Recently, in Syria, a large group of about 500 Russian mercenaries attempted to overrun a position held by US forces. The end result was what surviving Russian forces characterized as a humiliating defeat. Leaving aside the geopolitical considerations as well as the advisability of all this craziness in Syria that goes on between the US, Russia, IRAN, and Syria (along with a gaggle of Kurds that Turkey considers terrorists), here are some snippets of just-released audio said to be from survivors of the ill-fated roll-up attempt:
First clip:
"The reports that are on TV about ... well, you know, about Syria and the 25 people that are wounded there from the Syrian f--- army and — well ... to make it short, we've had our asses f--- kicked. So one squadron f--- lost 200 people ... right away, another one lost 10 people ... and I don't know about the third squadron, but it got torn up pretty badly, too ... So three squadrons took a beating ... The Yankees attacked ... first they blasted the f--- out of us by artillery, and then they took four helicopters up and pushed us in a f--- merry-go-round with heavy caliber machine guns ... They were all shelling the holy f--- out of it, and our guys didn't have anything besides the assault rifles ... nothing at all, not even mentioning shoulder-fired SAMs or anything like that ... So they tore us to pieces for sure, put us through hell, and the Yankees knew for sure that the Russians were coming, that it was us, f--- Russians ... Our guys were going to commandeer an oil refinery, and the Yankees were holding it ... We got our f--- asses beat rough, my men called me ... They're there drinking now ... many have gone missing ... it's a total f--- up, it sucks, another takedown ... Everybody, you know, treats us like pieces of s--- ... They beat our asses like we were little pieces of s--- ... but our f--- government will go in reverse now, and nobody will respond or anything, and nobody will punish anyone for this ... So these are our casualties."
Second clip:
"Out of all vehicles, only one tank survived and one BRDM [armored reconnaissance vehicle] after the attack, all other BRDMs and tanks were destroyed in the first minutes of the fight, right away."
Third clip:
"Just had a call with a guy — so they basically formed a convoy, but did not get to their f--- positions by some 300 meters. One unit moved forward, the convoy remained in place, about 300 meters from the others. The others raised the American f--- flag, and their artillery started f--- ours really hard. Then their f--- choppers flew in and started f--- everybody. Ours just running around. Just got a call from a pal, so there are about 215 f--- killed. They simply rolled ours out f--- hard. Made their point. What the f--- ours were hoping for in there?! That they will f--- run away themselves? Hoped to f--- scare them away? Lots of people f--- so bad [they] can't be f--- ID'd. There was no foot soldiers [on the American side]; they simply f--- our convoy with artillery."
Some observations:
The Russians appear to have tried to attack a well-prepared US position -- one in which US soldiers had time to lay in all kinds of defenses -- that was fully coordinated in terms of the ability to use combined arms (especially air and artillery).
They tried to do so without any air or artillery, including multiple rocket launcher systems such as the Smerch or Katyusha, of their own, meaning they had no counter-battery capability to detect incoming American artillery and then calculate where it was fired from, and then send their own counter-fire back along those trajectories to tamp down US artillery support of that position.
Russian tanks -- such as they were -- were aged T-72s, with accompanying infantry troops (and tanks don't move without infantry support) only lightly armed with rifles and no MANPADs (man-portable air defense systems), such as the Russian Verba or Igla, to suppress US helicopters, which seem to have really laid into Russian armor and ground troops with a vengeance.
As noted in the clips above, the Russian mercenaries (they're typically former army and Spetnaz special forces troops) appear to have thought that sallying forth in a show of force and advancing on the American position was going to be enough to force US troops to retreat, perhaps because they believed the Americans manning the position weren't going to engage them.
No military force does a better job at coordinating combined arms than the US. Part of that is for technological reasons but it's more about the almost-obsessive focus on effectively utilizing every aspect (air, artillery, armor and infantry) of the combined arms menu, and then incessantly drilling American troops on it, than anything else.
Looks like it was a bad day all around for the Russians, who may have suffered 50% of troops killed or wounded in the attempt.
"Politics is just show business for ugly people."
First clip:
"The reports that are on TV about ... well, you know, about Syria and the 25 people that are wounded there from the Syrian f--- army and — well ... to make it short, we've had our asses f--- kicked. So one squadron f--- lost 200 people ... right away, another one lost 10 people ... and I don't know about the third squadron, but it got torn up pretty badly, too ... So three squadrons took a beating ... The Yankees attacked ... first they blasted the f--- out of us by artillery, and then they took four helicopters up and pushed us in a f--- merry-go-round with heavy caliber machine guns ... They were all shelling the holy f--- out of it, and our guys didn't have anything besides the assault rifles ... nothing at all, not even mentioning shoulder-fired SAMs or anything like that ... So they tore us to pieces for sure, put us through hell, and the Yankees knew for sure that the Russians were coming, that it was us, f--- Russians ... Our guys were going to commandeer an oil refinery, and the Yankees were holding it ... We got our f--- asses beat rough, my men called me ... They're there drinking now ... many have gone missing ... it's a total f--- up, it sucks, another takedown ... Everybody, you know, treats us like pieces of s--- ... They beat our asses like we were little pieces of s--- ... but our f--- government will go in reverse now, and nobody will respond or anything, and nobody will punish anyone for this ... So these are our casualties."
Second clip:
"Out of all vehicles, only one tank survived and one BRDM [armored reconnaissance vehicle] after the attack, all other BRDMs and tanks were destroyed in the first minutes of the fight, right away."
Third clip:
"Just had a call with a guy — so they basically formed a convoy, but did not get to their f--- positions by some 300 meters. One unit moved forward, the convoy remained in place, about 300 meters from the others. The others raised the American f--- flag, and their artillery started f--- ours really hard. Then their f--- choppers flew in and started f--- everybody. Ours just running around. Just got a call from a pal, so there are about 215 f--- killed. They simply rolled ours out f--- hard. Made their point. What the f--- ours were hoping for in there?! That they will f--- run away themselves? Hoped to f--- scare them away? Lots of people f--- so bad [they] can't be f--- ID'd. There was no foot soldiers [on the American side]; they simply f--- our convoy with artillery."
Some observations:
The Russians appear to have tried to attack a well-prepared US position -- one in which US soldiers had time to lay in all kinds of defenses -- that was fully coordinated in terms of the ability to use combined arms (especially air and artillery).
They tried to do so without any air or artillery, including multiple rocket launcher systems such as the Smerch or Katyusha, of their own, meaning they had no counter-battery capability to detect incoming American artillery and then calculate where it was fired from, and then send their own counter-fire back along those trajectories to tamp down US artillery support of that position.
Russian tanks -- such as they were -- were aged T-72s, with accompanying infantry troops (and tanks don't move without infantry support) only lightly armed with rifles and no MANPADs (man-portable air defense systems), such as the Russian Verba or Igla, to suppress US helicopters, which seem to have really laid into Russian armor and ground troops with a vengeance.
As noted in the clips above, the Russian mercenaries (they're typically former army and Spetnaz special forces troops) appear to have thought that sallying forth in a show of force and advancing on the American position was going to be enough to force US troops to retreat, perhaps because they believed the Americans manning the position weren't going to engage them.
No military force does a better job at coordinating combined arms than the US. Part of that is for technological reasons but it's more about the almost-obsessive focus on effectively utilizing every aspect (air, artillery, armor and infantry) of the combined arms menu, and then incessantly drilling American troops on it, than anything else.
Looks like it was a bad day all around for the Russians, who may have suffered 50% of troops killed or wounded in the attempt.
"Politics is just show business for ugly people."