Spetsnaz: The Inside Story of the Soviet Special Forces Read online

  permanently with it: group weapons are held in the spetsnaz stores, and the

  quantity needed by the unit is determined before each operation. Operations

  can often be carried out simply with each man's personal weapons.

  A group which sets out on an operation with only personal weapons can

  receive the group weapons it needs later, normally by parachute. And in case

  of pursuit a group may abandon not only the group weapons but some of their

  personal weapons as well. For most soldiers, to lose their weapons is an

  offence punished by a stretch in a penal battalion. But spetsnaz, which

  enjoys special trust and operates in quite unusual conditions, has the

  privilege of resolving the dilemma for itself although every case is, of

  course, later investigated. The commander and his deputy have to demonstrate

  that the situation really was critical.

  ___

  Unlike the airborne and the air assault forces, spetsnaz does not have

  any heavy weapons like artillery, mortars or BMD fighting vehicles. But

  `does not have' does not mean `does not use'.

  On landing in enemy territory a group may begin its operation by

  capturing a car or armoured troop-carrier belonging to the enemy. Any

  vehicle, including one with a red cross on it, is fair game for spetsnaz. It

  can be used for a variety of purposes: for getting quickly away from the

  drop zone, for example, or for transporting the group's mobile base, or even

  for mounting the assault on an especially important target. In the course of

  exercises on Soviet territory spetsnaz groups have frequently captured tanks

  and used them for attacking targets. An ideal situation is considered to be

  when the enemy uses tanks to guard especially important installations, and

  spetsnaz captures one or several of them and immediately attacks the target.

  In that case there is no need for a clumsy slow-moving tank to make the long

  trip to its target.

  Many other types of enemy weapons, including mortars and artillery, can

  be used as heavy armament. The situation may arise in the course of a war

  where a spetsnaz group operating on its own territory will obtain the

  enemy's heavy weapons captured in battle, then get through to enemy

  territory and operate in his rear in the guise of genuine fighting units.

  This trick was widely used by the Red Army in the Civil War.

  The Soviet high command even takes steps to acquire foreign weapons in

  peacetime. In April 1985 four businessmen were arrested in the USA. Their

  business was officially dealing in arms. Their illegal business was also

  dealing in arms, and they had tried to ship 500 American automatic rifles,

  100,000 rounds of ammunition and 400 night-vision sights to countries of the

  Soviet bloc.

  Why should the Soviet Union need American weapons in such quantities?

  To help the national liberation armies which it sponsors? For that purpose

  the leadership has no hesitation in providing Kalashnikov automatics,

  simpler and cheaper, with no problems of ammunition supply. Perhaps the 500

  American rifles were for studying and copying? But the Soviet Union has

  captured M-16 rifles from many sources, Vietnam for one. They have already

  been studied down to the last detail. And there is no point in copying them

  since, in the opinion of the Soviet high command, the Kalashnikov meets all

  its requirements.

  It is difficult to think of any other reason for such a deal than that

  they were for equipping spetsnaz groups. Not for all of them, of course, but

  for the groups of professional athletes, especially those who will be

  operating where the M-16 rifle is widely used and where consequently there

  will be plenty of ammunition for it to be found.

  The quantity of rifles, sights and rounds of ammunition is easy to

  explain: 100 groups of five men each, in which everybody except the

  radio-operator has a night-sight (four to a group); for each rifle half a

  day's requirements (200 rounds), the rest to be taken from the enemy.

  American sights are used mainly because batteries and other essential spares

  can be obtained from the enemy.

  This is clearly not the only channel through which standard American

  arms and ammunition are obtained. We know about the businessmen who have

  been arrested. There are no doubt others who have not been arrested yet.

  ___

  The weapons issued to spetsnaz are very varied, covering a wide range,

  from the guitar string (used for strangling someone in an attack from

  behind) to small portable nuclear changes with a TNT equivalent of anything

  from 800 to 2000 tons. The spetsnaz arsenal includes swiftly acting poisons,

  chemicals and bacteria. At the same time the mine remains the favourite

  weapon of spetsnaz. It is not by chance that the predecessors of the modern

  spetsnaz men bore the proud title of guards minelayers. Mines are employed

  at all stages of a group's operations. Immediately after a landing, mines

  may be laid where the parachutes are hidden and later the group will lay

  mines along the roads and paths by which they get away from the enemy. The

  mines very widely employed by spetsnaz in the 1960s and 1970s were the

  MON-50, MON-100, MON-200 and the MON-300. The MON is a directional

  anti-personnel mine, and the figure indicates the distance the fragments

  fly. They do not fly in different directions but in a close bunch in the

  direction the minelayer aims them. It is a terrible weapon, very effective

  in a variety of situations. For example, if a missile installation is

  discovered and it is not possible to get close to it, a MON-300 can be used

  to blow it up. They are at their most effective if the explosion is aimed

  down a street, road, forest path, ravine, gorge or valley. MON mines are

  often laid so that the target is covered by cross fire from two or more

  directions.

  There are many other kinds of mines used by spetsnaz, each of which has

  been developed for a special purpose: to blow up a railway bridge, to

  destroy an oil storage tank (and at the same time ignite the contents), and

  to blow up constructions of cement, steel, wood, stone and other materials.

  It is a whole science and a real art. The spetsnaz soldier has a perfect

  command of it and knows how to blow up very complicated objects with the

  minimal use of explosive. In case of need he knows how to make explosives

  from material lying around. I have seen a spetsnaz officer make several

  kilograms of a sticky brown paste out of the most inoffensive and apparently

  non-explosive materials in about an hour. He also made the detonator himself

  out of the most ordinary things that a spetsnaz soldier carries with him --

  an electric torch, a razor blade which he made into a spring, a box of

  matches and finally the bullet from a tracer cartridge. The resulting

  mechanism worked perfectly. In some cases simpler and more accessible things

  can be used -- gas and oxygen balloons of paraffin with the addition of

  filings of light metals. A veteran of this business, Colonel Starinov,

  recalls in his memoirs making a detonator out of one matchbox.

  ___

  On the subject of mines, we must mention a terrible spetsnaz wea
pon

  known as the Strela-Blok. This weapon was used in the second half of the

  1960s and the first half of the 1970s. It is quite possible that by now it

  has been very substantially improved. In a sense it can be described as an

  anti-aircraft mine, because it operates on the same principle as the mine

  laid at the side of a road which acts against a passing vehicle. It is

  related to mines which are based on portable grenade-launchers which fire at

  the side of a tank or an armoured personnel carrier.

  The Strela-Blok is an ordinary Soviet Strela-2 portable missile (a very

  exact copy of the American Red Eye). A spetsnaz group carries one or several

  of these missiles with it. In the area of a major airfield the launch tube

  is attached to a tall tree (or the roof of a building, a tall mast, a

  hayrick) and camouflaged. The missile is usually installed at a short

  distance from the end of the runway. That done, the group leaves the area.

  The missile is launched automatically. A clockwork mechanism operates first,

  allowing the group to retire to a safe distance, then, when the set time has

  run out (it could be anything from an hour to several days) a very simple

  sound detector is switched on which reacts to the noise of an aircraft

  engine of a particular power. So long as the engine noise is increasing

  nothing happens (it means the aircraft is coming nearer), but as soon as the

  noise decreases the mechanism fires. The infra-red warhead reacts to the

  heat radiated by the engine, follows the aircraft and catches up with it.

  Imagine yourself to be the officer commanding an aircraft base. One

  plane (perhaps with a nuclear bomb on board) is shot down by a missile as it

  takes off. You cancel all flights and despatch your people to find the

  culprits. They of course find nobody. Flights are resumed and your next

  plane is shot down on take-off. What will you do then? What will you do if

  the group has set up five Strela-Blok missiles around the base and

  anti-infantry mines on the approaches to them? How do you know that there

  are only five missiles?

  ___

  Another very effective spetsnaz weapon is the RPO-A flamethrower. It

  weighs eleven kilograms and has a single action. Developed in the first half

  of the 1970s, it is substantially superior to any flame-throwers produced at

  that time in any other country. The principal difference lies in the fact

  that the foreign models of the time threw a stream of fire at a range of

  about thirty metres, and a considerable part of the fuel was burnt up in the

  trajectory.

  The RPO-A, however, fires not a stream but a capsule, projected out of

  a lightweight barrel by a powder charge. The inflammable mixture flies to

  the target in a capsule and bursts into flame only when it strikes the

  target. The RPO-A has a range of more than 400 metres, and the effectiveness

  of one shot is equal to that of the explosion of a 122 mm howitzer shell. It

  can be used with special effectiveness against targets vulnerable to fire --

  fuel stores, ammunition dumps, and missiles and aircraft standing on the

  ground.

  ___

  A more powerful spetsnaz weapon is the GRAD-V multiple rocket-launcher,

  a system of firing in salvos developed for the airborne forces. There the

  weapon can be mounted on the chassis of a GAZ-66 truck. It has 12 launching

  tubes which fire jet-propelled shells. But apart from the vehicle-mounted

  version, GRAD-V is produced in a portable version. In case of need the

  airborne units are issued with separate tubes and the shells to go with

  them. The tube is set up on the ground in the simplest of bases. It is aimed

  in the right direction and fired. Several separate tubes are usually aimed

  at one target and fired at practically the same time. Fired from a vehicle

  its accuracy is very considerable, but from the ground it is not so great.

  But in either case the effect is very considerable. The GRAD-V is largely a

  weapon for firing to cover a wide area and its main targets are:

  communications centres, missile batteries, aircraft parks and other very

  vulnerable targets.

  The airborne forces use both versions of the GRAD-V. Spetsnaz uses only

  the second, portable version. Sometimes, to attack a very important target,

  for example a submarine in its berth, a major spetsnaz unit may fire GRAD-V

  shells simultaneously from several dozen or even hundreds of tubes.

  ___

  In spetsnaz the most up-to-date weapons exist side by side with a

  weapon which has long been forgotten in all other armies or relegated to

  army museums. One such weapon is the crossbow. However amusing the reader

  may find this, the crossbow is in fact a terrible weapon which can put an

  arrow right through a man at a great distance and with great accuracy.

  Specialists believe that, at the time when the crossbow was competing with

  the musket, the musket came off best only because it made such a deafening

  noise that this had a greater effect on the enemy than the soft whistle of

  an arrow from a crossbow. But in speed of firing, accuracy and reliability

  the crossbow was superior to the musket, smaller in size and weight, and

  killed people just as surely as the musket. Because it made no noise when

  fired it did not have the same effect as a simultaneous salvo from a

  thousand muskets.

  But that noiseless action is exactly what spetsnaz needs today. The

  modern crossbow is, of course, very different in appearance and construction

  from the crossbows of previous centuries. It has been developed using the

  latest technology. It is aimed by means of optical and thermal sights of a

  similar quality to those used on modern snipers' rifles. The arrows are made

  with the benefit of the latest research in ballistics and aerodynamics. The

  bow itself is a very elegant affair, light, reliable and convenient. To make

  it easy to carry it folds up.

  The crossbow is not a standard weapon in spetsnaz, although enormous

  attention is given in the athletic training units to training men to handle

  the weapon. In case of necessity a spetsnaz group may be issued with one or

  two crossbows to carry out some special mission in which a man has to be

  killed without making any noise at all and in darkness at a distance of

  several dozen metres. It is true that the crossbow can in no way be

  considered a rival to the sniper's rifle. The Dragunov sniper's rifle is a

  marvellous standard spetsnaz weapon. But if you fit a silencer to a sniper's

  rifle it greatly reduces its accuracy and range. For shooting accurately and

  noiselessly, sniper's rifles have been built with a `heavy barrel', in which

  the silencer is an organic part of the weapon. This is a wonderful and a

  reliable weapon. Nevertheless the officers commanding the GRU consider that

  a spetsnaz commander must have a very wide collection of weapons from which

  he can choose for a particular situation. It is possible, indeed certain,

  that special situations will arise, in which the commander preparing for an

  operation will want to choose a rather unusual weapon.

  ___

  The most frightening, demoralising opponent of the spetsnaz soldier has />
  always been and always will be the dog. No electronic devices and no enemy

  firepower has such an effect on his morale as the appearance of dogs. The

  enemy's dogs always appear at the most awkward moment, when a group

  exhausted by a long trek is enjoying a brief uneasy sleep, when their legs

  are totally worn out and their ammunition is used up.

  Surveys conducted among soldiers, sergeants and officers in spetsnaz

  produce the same answer again and again: the last thing they want to come up

  against is the enemy's dogs.

  The heads of the GRU have conducted some far-reaching researches into

  this question and come to the conclusion that the best way to deal with dogs

  is to use dogs oneself. On the southeastern outskirts of Moscow there is the

  Central Red Star school of military dog training, equipped with enormous

  kennels.

  The Central Military school trains specialists and rears and trains

  dogs for many different purposes in the Soviet Army, including spetsnaz. The

  history of using dogs in the Red Army is a rich and very varied one. In the

  Second World War the Red Army used 60,000 of its own dogs in the fighting.

  This was possible, of course, only because of the existence of the Gulag,

  the enormous system of concentration camps in which the rearing and training

  of dogs had been organised on an exceptionally high level in terms of both

  quantity and quality.

  To the figure of 60,000 army dogs had to be added an unknown, but

  certainly enormous, number of transport dogs. Transport dogs were used in

  winter time (and throughout the year in the north) for delivering ammunition

  supplies to the front line, evacuating the wounded and similar purposes. The

  service dogs included only those which worked, not in a pack but as

  individuals, carrying out different, precisely defined functions for which

  each one had been trained. The Red Army's dogs had respected military

  trades: razvedka; searching for wounded on the battle field; delivery of

  official messages. The dogs were used by the airborne troops and by the

  guards minelayers (now spetsnaz) for security purposes. But the trades in

  which the Red Army's dogs were used on the largest scale were mine detection

  and destroying tanks.

  Even as early as 1941 special service units (Spets sluzhba) started to

  be formed for combating the enemy's tanks. Each unit consisted of four