Officer of Engineers

Actually they did. I'm reading through Col Grau's "The Bear Went Over the Mountain." Depending on how you view things. The Soviets rarely managed to get everyone but they did take ground. The Mujahadeen always inflicted their fair share but could not hold ground.

Sounds like Tora Bora and Helmand.

__________________
Chimo

omon

russian army vs. us army, what a b....t question. did america ever fought on its own land? for its own fredom? (civil war was the last one don't count perl harbor). america allways invaides, russian army is made to defend it's own land, for everything else they have nukes, afgan war was not to invade afgan but to help afgan army(at first, then afgan army disapeared)also russian army mandatory, not profecional like us. and belive me if america or anybodyelse dares to invade russia(not that it's likely) then those 18 20 years old soldiers will fight better than anyone else,russia on the other hand never had plans for invading us,or any other country that is why russia never needed a/carriers. also look at korea, vietnam, and now iraq, afgan, nobody exept americans thinks US won. korea still there, testin nukes, iraq afgan, will fight till last man or women or child.because its their land, home.
plus the whole world dislikes america any ideas why? world history shows no empire lasts forever, and they all fall from inside out.even most suppireor army can't help it.

Labud_NS

Russians have a few advantages: they have millitary tradition of defending their own and they doesn't have strict professional army like USA.

__________________
With Faith in God,
For King and Fatherland!

SRB

Afghan resistance

See also: Mujahideen

By the mid-1980s, the Afghan resistance movement, receptive to assistance from the United States, United Kingdom, China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and others, contributed to Moscow's high military costs and strained international relations. Thus, Afghan guerillas were armed, funded, and trained mostly by the US and Pakistan. It also included contingents of so-called Afghan Arabs (hailed by US President Ronald Reagan as a "freedom fighters" and funded by US intelligence services) foreign fighers recruited from the Muslim world to wage jihad against the communists. Notable among them was a young Saudi named Osama bin Laden, whose Arab group eventually evolved into Al Qaeda.

Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Special Service Group (SSG) were actively involved in the conflict, and in cooperation with the CIA and the United States Army Special Forces supported the armed struggle against the Soviets. It is speculated that United Kingdom's Special Air Service (SAS) also played an unpublicized role during the war.

Too many powers versus Red Bear.Who helped Taliban in 2001 war? Plus Taliban didnt have support of majorty tribes and there was North Alliance against Taliban.

About Stingers:

Of particular significance was the donation of American-made FIM-92 Stinger anti-aircraft missile systems, which increased aircraft losses of Soviet Air Force. However, many field commanders, including Ahmad Shah Massoud, stated that the Stingers' impact was much exaggerate. Also, while guerillas were able to fire at aircraft landing at and taking off from airstrips and airbases, anti-missile flares limited their effectivness.

They did repeat many of the American Vietnam mistakes, winning almost all of the conventional battles, but failing to control the countryside.

Material USSR air losses were as follows:

* 118 jet aircrafts
* 333 helicopters

It doesnt look so bad if we comapare it with Vietnam.

Body count:

USSR

14,751 killed or missing,
53,753 wounded,
415,932 sick.

Estimated well over 1 million Afghan civilians and combatants on both sides killed.

Vietnam
50000 US dead, over 2 million Vietnams

From this we can see that superpowers kill civilians if war doesent go as planed, they made even name for that colatral damage SICK.

In the end both superpowers did nothing, they gone and left destroied countries SAD.

P.S. Soviets could say they done better because Najibullah's regime, though failing to win popular support, territory, or international recognition, was able to remain in power until 1992. Kabul had achieved a stalemate which exposed the Mujahedin's weaknesses, political and military. For nearly three years, Najibullah's government successfully defended itself against Mujahedin attacks, factions within the government and had also developed connections with its opponents. According to Russian publicist Andrey Karaulov, the main reason why Najibullah lost power was the fact Russia refused to sell oil products to Afghanistan in 1992 for political reasons (the new Russian government did not want to support the former communists) and effectively triggered a blockade.

Conclusion:
Both superpowers lost their biggest wars.One is still superpower other isnt.

Russian people need better life not some new USSR, I ask my self were they would be if they USSR didnt invest so much money in war machinery.

VovaLee

I think that you are from USSR.

Vietnam have a more hard landscape than Afganistan.

zraver

Who did America invaded?

South Korea was invaded, the US sent troops afte rthye invasiopn and helped the SK's reclaim their country.

You do realize that the fighting in iraq is not vs the US most of the time but Sunni vs shia and vice versa. America would have long since gone home if those two groups were not so dead set on haivng a civil war.

The USSR did indeed invade and plan to invade other countries as the agresor through out it's hstory= Findland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuaina, Poland, Hungary, Czecklovakia, Afghanistan, and Romania, and Afganistan.

Russia via the USSR is also the only agressor state of WW2 to keep its gains takin gmuch of eastern Poland for itself as well as Japanese home islands of Sakhalin and the Kuril's.

She also violated the various agreements she was party to for the restoration of internationallt recongised goverment in exiles instead instaling puppets.

BTW read up on the Doctors plot, which was going to be Stalins tool to intate war with the west and seize Europe.

Takea look at the GSFG/WSF order of battle it was not deployed defensively but was arrayed for an assualt westward across the inter-German border.

SRB

Weel Soviets build some were strange weapons to kick steap hills angles in A-stan.But yes Nam is much danger battlefield for helli.
But again I read that USA lost 11000 heli in Nam is it true?
Maybe pilots get some bonus form Bell if they lost heli

VovaLee

But US used mach more heli in Vietnam, then USSR in Afganistan.

Anon

In the early stages?

It was almost entirely just the US and it's surrogate NA "allies" doing the fighting.

NATO really stepped in after we'd already seized the country.

Anon

I guess not. In vietnam our air campaign in the north was going against the 2nd most well defended airspace on earth at that time, en masse.

It was a full-out, high intensity conflict involving VASTLY larger numbers of warriors on both sides.

Officer of Engineers

You're forgetting SOF fight. 22SAS were in Afghanistan before the Americans.

Blademaster

I am not so sure about that. Operation Linebacker I and II, anyone?

Don't get me wrong. What the Native Americans had gone through was a terrible tragedy but a holocaust? I wouldn't say so because most of the Native Americans died because of diseases that Europeans brought over that they had no immunity to.

Nothing like willing and fertile women to make up the difference. Iraq was a shithole before US and is a shithole today and will be a shithole. Such is the way of things.

Gotta disagree with you. USSR did that and when USSR left, their main allies were in power for 8 years before being toppled in 1994. You cannot blame USSR for the Afghan allies's bonehead mistakes.

You are still missing one thing: Strategic Depth. Like Col is fond of saying, Russia is target rich environment. US would run out of bombs before out of targets.

Anon

I said it was, "almost entirely just the US and N/A fighting."

gunnut

We slaughtered the natives on a massive scale after the diseases.

There was a relentless campaign to settle the west. In the process, we pushed them out of their land. Those who refused were killed. Those who accepted were herded to reservations.

A campaign in the late 19th century to destroy a tribe (forgot the name) was to kill all the buffalos, which they rely on for their economy Food, clothing, shelter, tools, you name it. That's the primary reason why there are so few buffalos today.

If anyone deserves to biitch in this nation, it's the natives.

__________________
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

zraver

LB1 was LBJ weak willed and partial application of force by a weak willed president

LB2 was a full scale strategic attack on North Vietnam that shook them so badly that they went to paris preapred to surrender and refused to venture south until after the US Congress cut of South Vietnam.

Americna soldiers made tobacco pouches out of native Americna scrotums, we systematically killed the buffaloe engineering a famine on a continental scale vs all the plains tribes forcing them to surrender to get beef from the US Goverment to feed thier woman and Children, we took teir children form them and raised them thiusands of miles away and outlawed thier religion and languages etc etc.

No, your failing to graps the US Doctrine. You can count the number of highways and railways on one one hand. Cut those and your troops have 300Km of movement (about 2 days worth of fuel in a combat setting) and then thier out of gas. Hit the telephone exchanges and radio transmitters and they cant talk ect ect.