Quote:
Originally Posted by Stan187
Not exactly. The Mujahedeen were smarter than that. Why take on the heavy mechnized force and put yourself into danger? Hit their supply trucks instead. And that's exactly what they did. That's not to say that they never engaged mechanized forces, it happened, but they did not often engage huge tank columns. First, that's very dangerous because of how much firepower they could bring to bear on you if they can elevate their guns high enough. Second, the Afghans didn't have such copious amounts of anti-tank round laying around that they could slug it out with armored columns often. What happened more often was that they used their limited AT capabilities to engage the small mechanized escort contingent of a mostly soft-skinned supply train. Then, they'd go to work on the trucks with heavy machine gun fire, which they could afford because of how plentiful that ammo was. It's a guerilla war, after all, they did not expect to defeat the Soviets in straight up battle. In that case, why not just get the easy kills? And that's exactly what happened.
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Soviet tanks were not good in the Hindu-Kush mountains. They lacked gun elevation to fire at the Mujahadeen. However, Mujahadeen could fire at them with RPGs. It's a no brainer they wouldn't engage Soviet armor head on. Soviet supply lines were very vulnerable, and there was very, very few roads that the Soviets could use for supply transport. Mujahadeen didn't have much modern weapons. Even the Soviets themselves admitted they were caught unprepared though they did adapt eventually with helicopters, appropiate weapons, and more mobile forces.
Ahmad Shah Massoud was undefeated in 9 campaigns against the Soviets. He would lure Soviet forces into valleys creating bottlenecks for advancement, and making them stationary targets to ambush.
Stinger missle changed Soviet tactics dramatically. Once dominant gunship helicopters, they had to resort to flying extremely low since the Stinger couldn't engage them from a high angle.