Fangs of the Lone Wolf: Chechen Tactics in the Russian-Chechen War 1994–2009

by Dodge Billingsley

however, Yeltsin, had not included the Chechens among the people that should grab their freedom for many reasons, including the following: Chechnya sits on the southern mountain wall of Russia, blocking the Caucasus region from southern peoples; Chechnya’s 30 oilfields produce low-sulfur oil that requires little refining to produce high-grade aviation fuel; a major oil pipeline crossing Chechnya and Grozny was a major oil-refining center.

Each of these towns was strategically important for the Chechens to hold and the Russians to seize. If the Russians could control these towns, the gateways to the mountains, the Chechens would be isolated from their support bases among the population of the urban centers.

The Chechen defense of Serzhen-Yurt was focused on the northern approaches to the town. “Our line, we called it the ‘Serzhen-Yurt Line,’ stretched across the gap west to east from the hills to the river,”

Chechens had developed more “field smarts” when constructing defensive positions and had dug a series of zigzag trenches with which to protect themselves against the artillery and air strikes.

Fatigue, command and control issues, and lack of sufficient arms and ammunition were but a few of the mitigating factors working against the Chechen defense of the village. Although the Chechens had the advantage of defending the narrow gorge, they had no answer for the airpower and artillery the Russians were able to apply against their positions and, as they did in every battle to this point, they retreated to the next position.

The Russian instincts were good — dominate the high ground and go for the flanks instead of a head-on urban fight. The flank attacks, however, were tactical and shallow. The narrowness of the valley actually forced the Russians to attack head on along some sections of the front.

The Chechens used boards to construct pedestrian bridges across the Fortanga River on their way to the village and their fighting positions west of the village. Normally, building materials might have been in short supply, but Bamut was a village of destroyed houses, providing ample materials to construct makeshift defenses and fortify approach routes.

The Chechens spread their positions over a series of trench lines, a tactic that had been perfected over months of painful experience based on the Chechen principle of “attack and retreat, attack and retreat.” The general idea was to constantly displace during battle, maintaining mobility and not relying on any fixed position that could be targeted and destroyed by Russian air strikes, artillery and mortars.

While Boris had overall command for the entire defense of Bamut, each specific unit commander was in charge of his own place in the line and his men. He was also free to employ his own specific tactics, including how he and his unit fought on the line. Because of this, the battle for Bamut on the first day became a series of individual skirmishes between a continuous Russian line, breaking up under the fog and friction of combat, and Chechen strong-points, each attempting to maintain secure flanks.

Knowing that they would have to displace, and hoping to suck the Russians into their abandoned positions, the unit mined their own trenches with the antitank mines, linked together for remote detonation.

The Chechens effectively practiced centralized command with decentralized control — a technique that the Germans introduced in the battlefields of World War II. The Chechens were not reading old German manuals or doing this deliberately, but rather Chechen culture made this type of command arrangement inevitable. It was effective but cost the Chechens heavily in fratricide and the inability to coordinate effective covering fire from outside their own unit.

Musa also dug positions within the village, using the walls of the destroyed houses as concealment. He was careful not to place his trenches too close to remaining structures. One hit could topple a wall down on top of him and his men.

Musa’s plan was simple on paper but hazardous to execute. As the Russian tanks and infantry moved forward, Musa hoped to suck some of them inside their trench lines and then reoccupy the forward trenches behind the advancing Russian spearhead to cut them off and encircle them. They anticipated that the Russian armor, seeing an opening, would take it. The trick was not to let in a big group that they could not handle.

Geographic necessity forced the Russians to attack Goyskoe head on from the east. This was a significant benefit to the Chechens, because it meant that at no time were they surrounded, and they could focus their military efforts on the Russians in front of them. The Chechens also had an open back door.

The Chechens countered the Russian attack with a truly mobile defense. They built multiple defenses and trench rows, but occupied portions of them for short periods of time to avoid being targeted by the feared Russian artillery.

Chechen use of bunkers and zigzag trenches helped them survive when trapped by Russian artillery.

Each unit moved when it wanted to unless ordered to stay in one position. Consequently, there was little flank security and each unit tried to provide its own. There was coordination among defending units, but the physical tie-...

The Chechen decision to defend the urban centers initially provided them an opportunity to bleed the Russian Army. However, once the Russian Army recovered, such a defense provided the Russians with concentrations of Chechen resistance that could be reduced methodically and effectively.

Overwhelming Russian military strength focused on these separate centers of resistance, which were often not mutually supporting, and took them down one after another. The fight for the urban centers eventually sapped the Chechen resistance fighting strength, cost them popular support among the populace and forced them into guerrilla warfare and the loss of control of the population centers, economic centers and access to adequate medical care, food and supplies.

The Russian motorized infantry were reluctant to move away from their BTR-80 armored personnel carriers. They huddled close to the vehicles and did not push out patrols, picquets or outposts into the forest paralleling the highway. They also failed to deploy some trip-wire “flash-bang” flares for early warning. They had no apparent artillery fires registered around the position. The audacity of the Chechen attack carried the day.

Part of the Russian problem was a lack of patrolling within stationary blocking positions. Electronic sensors were available to Russian forces, but they were not always placed to the front, flanks and inside their positions. Russian distribution of night-vision devices was also limited when compared to Western armies. Although this was an improved army during the Second Russian-Chechen War, the Russians still suffered from the lack of professional noncommissioned officers.

The Chechens did not dare mass. As this battle illustrates, the risk to large groups was not worth it so the Chechens operated in small groups to husband their resources and reduce risk.

The unfortunate side effect of this is that without massing it became more difficult for the Chechens to carry out any actions of significant scope or devastating enough to have any lasting impact on the overall Russian war effort.

In the earliest raid examples in this chapter there were never any rehearsals. There was a tendency to give general guidance and then let the situation sort itself out as it occurred. Over time, the surviving Chechen units started rehearsing their raids, working on coordinating events by time, better communications and rally/check points.

When the terrain was constrictive, such as in a town or at a ridge or narrow road, the Chechens tried to take out one of the leading vehicles and the trail vehicle to bottle up the convoy. If the terrain did not favor this, they usually hit the middle of the convoy, where there were fewer armored vehicles.

The operational key terrain in Chechnya consists of the cities and major villages, the road and rail network, bridges over the major rivers, and oil fields and the oil pipeline transiting the country.

The Russian-Chechen Wars started as maneuver combat before settling in on successive sieges of the cities and major villages. Preventing or delaying movement along the lines of communication (LOC) was a primary factor during these phases of the wars.

Chechnya is not Afghanistan and, although the Chechens successfully ambushed Russian supply columns, they were never able to block enemy LOCs for an extended period of time. The mounta...

Where the Chechens did manage to block the LOC for a period of time, they were aided by the deliberate, systemati...

The Russian Army would later be criticized for being too road-bound, yet the Chechens suffered from this same tendency during this period. Further, Labazanov’s reconnaissance element was too close to the main body and the first vehicle in line was a medical vehicle. The road junction was critical to his advance, yet he took no precautions to seize it early before the column arrived.

In addition to the Chechen army, however loosely that is defined, there was an even more ad hoc military component buttressing the resistance. The village and friend-based units were not directly subservient to the military command and, although they were given orders, they often chose their own objectives, preferring time and time again to defend territory that, regardless of its military value, had direct personal value to them.

Although the Russians bombarded and then overflew the route of advance prior to sending the column, they did not follow up with additional artillery once the column had been ambushed. The area around the bridge site would make an ideal target box and should have been plotted before the column set out, but it appears that the Russian force preferred to use the bridge rather than destroy it with their artillery. The river was not wide and Sheikh believes the Russians probably should have skipped the bridge and forded the river elsewhere.

Success in defensive combat, however, depends on time and the shovel. A good commander is able to read the terrain, understand the enemy and understand the strengths and weaknesses of his own men. The digging should start only after evaluating the terrain and determining where the enemy will come from, what he will do and how he will deploy.

Rehearsed, marked routes of escape and on-hand transport are also a good idea.

The best place to cross a river is at a bend in the river that turns away from the attacker and surrounds the defender on three sides. This puts the high bank and the deep channel of the river against the attacker’s shore, where he can more easily deal with the attacker and can then anchor the far end of his bridge in the shallower water with a more-gradual approach in slower current.

The first step in defending a river line is determining where the enemy is most likely to cross. The defender’s next dilemma is whether to defend forward along the river line or picket it and build the main defenses further back where he can better engage the enemy.

It was a complete intelligence failure for the Chechens. The Russian assault was not on the southern approaches, but rather clear around on the northeast side of the city, toward the other dairy farm. It was the weakest part of the Chechen perimeter, with few fixed positions and few mobile patrols.

The only chance that the Chechens had to punish the Russians was to conduct an urban fight within Argun, yet the Chechens put all of their efforts into building a long, under-strength perimeter along the river banks and mostly outside of the city.

Perhaps the relatively small size of Argun convinced the Chechen leadership that block-by-block urban fighting would not be as effective as it was initially in Grozny. Or the costs associated with holding Grozny may have convinced the Chechen leadership that they could not afford the high attrition rates that would be inevitable in another urban fight.

The lessons of the Chechen initial success at Grozny were apparently lost on Shamil Basaev, and, consequently, the Russians were able to conduct a battle of maneuver on relatively open ground. This was the Russians’ strong suit. The Chechen plan was to hold the river line, but they had developed no alternate plans and positio...

“The tactics of the first war taught us that if the guys in the OPs begin to shoot, they’ll attract fire to themselves. When one of the OPs comes under fire, the other OPs will open fire, shifting the Russian fire onto themselves while the first OP retreats to the second line of defense. When those guys reach the second line they start firing on the Russian positions, and when the Russian fire shifts to them the guys in the other OPs can now retreat to the second line of defense. In this way all the guys in the forward OPs can cover each other.”

The Chechens had learned the hard way during the first war that, while bigger trenches were more comfortable, they were not safe. These fortifications were small, with dugouts cut into the side of the main trench line in which one or two men could shelter from artillery and air strikes.

It was conventional wisdom among the Chechen fighters that, although an RPG had a maximum range of over 500 meters, anything over 300 meters was a gamble and not an efficient use of precious ammunition.

MAAWS

The Russian force, on the other hand, was very timid or unconcerned. There is no indication of probing Russian patrols across the Terek. After selecting a river crossing site, the commander needs to move reconnaissance across the river and follow this with an assault force to seize and expand a bridgehead before the bridging is attempted. Even if the commander expects an unopposed crossing, he should position forces on the opposite shore as or before he starts bridging.

The Chechen defense of a river line was usually conducted forward along the immediate water’s edge, with fallback positions prepared to the rear.

Regardless, once the Russians crossed the river at one point, the entire river defense was most often abandoned.

Multiple river crossings are an effective tactic, but require a lot of resources and additional security on the part of the attacker. Usually the Russian forces were content with a single crossing site, since the Chechens lacked the ability to mass against an established bridgehead.

A successful defense of a river line relies on a strong mobile reserve. The Chechens lacked the equipment and manpower to constitute such a force.

The primary targets for Chechen miners and IED makers were Russians and documentation was considered critical.

OIE

They also began planning an operation designed to demonstrate their ability to continue the fight. The plan called for a three-day operation to enter Grozny, bloody the Russians, broadcast their tactical victory from the capital, and retreat back to the relative safety of their mountain bases. The Chechens were to enter the city from three directions and put all Russian positions in the city under fire.