored vehicle recovery extremely difficult and perilous.

Lesson 37: Hit-and-run ambush attacks by small groups were the favorite tactic of the Chechens. As a rule, the Chechens would operate in groups of 15-20 fighters which, in turn, would subdivide into small groups of 3-4 people for combat missions. Each one of these small groups would generally include a sniper, a grenade launcher operator, and at least one machine-gun operator. These units, employing anti-tank weapons and Molotov cocktails, then lay in wait to ambush Russian forces. Ambushes sometimes involved heavier weapons like artillery. In this case, the Chechens would use one or two artillery pieces, fire a few rounds, and then flee. The Chechens used ambush tactics against helicopters as well.

Lesson 38: Direct-fire artillery can be a valuable tool in urban combat provided one does not care about collateral damage. Upon entering Grozny, the Russians found that it difficult to employ artillery in an indirect mode because the presence of buildings and lack of fire-direction specialists. They also found that technical deficiencies in the main guns of most Russian armored vehicles made them incapable of dealing with entrenched snipers and RPG teams on the upper floors of buildings. Thus, the Russians employed artillery, multiple rocket launchers, and the 82mm Vasilek automatic mortar as direct fire weapons, usually at ranges of 150 to 200 meters.

Lesson 39: A failure of small unit leadership, especially at the NCO level, was a primary cause of Russian tactical failures in Grozny. The Russians have recognized that urban warfare often devolves into actions of small groups. Unfortunately, the traditional Russian lack of a professional NCO corps, coupled with a shortfall of 12,000 platoon leaders on the eve of the campaign in Chechnya, crippled its small unit operations.

Lesson 40: Tracked armored vehicles are preferable to wheeled armored vehicles in urban warfare. The Russians discovered urban combat generated vast amounts of rubble -- debris which wheeled vehicles had trouble traversing. Tracked vehicles, by contrast, could readily negotiate urban ruble.

D. Technical Lessons:

Lesson 41: Armored vehicles require more protection when operating in cities and that protection needs to be distributed differently than for conventional battlefield operations. Russian armor arrays, optimized across the frontal arc for NATO central front engagements, provided inadequate protection in the urban conditions of Chechnya. (The vulnerability of Russian tanks in Chechnya is illustrated by a caustic joke making the rounds in Moscow after the war: “Tell me young soldier, what did you learn in Chechnya?” asks an old man. “Well, grandpa, I learned that tank turrets can fly ten meters.”) Problems with the T-72 in Grozny appear to have centered upon catastrophic ammunition fires and inadequate protection against top attacks from shaped charges. Survivability of the T-80 was also criticized by the Russian Minister of Defense, especially its vulnerability to top attacks by shaped charges. Diagrams of Russian armored vehicles that appear in public Russian assessments show that the majority of lethal hits against tanks and infantry fighting vehicles occurred on their upper surfaces, especially through the turret roofs and engine decks as well as from the rear. Colonel General Sergei Mayev, Deputy Commander of the Ground Forces for Armaments, estimates that 98% of tanks destroyed in urban operations were hit in places where the design did not permit the installation of reactive armor. These same Russian assessments also emphasize that armored vehicles in Grozny were subjected to extensive, multiple attacks. Every armored vehicle had to deal with 6-7 attacks by anti-tank systems, mostly RPGs. These vulnerabilities should not have surprised senior Ministry of Defense officials since Russian tank designers say they consciously shifted the bulk of armor protection to the frontal arc to deal with (what at the time) was expected to be the greatest threat to tanks -- NATO tanks and anti-tank weapons firing against advancing Russian armor columns. Severe weigh limitations, imposed by the Ministry of Defense, forced designers to make this tradeoff.

Lesson 42: Rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) can be used against helicopters. There is at least one recorded instance of the Chechens using an RPG to down a Russian helicopter.

Lesson 43: Air defense guns are valuable for suppressing ground targets. The Russians found that the ZSU-23-4 Shilka and the 2S6 Tunguska air defense guns were very usefully against multi-story buildings because their guns had sufficient elevation to hit targets in the upper stories. Air defense weapons worked so well in this ground suppression role that Russian authorities eventually recommended that urban assault formations routinely include Shilkas and Tunguskas.

Lesson 44: Heavy machine-guns still offer good defense against close air attack, especially from helicopters. Improvised Chechen tactical air defenses, consisting of truck-mounted 23mm cannons and 12.7mm heavy machine-guns mounted on 4X4 utility vehicles damaged about 30 helicopters and destroyed one other. Other reports indicate that Chechen ZSU-23-4s also destroyed at least one, and possibly two, Russian SU-25 ground-attack fighter.

Lesson 45: Both sides employed commercial off-the-shelf technologies for military purposes. As already mentioned, Russian soldiers were allowed to substitute civilian clothing for inadequate, missing, or cumbersome military counterparts. This proved a problem since it made identifying friend from foe more difficult. Chechen experience was more positive. They constructed ad hoc air defense systems by mating Zu-23-4 23mm air defense cannons on civilian KAMAZ trucks and by putting 12.7mm heavy machine-guns on Toyota Land Cruisers, Jeeps, and the Russian civilian UAZ-469. Similarly, the Chechens put mortars on civilian-type trucks to improve their tactical mobility and lessen their vulnerability to Russian counter-battery fire. Chechen forces also employed Western-made, civilian radios for tactical communication during the second battle of Grozny. Finally, the Chechens turned industrial chemicals into home-made chemical weapons. (See Lesson 48 for details.)

Lesson 46: Non-lethal technologies were seldom used. There are no reports of Russian forces using any non-lethal technologies, except tear gas which they found quite useful. It is not clear whether the absence of non-lethal technologies was the result of conscious Russian tactical decisions or because their inventory simply did not offer them this option. Whatever the explanation, the lack of non-lethal systems put Russian convoy crews at a disadvantage when confronted by unarmed civilians blocking roads.

Lesson 47: Tactical communication proved very difficult in Grozny. Part of the problem stemmed from design practices, reflecting Russian Army preference to fight from within armored infantry vehicles, that led to infantry tactical communications being inside or dependent upon the BMP or BTR infantry fighting vehicles. Once the infantry dismounted its vehicle, radios became hard to reach and communication cumbersome. City buildings also disrupted the signals of Russian military radios. Their short-term, tactical solution to this problem was to establish ground-based and aircraft-based relay stations. Russian commentators, however, noted that ultimately the military will have to acquire radio equipment better suited for urban operations, like mobile cellular telephone networks. MVD units, equipped more like police forces, tended to have a much wider selection of small tactical radios, including individual radios, which could operate in cities. They, however, had difficulty communicating from the small unit level to higher headquarters or with the military services.

Lesson 48: Indigenous forces can improvise crude chemical weapons. Chechen forces had no access to military chemical weapons so they improvised their own by using on-hand supplies of industrial chemicals. That is, they built chemical mines using chlorine gas that were detonated remotely by radio signal.

Lesson 49: The cabs of supply trucks must be armored. As in Afghanistan, the Russian Army in Chechnya soon discovered that is was essential to armor the cabs of trucks, even those convoyed. Normal, unarmored supply columns proved to be especially lucrative targets for snipers and roving bands of Chechen fighters. In addition, trucks were very vulnerable to land mines, both anti-personnel and anti-tank models; about 600 trucks and unarmored vehicles were destroyed over the course of the campaign. High casualties resulted from the absence of mine protection on standard support vehicles. Although the Russian Army had developed armored versions of the standard Ural 5-ton truck for convoys in Afghanistan, none were manufactured in quantity nor deployed in the Chechen theater. The Russian Army is now looking at a variety of armor packages for logistics vehicles for contingency operations.

Lesson 50: “Bunker busting” weapons are invaluable for urban warfare. The one weapons that was almost universally acclaimed in Chechnya was the RPO Shmel. (A measure of its importance is that 512 Shmel gunners received decorations for their service in Chechnya. ) Although officially called a flamethower, it more closely resembles a rocket launcher in Western armies. Unofficially, it is affectionately called “pocket artillery” by Russian troops. Shmel is a single-shot, disposable weapon resembling a large LAW or AT-4 rocket launcher. The rocket grenade is equipped with a thermobaric incendiary mixture which can also be described as a fuel air explosive. It is intended primarily to attack enemy troops in confined spaces such as bunkers or inside rooms. It also has secondary use against lightly armored vehicles. In Grozny, it was widely used for attacking Chechens entrenched in buildings, especially for rooting out snipers.

Lesson 51: Some Russian equipment was modified while in the field to counter enemy tactics and equipment. The Russians resurrected the concept of add-on armor from Afghanistan to addressed problems that surfaced in Grozny. This led to the development of reshetka armor which resembles a set of venetian blinds fabricated out of steel bars. It apparently works on the principle the majority of RPGs striking the reshetka screens will become trapped between the bars or disintegrate without the fuses detonating their shaped charge warheads. Reshetka screens were first displayed in trials at the Kubinka armored test range at a hastily called conference in January-February 1995 to examine the lessons Chechen campaign to date. These reshetka screens were then deployed to Chechnya in February 1995. Additionally, they outfitted some tanks and armored personnel carriers with cages made from wire mesh that stood about 25-30 centimeters away from the hull armor. These wire mesh cages were intended to defeat both RPGs as well as Molotov cocktails. As will be discussed in Lesson 52, the Russians also mounted 240mm rockets on helicopters for the first time in Chechnya as a field expedient to get sufficient stand-off range as protection against tactical air defenses.

Lesson 52: Helicopters need stand-off weapons. Wide-spread Chechen use of 23mm cannons and 12.7 heavy machine-guns encouraged Russian helicopter gunships to employ they weapons at ranges of 3,000 meters or more. Helicopter crews, repeating tactics from Afghanistan, found that anti-tank guided missiles were very effective for attacking hardened targets with precision. The preferred type was the radio-command guided Shtrum (AT-6 Spiral). The longer ranged ATGMs such as Shtrum gave the helicopter crew sufficient stand-off range to foil Chechen air defense guns. (After Afghanistan, the Russians also developed a high explosive warhead using thermobaric principles for helicopter-fired ATGMs, but there were no reports of such weapons being used in Chechnya.) Smaller caliber rockets like the 57mm S-5 series and the 80mm S-8 series, although effective, lacked sufficient range to put them outside the reach of Chechen tactical air defenses. Consequently, Russian crews experimented with using the 240mm S-24 rocket for attacking targets protected by air defenses. This seems to have been a field expedient since the Russians had never before attempted to integrate S-24s with helicopters for fear that the rocket plume might stall the helicopter’s engine when the helicopter moved forward.

Lesson 53: Helicopters are not suited for urban combat. This verdict was delivered by none other than the Commander of Russian Army Aviation, Colonel General Vitaliy Pavlov. This verdict is surprising since Russian military doctrine specifies that the preferred method of capturing a building is from the top-down, with troops being helicoptered into position. That part of Russian doctrine notwithstanding, Colonel General Pavlov claims that Russian doctrine also specifies that helicopters are too vulnerable to roof-top snipers and ambushes an urban setting.

Lesson 54: The Russian Air Force made extensive use of precision-guided weapons when not hampered by bad weather. The Russians made large-scale use of laser-guided bombs and missiles fired from the Su-24. These weapons were able to destroy key bridges and communications facilities with greater precision than previously possible. Russian use of precision-guide munitions however was severely limited by the frequent appearance of rain and fog over the battlefield, especially during the initial march to Grozny when “weather conditions were appalling and the use of precision weaponry was impossible.”

Lesson 55: Inadequate on-board navigation systems and poor radar limited the use of helicopters in adverse weather and at night. Technical shortcomings of on- board radar and navigation forced the Russians to employ MI-24 helicopters mostly during the day and fair weather when visibility exceeded 1.5 kilometers and pilots could get a clear look at their targets. According to Colonel General Pavlov, Commander of Russian Army Aviation, these rules meant that 95% of days in February 1995 were listed as “non-flying days.”

Lesson 56: The Russians did not use precision-guided, artillery-fired munitions despite having such rounds in their inventory. The Russians had the necessary equipment to carry out precise, surgical artillery strikes with weapons like the laser-guided Krasnapol and Santimetr artillery rounds. The guided Smelchak mortar round was also available. None were used in Chechnya. International Defense Digest, quoting unnamed sources in the Russian “higher command”, claims that senior commanders considered highly advanced munitions too expensive “to be wasted” in Chechnya. They may have also been deemed unnecessary by tactical commanders who got much of their fire support from direct fire artillery working close to the targets (e.g., 150-200 meters). At such close range, accuracy could be achieved without resorting to “expensive” precision-guided artillery munitions.

Lesson 57: Remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs) saw extensive service in Chechnya. The Chechen war saw the first Russian use of several small tactical unmanned aerial vehicles. One of these was the Sterkh RPV which has two modular payloads: (1) a reconnaissance package with a daylight, stabilized TV camera with a real- time transmission system and (2) an electronic warfare jamming package. The Sterkh’s chief short-fall is its limited durability, about 5-10 landings. The Russians also used the sensor-carrrying Shmel RPV as well which could operate for up to 2 hours out to a range of 60 kilometers. Apparently, the RPVs were used primarily by Russian Airborne forces who judged them extremely successful, particularly as a way of same the lives of reconnaissance teams.

[MKSheppard]

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6453/chechnya.html
Excellently hyperlinked site.....enjoy....

[Sea Skimmer]

Excellent summery, though the wording suggest it's fairly old and predates the second, and ongoing, war in Chechnya. Doesn’t make it any less valid though.

It does seem though that in the second invasion the Russians did much better, though still not very well. They had the right idea with Grozny though, don’t bother fighting in the narrow streets or assaulting the apartment blocks. Just knock them down with Fencers and 240mm mortar fire.

[Vympel]

Honestly, the Russians kicked the Chechens arse the second time round- right now all the Chechens are managing to do is set off mines underneath convoys- open engagements always end with the Chechens getting mauled-and the confirmed reports of dead Chechen commanders have been steadily ramping up all year. Even Khattab is dead- killed by a KGB ahem I mean FSB operation

In terms of mines- even these may start to become a lot let useful- the Ruskies have introduced some sort of device to prematurely detonate command detonated mines ... this has resulted in a few rebel deaths already. Of course- the Russians are disclosing absolutely nothing about this device.

Peace would be preferable though but the entire area (Chechnya) is completely fucked up- and having Islamic fundamentalists/ bandits etc. doesn't help.

One thing that drove me crazy was Chechnya's characterization in the Sum of All Fears movie as 'another country'. Fucking retards- do some BASIC research before you go and call part of Russia another country!