The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan (Soviet (Russian) Study of War)

click here for more details, find new or used items	Our price £23.74 (£24.99) New from £19.50 Used from £19.57 Pages: 272 (Paperback) Editor: Lester W. Grau ISBN: 0714644137 Pub: Routledge Pub date: 1998-09-30 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 92569

Reader Reviews:

Grumpy Bear (0/2 people found this helpful)

A disappointing read. The vignettes are thin, lacking in detail and illustrated by poor diagrams. The commentary is honest but not incisive enough to be truly revealing. Also disappointing is a lack of focus on the enemy.

Lessons identified (10/10 people found this helpful)

If you have chanced upon this title through a deliberate search for a book about Soviet combat tactics in Afghanistan you should buy it. You will find it most useful if you are:

a. Studying counter insurgency at staff college (I'm guessing here, I've not been)
b. A tactical level commander, especially if you are about to go to Afghanistan
c. Professionally interested, with the possibility of 'b' happening in the future.

After a short introduction, the book contains 47 vignettes, each a few pages long and including a map. These vignettes are first person observations of a particular engagement between Soviet forces and the Mujahideen and cover everything from deliberate attack to ambush in the tactical march. Each vignette has a comment by the DS at the Frunze Academy History Department and the book's editor which explain what went right or wrong in each case. An understanding of tactics and doctrine is useful in order to get the most out of these vignettes.

If you are buying this as a history of the Soviet campaign in Afghanistan you will end up giving it 1 star. The short introduction provides a basic outline of the causes and a list style chronology of events. It does make some very interesting points about the reasons for Soviet failure. One of the main problems being that they had an operational doctrine and not a tactical one. I find this interesting as it is a key difference to the UK approach. Operational art is something that the UK is developing, but at the tactical level things are pretty sound. It is not therefore surprising to have heard UK commanders at the end of summer 2006 saying that 'the Taliban have been tactically beaten' while operationaly they are still a threat. Is this a key difference in Soviet and NATO campaigning? Does it make the two wars less comparable despite what the press says? I'll leave that to you.

In summary, I've given this four stars and not five because I felt that Frunze and Editor's comments although helpful, did not contain as much depth in their analysis as I would have liked. This is probably down to a lack of supporting information about each vignette and other limitations which the Editor himself makes plain in his introduction. Overall though 'excellent' and the Editor should be thanked for committing himself to this task, the lessons of which could yet save lives.

How war in Afghanistan was fought (8/8 people found this helpful)

This book covers different types of operations by Soviet forces in Afghanistan. It covers blocking & destroying guerilla forces, offensive in popolated and mountain areas, tactical air assaults, outpost security, convoy escort and ambushes. It gives soviet perspective with both soviet and authors comments. Excelent study of counter guerilla operations with lessons that aren't aplicable only to Soviets but to all nations.

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