Books:The Bear went over the Mountain by Les Grau - Analysis of a series of vignettes, both by the Soviet/Russian military and then by western military sources. Great way to see how the Soviets fought on the battlefield.The Other Side of the Mountain by Les Grau and Ali Ahmad Jalali - Essentially the same as the previous book but for the Mujahadeen forces, very good read.The Soviet-Afghan War How a Superpower Fought and Lost by the Russian General Staff, Translated and Commentated by Les Grau - Similar to the previous two books though its comprehensive and focuses on every aspect of the war including logistics, political concerns etc. Probably the best book on the war as a whole. Afgantsy by Rodric Braithewaite - a good all around book to get a general understanding of the war, its order of battle and phases, the general picture of both parties, and important engagements. Great book if you only ever get one book on the war.The Great Gamble by Gregory Feifer - Another book that gives a good overall understanding of the conflict, benefitted by being told from the perspective of soldiers on the ground.Russian Roulette by Gennady Bocharov - Bocharov is a Soviet Journalist and the book details his experience in Afghanistan as well as that of a number of soldiers he interviews.The Hidden War by Artyom Borovik - Borovik is another journalist and this book is another interesting 'on the ground' perspective of the war.
Afghanistan a russian soldier's story by Vladislav Tamarov - a good book from a VDV soldier who served about 2 years in Afghanistan. It doesn't have much cohesion in its order but it gives a good on the ground perspective and has some very interesting vignettes from an airborne minesweeper. Storm 333 by Mark Galeotti - a good analysis of the opening special forces operation of the entire war.Soviet and Mujahadeen uniforms clothing and equipment by Zammis Schein - a good resource for uniforms and equipment for both sides, for many different units and jobs.Salaam Bacha Volumes 1 & 2 by Zammis Schein - another useful pair of books for uniforms, small arms, equipment and the like for both the Soviets and Mujhadeen.Uniforms and History of the Soviet airborne the 345th Regiment in Afghanistan by Vladyslav Besedovskyy - a new and very nicely photographed and expansive book on the various uniforms guns and gear used by the Soviet VDV forces throughout the course of the war. Author has a great site with blogposts on the war (Safar-publishing dot com)The context, if any will be included in the filename, I appreciate anons who post images as well, preferably with context. Also appreciate any corrections to my image folder as it is always a work in progress.
>>62413384Forgot where I was even reading this, but this is where the AK74 really surpassed the AK47. It just shoots flatter longer, which was needed in mountain warfare. And the grenade launcher so you could get that guy behind that rock by shooting to the side or just over it.Pretty much anyone who didn't have an 5.45 and HE was considered naked if they were in frontline combat.
>>62413422The akm was definitely on its way out by the start of Afghanistan, but one unit did manage to keep their akms until i think the middle of 86 as their main infantry rifles. most of the time the 7.62x39 guns were used with the PBS-1 to start an ambush or take care of sentries/dogs.
>>62413422check the filename on this one i think its that unit
>>62413441>>62413477It's funny how if grunts can, they will. Kind of like jungle-taped mags. Just "requisition" a 45 rounder off what was supposed to be the squad gunner and now you have 15 more rounds when initiating contact.
>>62413510having an aks74u myself, i like my jungle taped rpk mags
this picture is pure kino
>>62413534also one of my all time favorites, this is what i try to use when setting up my surplus larp kit.
soviet soldiers walked (stolen m81 and their aks) so that arab militaries could run (AKMS and M81)
>A supply convoy came from Jalalabad. We let part of it pass to attack the middle of the convoy. When we opened fire, the enemy was hit from three directions. We destroyed three armored vehicles and one truck fully loaded with melons and other fruit and one truck © full of boxes of cash. Some enemy tried to flee, but were trapped by the river which has many channels in this area. The money truck caught on fire and some of the money was burned, but we took what we could and later I made it a payday for everyone. I still have some of those burnt notes and someday I will cash them in for some good ones.
>>62413600
>>62413600100% real, here is the proofs bwuk
>>62413607What the FUCK is with soviet cameras...that was a mujahideen POV btw
>>62413619a lot of the pictures are from personal 8mm cameras and they're kinda dogshit, and yeah i've read the book lol i just had a picture with watermelons
>>62413619The despair leeches into the camera
this is the author of one of the books in the OP.
>>62413630Egressing on a concealed wooded route up those draws back to the mountains, humping DShKs and all the ambush loot....while being chased by helicopters. Must have been fucking exhausting for those boys
>>62413653yeah it would've been brutal for sure, and then you have to sell the weapons in pakistan to get usable currency ( how a lot of the fighters operated/got paid.)
>>62413653thankfully they did use readily available means of transporting goods.
>>62413675AAAAH I wanna get into an animal packers course for crew serves... fuck I don't know if my unit would send me>You will never bivouac under the warmth of your war mule
>>62413638
>>62413692I want to be in the mule artillery when they send me off to war.
>>62413702saved
>the Muhj were proto-cozy postersi like these kind of pictures.
>>62413749cozy /fa/
>>62413749Interesting camp they have. Based on what you read, what did the Muhjuhadeen do well compared to the Soviet soldiers in terms of moving and adapting to the Afghanistan environment and weather? Did the Soviets underdress for the weather? Did the Soviets have a hard time importing supplies?
>>62413916The soviet system definetly did not provide enough winter gear, and some items like the generic boots, suck in general kind of while others like those brown balaclavas rock, same with the ushanka hats though you dont see those in photos often. You did see a lot of civilian clothing brought with guys, or they'd trade for some locally once they got to Afghanistan. The Muhj obviously varied a lot but they also got a lot of US issued surp from the states. one anecdote i do know is that the US1949 pattern sleeping bags were a very sought after item when looting dead muhj or their camps.
>>62413916as far as movement goes, the Muhj controlled the map and the soviets never had entirely secure supplylines and were mostly using large protected convoys for significant movements, and regularly scheduled escorted convoys, which got hit often.
>>62413412>Colonel-General Blyad-fucking naked
Can someone give me a qrd on why the soviets failed so hard in afghanistan?
Ar15 bros i did not forget you.
>>62413991same reason we did. the majority of the populace outside of the population centers had no interest in becoming communists, same as they had no interest in western democracy. Our allied government actually lasted way shorter than theirs did but I chock that up mostly to a change in tech.
the kolobok civilian rucksack is legit super sick, love mine.
a lot of the rando pictures of a russian guy with an m16 are this same guy btw.
any feedback and comments are also appreciated, I have folders for other conflicts, mostly cold war and obscure stuff but let me know if i should do one next weekend on Yugoslavia or Chechnya.
>>62413587mirin that PBS-1
>>62414988mirin them dubs uncle adolf
>>62413384>>62414624Based Afghan war poster. These 1980s conflicts take up the same space in my mind that WW2 takes up in other's minds. Thanks for the book recs as well.Do you have anything you'd be able to post in the next few days about the Iran-Iraq war or the 1968 Hungarian invasion?
>>62415248same here lol. my iran-iraq gallery is small but i could definetly do a just random kino conflict mashup and do it in bursts. I really need to make an editable drive somewhere.
>>62413384This is a good book. Hard to get tho.
>>62415320hadn't seen this one before, thanks anon!
>>62414008That always confuses me. Why not just focus the efforts on controlling the critical high population regions where trade matters instead of spreading themselves thin trying to capture the entire land?
>>62415406or just deal with the islamists. I kind of don't care if they let their women read or flog people for playing soccer as long as they're agreeable to allowing us exploit their REM instead of the chinese.
>>62414624Is there anything the Soviets did better than what the Americans attempted in Afghanistan?
>>62415442yes kind of. they really did do a much better job of eliminating local support of the Muhj but kind of how you'd expect by just removing the local population at large. They'd poison wells, fly over and wipe out every herd of livestock in helicopters etc. Their puppet regime lasted 3 years and the american ANA lasted like 3 weeks. the problem we had was we kind of just copy and pasted the broadstrokes of their invasion and occupation.
I've always been bummed that MGSV and one Black Ops 2 level are the only times I've seen this war in a video game. I think my dream game for it would be something like XCOM, but with commies and jihadis, and the dramatic irony of watching the troops under your command think they have a chance of winning the war.Also obligatory music videohttps://youtu.be/nKBIZcdvOSc?OCmtv2IRhQFy9olq
>>62415442Not really. Both confused the state of Afghanistan with the nation of Afghanistan, which never existed. You can't compare the Afghan situation to tribal nations in the US or Russia either (where you have Altai or Sioux nations). It's gangland, organized crime more akin to crips vs bloods, Hell's angels vs Outlaws, or present day (it's always been there hasn't it?) oligarchy in Russia. But with 12-15 factions vying for supremacy, some of which are in loosely connected since the dawn of time, or so they say. Until they see an opening elsewhere, ofc. That opening is almost never where you expect it to be, it's almost invariably where the thugs and cronies that guarantee a warlord's authority stand to benefit. Look up Potlatch on Wikipedia if you want to know more. It's a system where you divide and conquer not by sowing division, but by handing out benefits. All tribal societies use it, and modern nation-states' armies are oblivious to its existence.
>>62415656me too anon, i'd love to play as a airborne scout ambushing the dushman. there are at least good films.
>>62413619>Venus is just Hollywood Mexico
>>62415406I am not 100% sure if this is the oil spot strategy of Lyautley in Morocco, but I vaguely remember it being his idea. That you'd take big high pop locations and like an oil splot your control would expand from there. Problem is hinterlands being here be dragons means there is always a place for discontent to fester. I'm with the anon posting pictures that you just need to make a deal with the Islamist government. Ideally milder islamist than severe islamist, but odds are the milder will be corrupt as shit.It's not pop history to think of Afghanistan as unconquerable if you treat it as it is rather than what it was (and what it was in the past was a place that went abroad to end empires, not end those who invaded them, so that's moot pop history anyway). It's just >>62415679 not something you can establish a cohesive nation state in. Some of the colonial endeavors had half a century or more and they still failed in Burma or Africa, how the fuck can we expect to succeed in 20 years.Neat pics thanks OP.
>>62416143glad you liked the thread, been nice to have the time to do one again its been a while.
How come this war was barely documented? Vietnam had so many journalists, news reports and documentaries made about it thats its practically a part of the 1960,s zeitgeist. Here, all you can really scrounge from this is a bunch of obscure books and news snippets. Afgantsy is a really good one. Tbf its the only one i read.
>>62416231It's probably more of a zeitgeist in Russia, but it might be less of one given they were/are not/whatever term you wanna use the kind of society we are. But I think it's simply it wasn't our war. Think about it like this - why would Portuguese give a shit about Vietnam, why would we give a shit about angola? Meanwhile my goose buddy's granddad was a soldier over in Mozambique so I imagine native goose media played up more consideration of their colonial bush wars.
>>62416231Vietnam was a lot bigger of a war and had many large battles operations and campaigns compared to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and then obviously there's the barrier of language. not every soldier's memoir gets an English edition etc. I get lots of photos from some of the private veteran's fb groups as a online fren is a veteran. but i also browse forums and news sites and inspect element and rob image sites because fuck a watermark.
>>62416231This was both a book that was grim and hilarious in equal measure.
>>62416283it was a bit grim, the soldier's memoirs often are too but they're still fun and they say stuff like oh the boots sucked i swapped mine for the sneakers and you have a pair of the boots too and they do suck and you do larp in your sneakers instead.
>>62413481Putin is that you?
>>62416411
>>62416561my apologies all this is not specifically from afghanistan and is just a cold war ussr image, was in the wrong gallery.
the following are unsorted color photos from a compilation of 345th guards photos, sorry i don't have context for the individual image; that's the goal of this half-assed project of mine.
>>62416761>>62416766>>62416897and this one are all not from the 345th guards and are truly untitled as of now.
coming up on the image limit i think, havent posted here in a while
I'll leave a few image posts for the anons out there, if its up later i may run it out with a few more but i hope you enjoyed the thread and learned something, no matter how small or trivial.
upon remembering tomorrow is a holiday, I will probably do another thread tomorrow but I don't want to flood the board too much. considering doing a mixed thread where its photos from various wars, or I have a pretty large Yugoslav wars gallery as well.
>>62417285OP, I love you in a no homo way. Genuinely enjoyable thread, with a sea of effort put into making your collection. Especially the Muj and Afgani side pics. Keep up your good work!Regarding Soviet-Afgan war, information and pictures, even in Post-Soviet countries, are rather scarce. Veterans of that war are seen as a rather tabu topic for some reason. There are some stories of guys being mobilized to get sent to Afgan, but they are generic, as in: "they took our village boys away during discotek to fight that war".
>>62417285I will definitely keep my eye out, excellent thread. 80s Cold war conflicts are some of my favorite
future president of one of european countreis
I'm really more of an Afghan Civil War man myself but one interesting paper that puts a different spin on things is Captivity and Coercion: An In-depth Study of Soviet POWs in Afghanistan. It is about the 300 or so POWs and/or deserters that soviets essentially left to die in Afghanistan including the accounts of individual soldiers. The most compelling are the deserters. Their motives had loads of factors from hating communism, being disgusted at the wanton murder of non-coms, their sgt. trying to make them a "rooster", being caught selling arms to the enemy etc. and outcomes ranging from being given asylum in the US, returning to the USSR and being given 20 years hard labour, joining Jamiat-e Islami and becoming Massoud's bodyguard and living as a slave to a Pashtun warlord until the late 90s when their mother coughed up enough money to buy their freedom. One guy (and this sound like a joke but it isn't) chose to live as an itinerant begger in Afghanistan over returning to Donbas. >>62413749Afghans have a blanket they wear in winter to stay comfy called a patoo. It looks v comf but I wouldn't really be able to wear it without looking like a persianate weeb.
>>62413587Книo. Fighting the food fight
>>62413563It's a shame some of these man definitely had to go to war again in 2022 after suffering so much in their young age
>>62419317Yeah the deserters and pows are definetly interesting and an underdiscussed topic in the war. I've seen some who stayed, either were or became muslims and got their taliban issued illiterate 17yo gf. and interesting patoo, i'll look more into them. I do have some muhj kit.>>62418817i am glad you enjoyed the thread!>>62419582yeah 100%, and some have been lost in the second war now. every so often in these veterans groups im in theres a RIP post for someones grandpa who's still fighting.
>>62419617all the deserters were nominally supposed to be muslim as a condition of their release from being prisoners but obviously only the few that stayed actually took it to heart. Speaking of wives the poor disabled guy from donbas actually listed the familial bond and kinship from marrying a tajik widow and joining her clan as a reason he stayed in afghanistan. Also the guy who was stuck as basically slave: his warlord master found him a teenage wife if I remember correctly. He actually went back to afghanistan after being freed to marry her and when the civil war got really bad they moved to Russia then I think western europe together.
>>62419727yeah i remember the little documentary about the latter guy you mentioned. Well guys i'll start the next thread, hate to have 2 up at once cause i dont wanna clog the board up but im off today.
>>62419962
>>62415467Seems like both options weren’t good enough at the end.
