On December 25, 1991, a banner symbolizing the glory and splendor of the fighting nation was lowered, and a series of thorny problems arose, the first of which was the Chechen problem.
The Soviet Union once had an amazing military might, but after its collapse, the army fell apart. In order to streamline the size, the Russian Federation had to reduce its troops, including the Chechen region.
After the withdrawal of Russian troops, local armed groups in Chechnya received 70% of the Soviet military equipment in the region. Driven by this batch of equipment, the rebel forces led by Dudayev declared their independence from the Russian Federation and established an independent Chechen Republic.
Russia** has tried to resolve the issue of the division of the Chechen rebels through peace negotiations, but to no avail. On December 11, 1994, under the direction of Boris Yeltsin**, the Russian Ministry of Defense sent a "joint federal force" of nearly 100,000 men to Chechnya to carry out a military strike against the rebels.
Although the Russian army easily achieved air supremacy in the early stage, due to the superb tactical skills and rich combat experience of the Chechen rebels, the Russian army suffered heavy personnel in the subsequent battles.
The Russian Air Force took the lead and gained air supremacy, and the ground forces, relying on their superiority in equipment and numbers, successfully besieged Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, five days later. Next, there was the siege of the 31st.
In this battle, the 131st Motorized Infantry Brigade of the Russian Army, as a vanguard unit, shouldered the vanguard task. At the beginning of the war, this unit was the elite of the Russian army, equipped with the latest T-80 main battle tanks and BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles of the Russian army at that time, which can be called the elite of the Russian army.
What is puzzling is that after the siege began, this force did not meet with strong resistance, did the rebels give up resistance in advance because they were afraid of the name of the elite?
This is not the case, but the cunning rebels have already listened to the radio of the Russian army, trying to lure this Russian army deep into the city, using the obstruction of buildings to make it impossible for the armored forces to perform their due combat effectiveness.
As the 131st Brigade penetrated deep behind enemy lines, other friendly forces were subjected to heavy attacks outside the city, resulting in the complete loss of support for the unit, unbeknownst to the brigade commander, Colonel Savin.
On the morning of the 31st, the 131st Brigade marched all the way, thinking that it was about to successfully capture the "** Mansion", but unexpectedly, they were suppressed by all-round fire in the center of the city.
Due to the lack of experience in street fighting, the 131 Brigade lined up its troops in columns along the roads during the offensive. However, when the armored vehicles at the head and tail were destroyed by the rebels with RPGs, the Russian army fell into a dilemma.
As rebel fire poured down from the surrounding buildings, a storm of ammunition drowned the 131st Brigade in a sea of flames.
The armored vehicle was destroyed by heavy artillery, some soldiers were killed in the vehicle, others were killed by machine gunners while trying to escape the tank. Due to the terrain and design constraints, the T80 tank was unable to suppress the fire points of the bunker and high-rise buildings, but was killed by rocket attacks, and the people and vehicles were surrounded by raging fire.
The Savan brigade commander wanted to call for friendly support, but the radio was jammed, and the friendly forces were unable to know how the 131st Brigade was fighting. In the hopeless situation of asking for help, Savin led his subordinates to break through with all their might, risked his life to occupy several buildings as cover, and survived the next two days with difficulty, retreating while fighting, and finally successfully broke through the siege and returned to the Russian position.
The 131 Brigade suffered heavy losses in this battle, more than 1,000 officers and men, including the brigade commander, lost 800 people, 78 people were captured, 102 of the 120 armored vehicles were lost, and 20 of the 26 tanks were destroyed.
There were many reasons for this fiasco, including the inexperience of the commanders, the unadaptability of the armored units to street fighting, etc. But perhaps the most important thing is the lack of troops in the early days, which made the 131 Brigade as high as 50% shortage.
To solve this problem, the Russian army carried out temporary personnel replenishment, but this led to a decrease in the combat effectiveness of the troops. This fiasco aroused great attention from the Russian leadership, who immediately summed up the lessons learned, adjusted their deployment, and no longer used large-scale armored cluster attacks, but divided them into several squads, and deployed armored vehicles with a wide range of fire to support the troops, and required that the distance between armored vehicles should not be less than 50 meters.
After these adjustments, the Russian army finally emerged victorious in the Battle of Grozny.
The audio of "The Most Profound Battle of the Little Seven Fighting Nations" launched by the Xiehu team gives you an in-depth understanding of the history and culture of the fighting nations, and takes you into that era full of passion and glory.
This battle, which lasted 6 minutes and 28 seconds, will take you to deeply feel the bravery and tenacity of the fighting nation.