By 1600 hours, the 5th MRC completed the destruction of the enemy in the eastern part of the village and established blocking positions against the access points from the neighboring green zone. The surviving enemy had fled into the green zone. At 1800 hours, I organized the defense of Spinakalacha and provided fire support to an Afghan infantry regiment which attacked north to seize the southern slope of Grakalacha.²⁴

Frunze Commentary: Analysis of the organization and conduct of combat in this advance in a village shows:

First, the totally successful march and concealed concentration of the battalion near Kandahar was possible due to the thorough and complete preparations for the march and follow-on combat.

Second, prior combat experience allowed the subunit leaders to correctly use initiative during combat in the village.

Third, the battalion commander’s actions merit attention, particularly when you consider how he coordinated actions and rapidly conducted his personal reconnaissance and arranged the necessary fire support to destroy the enemy and then decisively used their results to conduct the advance of his subunits.

Finally, the battalion commander’s interesting maneuver of his reconnaissance platoon’s supporting fire on the enemy from dominant terrain, his skillful use of snipers and portable flamethrowers, and the actions of his platoons’ three and five-men sections during the assault on the village are all worthy of study.

19. A motorized rifle battalion offensive at night in the mountains of the Andarab Canyon

by Major V. G. Tarasyuk²⁵

After the end of February 1988, my regiment returned through Kabul from the successful completion of Operation “Magistral’” (the opening of the road to Khost) to our base camp in Kunduz.²⁶ After we negotiated the Salang tunnel, the division commander ordered our regiment to halt in the Andarab Canyon. With his orders came the following important information: exactly 24 hours earlier, the mujahideen kidnapped the governor of Baghlan Province and his commander of the Ministry of Security Forces in Andarab Canyon.

Our regimental commander, LTC V. V. Telitsyn, received orders to move to the borders of a zone controlled by Afghan government forces, gain contact with the enemy, punish him with massed fires and create the conditions necessary to free the province leadership.

The regimental commander was able to muster two motorized rifle battalions, the reconnaissance company, and the SP artillery battalion (minus one battery) for this mission. In addition, two artillery batteries supported this force with illumination missions from positions along the Salang-Puli-Khumiri highway. Each motorized rifle battalion was down to two motorized rifle companies, the battalion reconnaissance platoon and the mortar battery (in reduced strength). In all, the regiment consisted of 40–45 BMPs, 25–30 howitzers, six vasilek (“cornflower”) automatic mortars, four 82mm podnos (“tray”) mortars and about 300 men.

The regimental commander decided to advance to the border of the Afghan controlled zone at night and drive to the foot of the mountain on BMPs with one MRB and the reconnaissance company. At the base of the mountains, the subunits would dismount and begin the ascent in three company-sized groups (two motorized rifle companies and the reconnaissance company). They would advance about a kilometer or a kilometer and a half to establish contact with the enemy and accomplish their mission.

Fire destruction during the approach, deployment and ascent would be provided by the regiment’s artillery battalion, the mortar batteries of the battalions, the two supporting artillery batteries and the BMP-2 automatic guns of the trail battalion.

The reconnaissance company moved out an hour before the motorized rifle battalion in an attempt to deceive the enemy and conducted a reconnaissance sweep along the opposite canyon wall.

The 1st MRB was ordered to move out, under the cover of artillery fire and the 2nd MRB, which would be firing over the heads of the advancing column as it broke into company columns. Then, the 1st MRB was to cross the dry river and deploy into a combat line at the base of the mountain. At this point, the 1st MRB would dismount the 1st and 3rd MRC and the reconnaissance company plus the recon platoon of the battalion. The battalion would form into two groups. The first group was the 1st MRC commanded by Captain A. V. Ribakov. The second group was the 3rd MRC plus the recon platoon. I was the battalion chief of staff and I commanded this second group. We were to climb the mountain, find the enemy and cut off his escape. The battalion bronegruppa would support us with BMP-2 30mm automatic gunfire into the gap between our two groups.

The 1st MRC dismounted group consisted of 36 people, one 12.7mm utes (cliff) machine gun, one 30mm AGS-17 automatic grenade launcher, and two 82mm podnos (tray) mortars plus small arms. My dismounted group comprised 49 people, two utes machine guns, one AGS-17 automatic grenade launcher, two podnos mortars plus small arms. The dismounted reconnaissance company had 38 men, two utes machine guns, one AGS-17 automatic grenade launcher and one podnos mortar plus small arms.

Intelligence reports told us that there were supposedly three guerrilla forces with a total of 170–200 men in this area.

We prepared for combat during 10 hours of daylight. The troops pulled vehicle maintenance and cleaned their weapons. There were essentially no material reserves to replenish since we had restocked our combat loads when we left Kabul and had not used them during the march.

The subunit commanders received their orders and formulated their own plans. Particular attention was paid to coordination. The way this was done is particularly instructive. The regimental commander took all commanders from platoon leader up on a personal daytime reconnaissance. This group moved to the reconnaissance site in two stages mounted on two BMPs. The majority of the commanders were hidden inside the BMPs and practically all were dressed as ordinary soldiers (without rank and commanders’ accoutrements). The officers had the chance to scrutinize their entire march route and coordinate their movement to the depth of the mission.

Map 19: Advance of a MRB in the mountains at night.

At 2100 hours on 25 February, the regiment moved out. At first, the movement and deployment of the 1st MRB went according to plan. Then, however, the ascent was delayed by an hour and 15 minutes. There were two reasons for the delay. First, a BTR-70 from the movement support detachment hit a mine. The driver was shellshocked and the regimental assistant engineer was wounded. This was a result of the imperfect reliability of our mine detectors when used in the mountains. Second, no one had reckoned on the intervening natural obstacle – the dry river bed. The bank of this river bed was impassable, it was practically sheer and was from one to three meters high. Therefore, we had to jockey our BMPs around and zigzag by some 50 to 100 meters to enter and exit from the stream bed. This also ate up the time.

The approach was done by platoons traveling by bounds. Each successive height was occupied by a platoon which would then cover the advance of the other platoon with his on-board weapons. The success of the advance was also supported by covering fire from the artillery group and supporting BMPs. The 1st MRC advanced up the mountain some 800 meters and the 3rd MRC with the recon platoon some 1,300 meters. The 1st MRC fulfilled its mission at 0130 hours while the 3rd MRC fulfilled its mission at 0330 on 26 February.

During the climb up the mountain, we found several abandoned defensive works and campfires with smoldering embers. We disarmed two explosive devices. However, the delay during our approach and deployment kept us from cutting off the enemy’s withdrawal. At the same time, the guerrilla forces did not succeed in getting out of the area completely since the other side of the canyon was controlled by Afghan government forces.