Exploring Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan: Les Grau's 'The Bear Went Over the Mountain'

Alan Boyd: Interesting read but this print in particular has several pages that seems to have been run through some OCR which yields weird mixed of bold and italicsand misspelt words plus the odd jumble of illegible letters, plus the worse offense is that page 81 is entirely missing. I know this is a printer error because I have the .PDF version of this book and page 81 is in the PDF.

Canada on May 13, 2022

Eduardo M Lopez: After the fateful Afghan War, Frunze Military Academy in USSR done these book about any kind of war actions, in order to study and learn from them. Lester W. Grau did a great work also, translating and editing the book. Great value for anyone interested about “Soviet Vietnam” (if you fancy).
The only “minus” is that this volume is a direct copy of an original one, so the text sometimes is a little bit hard to read (but readable at least). Anyway, a very interesting title to historian a and military buffs.

Spain on Mar 31, 2022

Kindle Customer: For the student of history and the budding tactician. Easy read, eye opening vignettes, wise analysis. Highly recommend. Great read.

United States on Feb 19, 2022

Moritz: Zum Inhalt kann ich noch nix sagen, aber die Druckqualität ist wirklich sehr schlecht.
Von Amazon selbst gedruckt.
Schicke es zurück und bestelle mir eine ander Version.

Germany on Dec 23, 2021

anon: Amazing reviews of Soviet tactics and strategies from the viewpoint of the soldiers on the ground. Book consists of concise after action reports written by soviet soldiers, and commentary from the Frunze academy and the military advisor-translators of the book. Especially relevant today, this'll learn you good about the nuances of modern warfare and unique challenges the soviets faced in Afghanistan.

United States on Aug 26, 2017

delineated: Great read a must for anyone wanting to learn about the Russian struggle to overwhelm an inferior force by firepower and numbers. Our British Generals could do with reading it!

United Kingdom on Feb 04, 2015

DracoUltor: Confusi? In pratica l'autore americano (esperto di strategia USA) negli anni del periodo Eltsin riesce ad avere accesso alla biblioteca dell'istituto Fruenze, in pratica l'accademia per i futuri generali dell'armata Rossa.

L'autore analizza quindi la valutazione in uno specifico libro (riservato alla sola cerchia delle sfere militari) del successo o meno delle varie operazioni svolte in ambito urbano, montagna, incursione, scorta di vari ufficiali e reparti coinvolti nella sanguinosa guerra iniziata dall'URSS.

E' illuminante il libro perchè laddove il testo originale (ovviamente tradoto in inglese) loda il successo tattico di una particolare operazione, il successivo commento americano obietta la coordinazione od incapacità di saper sfruttare e con maggiori mezzi i risultati conseguiti, oppure l'insensibilità sovietica a bombardare con noncuranza villaggi senza far distinzione fra mujhadeen e civili locali.

E' ancor piu' interessante questo libro soprattutto perchè molte delle problematiche che affronta l'esercito sovietico sono le stesse che dal 2001 Americani e l'ISAF hanno pure loro di fronte (l'igiene personale ed il mangiare non cibi locali cmq hanno...

Italy on Feb 25, 2013

Rick Cook: This is an expanded and redacted series of articles on small unit actions in Afghanistan which originally appeared in a Soviet military publication. Each chapter describes an action from the Soviet point of view, followed by the author's critique at the end. The result is invaluable to anyone who is interested in war in Afghanistan or how the Soviet Army fought.

The basic answer is that the Soviet Army didn't fight very well. The vignettes graphically reveal the weaknesses in their army, all the way from systematic flaws, to over concentration on mass armor battles on the plains of Europe, to a general ineptness at all levels, especially company and below.

As the book makes clear in the Soviets' own words, they just weren't very good at the sort of mountain guerrilla war they faced in Afghanistan. By contrast, the Coalition forces there now, for all their problems and failures, come off looking like military geniuses.

Again, and again, the Soviets repeated the same tactics and made the same mistakes. If they went in large enough force and were willing to take the casualties they could go anywhere in the country, but their day to day performance was generally...

United States on Dec 06, 2012

Peter Monks: This is an interesting collection of frank and objective vignettes by Soviet Army officers relating to their experiences in Afghanistan during the Soviet intervention of 1979-1989. These vignettes, accompanied by analysis by the Frunze Military Academy Directing Staff (the vignettes were initially commissioned by the Frunze Military Academy from the student body) focus on the challenges of adapting from a focus on large-scale operations against a conventional near-peer opponent to small-unit operations against a guerrilla force. Written by staff college students and instructors (i.e. Captains to Colonels) for an audience of peers, the accounts are clear, straightforward and accompanied by reasonably helpful maps and graphics (albeit in the old Soviet army format).

Grouped into chapters focused on various tactical actions (for example, ambushes, area and route security operations, air assaults and so on), the vignettes focus on Soviet manoeuvre operations and tactics from platoon to battalion level and are surprisingly objective if a little dispassionate. The reader will find out what decisions a company commander or battalion XO (for example) made and what he would...

United States on Oct 23, 2011

J. T. Stasiak: The importance of this book isn't so much what it says as what it doesn't say: The Soviets lost in Afghanistan because they did not understand guerrilla warfare (aka "Modern", "Asymmetric, "4th generation", and "Small" warfare) and tried to defeat an insurgency using conventional tactics. In particular, there is no acknowledgment by the Soviet generals of the importance of the political aspect of insurgency warfare. This book should be read in conjunction with "The Other Side of the Mountain," also by Lester Grau, which is the Mujaheddin view of the Soviet-Afghan war (which also gives a very nice description on how to deploy improvised explosive devices). Zbigniew Brzezinski told Jimmy Carter in 1979 "Let's give the Soviets their own Vietnam" when we began arming the Afghan Mujaheddin. The Soviets swallowed the bait hook, line and sinker and lost. The Mujaheddin knew what they were doing; however, just as Mao knew what he was doing in China in the 1930s, as Ho Chi Minh knew what he was doing in Vietnam when he defeated the French and then America in Vietnam; and as Osama Bin Laden knew what he was doing when he lured America America into Afghanistan and Iraq. I think the lesson of...

United States on Jan 17, 2009