Lester W Grau

The Bear Went over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan Lester W Grau

Publisher Marketing: This rare 10th anniversary edition (published in 2007) contains a new introduction by expert Soviet historian David M. Glantz. In addition all maps and graphics have been enhanced from the 1996 edition. "When the Soviet Union decided to invade Afghanistan, they evaluated their chances for success upon their experiences in East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Unfortunately for their soldiers, as well as the people of Afghanistan, they ignored not only the experiences of the British in the same region, but also their own experience with the Basmachi resistance fighters in Central Asia from 1918-1933. Consequently, in Afghanistan the Soviet army found its tactics inadequate to meet the challenges posed by the difficult terrain and the highly motivated mujahideen freedom fighters. To capture the lessons their tactical leaders learned in Afghanistan and to explain the change in tactics that followed, the Frunze Military Academy compiled this book for their command and general staff combat arms officers. The lessons are valuable not just for Russian officers, but for the tactical training of platoon, company and battalion leaders of any nation likely to engage in conflicts involving civil war, guerrilla forces and rough terrain. This is a book dealing with the starkest features of the unforgiving landscape of tactical combat: casualties and death, adaptation, and survival." (From the original foreword by Hans Binnendijk, 1996) Contributor Bio:  Grau, Lester W Grau is a graduate of the U. S. Army Command and General Staff College, the U. S. Army Russian Institute, the Defense Language Institute and the U. S. Air Force War College. Contributor Bio:  Kipp, Jacob W JACOB W. KIPP is Senior Analyst in the Soviet Army Studies Office at the U. S. Army Command and General Staff College. Contributor Bio:  Glantz, David M David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House have collaborated on all three volumes of the Stalingrad Trilogy, as well as on the books When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler and The Battle of Kursk. A retired U. S. Army colonel fluent in Russian, Glantz is the author of numerous books, including The Battle for Leningrad, 19411944; Colossus Reborn: The Red Army at War, and Red Storm over the Balkans: The Failed Soviet Invasion of Romania. House is the author of Combined Arms Warfare in the Twentieth Century.