"The 25th anniversary of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan"

[nikimcbee]

9 Рота




My favo(u)rite scene of the movie:


The best scene!


Full film:

[Stealhead]

I feel dumb my copy came via Amazon from a Russian book store in New York City... Da nastyna

[ikalugin]

Oberon, Soviets too believed that they would be greeted as liberators. And did some work to that end (building infrastructure, providing free education and so on). But sometimes people do not wish to get the progressive ways of living.

[mapuc]

There is only one group that managed to occupy Afghanistan and who had almost totally controll over the people.

Al-Quada

Markus

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by mapuc

There is only one group that managed to occupy Afghanistan and who had almost totally controll over the people.

Al-Quada

Markus

I think you have Al Quaeda and the Taliban mixed up.

Two points on that:

1) Al Quaeda, as an organization, is not territorial. There are few Afghan members of Al Quaeda as such; its leadership does not know the local languages and has no interest in governance. The group itself is fairly small; it did cooperate with the Taliban in Afghanistan, but it never controlled any territory beyond a few small camps of its own. Nor would it be able to, because control territory is not what they do.

2) If we're talking about the Taliban, that is also untrue. The Taliban had control over most of the country in the 1990s, but far from all of it; holdouts of resistance remained (and were able to advance on Kabul and form the new government when the Taliban was ousted), and the country was in constant war throughout that period. They faced heavy resistance from locals, most of whom wanted nothing of their ideology, having cultures of their own that disagreed with the one Taliban promoted. In fact, arguably the Taliban had the least control over Afghanistan of any government for the past 50 years, despite what convenient arguments might suggest. They were just the most overtly hardline and violent.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

Oberon, Soviets too believed that they would be greeted as liberators. And did some work to that end (building infrastructure, providing free education and so on). But sometimes people do not wish to get the progressive ways of living.

People just love living in free fire zone and having their village blown to bits as well. The Soviets often did just that. Not to say that every Soviet solider was a bad or evil person after all they're just the cannon fodder.

The USSR encountered many of the same problems that thee US did in Vietnam though the two wars have many differences and should be considered parallels. A very interesting book on the subject is Bear Went Over the Mountain which is a further analyses of a Soviet staff study written in 1990. Another book(can't recall the name) published in the US but written by a Russian VDV combat engineer who fought vairfies much of the Western analysis of the Soviet staff study which dose to an extent admit failures but in many cases completely ignores glaring facts.

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by CCIP

I think you have Al Quaeda and the Taliban mixed up.

Two points on that:

1) Al Quaeda, as an organization, is not territorial. There are few Afghan members of Al Quaeda as such; its leadership does not know the local languages and has no interest in governance. The group itself is fairly small; it did cooperate with the Taliban in Afghanistan, but it never controlled any territory beyond a few small camps of its own. Nor would it be able to, because control territory is not what they do.

2) If we're talking about the Taliban, that is also untrue. The Taliban had control over most of the country in the 1990s, but far from all of it; holdouts of resistance remained (and were able to advance on Kabul and form the new government when the Taliban was ousted), and the country was in constant war throughout that period. They faced heavy resistance from locals, most of whom wanted nothing of their ideology, having cultures of their own that disagreed with the one Taliban promoted. In fact, arguably the Taliban had the least control over Afghanistan of any government for the past 50 years, despite what convenient arguments might suggest. They were just the most overtly hardline and violent.

You're right it was Taliban thanks for correcting me.

Markus

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

I feel dumb my copy came via Amazon from a Russian book store in New York City... Da nastyna

Great show.
I wonder how many plane the Russians had shot down?

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

Great show.
Iwonder how many plane thr Sussians had shot down?

Good question. The Northern Alliance leader that was assassinated by AQ just before 9\11 who was also a commander against the Soviets said that the direct effect was over rated as they did not have the proper training to get maximum effect from the Stinger (they also got UK Blowpipes another MANPADS). Their presence did force about a change in flying tactics. And seeing as most munitions used where unguided that had an effect on accuracy.

The Mi-24 and Mi-8 they added rearview mirrors to aid in sighting a launch. The flare systems at that time where manually operated so you had to see that you'd been fired at as they did not have IR warning systems either which alert prior to a launch. Also they flew in pairs or a full echelon of four spaced so that they could see an attack on thier wing man.

They still don't have waring receivers as this footage from Checneya shows that probably an SA-14. but observe no flares where popped.

[Dan D]

@Oberon
The author of the book puts the lion's share of responsibility for the disaster on Lord Raglan, while the message runner Nolan and Lucan, commander of the cavalry, have to take some blame, too.

Ragan for giving the order for the cavalry attack against enemy infantry and artillery without support of own infantry which was against all strategic rules of that time. His order was unclear, its wording did not even mention the Woronzows hills.

Nolan for just transmitting the order and not explaining it to Lucan, which he should have done because he had understood the meaning of the order. He hated Lucan for some upper-class family quarrel reaons.

Lucan ,to whom the order was unclear, for not asking to reassure what target to attack with the result that he attacked the wrong hills which were heavily fortified and that caused the catrastropic losses (more than 475 horses alone, which I guess were harder to be replaced than soldiers).

Raglan's plan, even if interpreted correctly, was not good under the given circumstances according to the author.

The British cannons on the Woronzows hills had been locked and jammed by its gunners, so that they could not just be turned around to be fired at own troops. The infantry was close enough to retake the hills within time. Lucan at his position on a smaller hill could not see what was going on the Woronzov hill, and so the order to him was too vague. Raglan shoud have been aware of that.

And finally. the cavalry had to attack uphill.

As the French General Bosquet put it (France was in an coalition with Britain in this war) when he watched the cavalry charge: "C'est manifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre!".

[soopaman2]

So who got next on the 'Stan.

We got our eyes on you China, bring it!


The 'Stan....

Undefeated against 2 first class world powers, is taking on challengers!

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

Great show.
I wonder how many plane the Russians had shot down?

Who proof read this?

[Stealhead]

Wow good thing it was not a rattlesnake. I read some place that the brain in order to be efficient when you see something you have seen before the brain sort of automatically recognizes it(you see a chair so then you see the criteria of chair). So very often when you read your brain is not taking in every single letter or even word but the context.
In other words the subject matter was known and no one noticed the wording was wrong.

What's the old saying? Measure twice cut once.