The use of tanks in urban areas ?

Stovepipe

The Russians forgot the lessons learned the hard way by the most respected people in modern Russia, WW2 veterans. They also managed, in Chechnya, to simultaneously earn the utter dislike of the sizeable local pro-Russian population because of their devastation of the urban areas, the horror of Russians in Moscow at their casualty rate especially among brutalised conscripts and the eternal hatred of the Islamists in every republic around Chechnya as well as the loss of reputation as a military force. It takes special talent to **** up so righteously.

regards
Stovepipe

BostonB

Using the wrong tactics, and being unprepared and not learning the lessons of the past, isn't really a useful measure of a tank usefulness in the urban environment. A better example is to look at where tanks worked, and why.

tac foley

The initial screw-up in Chechnya was the fact that the average Chechen soldier was physically around 5% shorter that the so-called 'white' Russians, and therefore made excellent AFV crewmen. I saw this when I was in the British Military mission in the former DDR - most all of their AFV crewmen seemed to be bandy-legged mongol midgets, and were, in fact, mostly bandy-legged mongol midgets - the rest, slightly less slitty-eyed and somewhat less jaundiced in appearance, were Chechen.

Needless to say, they didn't automatically forget everything they had been taught about tanking when they returned to the homeland, and used this knowledge to good effect when their erstwhile buddies invaded their country. On Day 1 of the main attack into Grozhnyy, we learnt that out of 40 tanks, 38 had been destroyed or rendered useless, and almost 100% of the accompanying BMP1/2 infantry battalion. We never saw a single BTR-70/80 that was not on fire. And all before lunch, too.

A hard lesson to have to re-learn.

tac