Spetsnaz

by Viktor Suvorov

  Commanders of groups and detachments who are to take part in operations in reserve areas are usually told that their area is the main one and the most important, that there is already a large force of spetsnaz operating there or that such a force will soon appear there. The commander of a group that is operating in the main area may be told, on the contrary, that apart from his groups there are very few groups operating in the area. Irrespective of what the commander is told he is given quite specific tasks, for whose accomplishment he answers with his head in the most literal sense.

  In any operation the GRU high command keeps a spetsnaz reserve on its own territory. Even in the course of the operation some groups may receive an order to withdraw from the main areas into the reserve areas. Spetsnaz reserves may be dropped into the reserve areas, which then become main areas of operations. In this way the enemy obtains information about spetsnaz simultaneously in many areas, and it is exceptionally difficult to determine where the main areas and where the reserve ones are. Consequently the enemy’s main forces may be thrown against relatively small groups and detachments which are conducting real military operations but which are none the less a false target for the enemy. Even if the enemy establishes which are the main areas of spetsnaz operations the enemy may be too late. Many spetsnaz groups and detachments will already be leaving the area, but those that remain there will be ordered to step up their activity; the enemy thus gets the impression that this area is still the main one. So as not to dispel this illusion, the groups remaining in the area are ordered by the Soviet high command to prepare to receive fresh spetsnaz reinforcements, are sent increased supplies and are continually told that they are doing the main job. But they are not told that their comrades left the area long ago for a reserve area that has now become a main one.

  At the same time as the main and reserve areas are chosen, false areas of operations for spetsnaz are set. A false, or phoney, area is created in the following way. A small spetsnaz group with a considerable supply of mines is dropped into the area secretly. The group lays the mines on important targets, setting the detonators in such a way that all the mines will blow up at roughly the same time. Then automatic radio transmitters are fixed up in inaccessible places which are also carefully mined. This done, the spetsnaz group withdraws from the area and gets involved in operations in a quite different place. Then another spetsnaz group is dropped into the same area with the task of carrying out an especially daring operation.

  This group is told that it is to be operating in an area of special importance where there are many other groups also operating. At an agreed moment the Soviet air force contributes a display of activity over the particular area. For this purpose real planes are used, which have just finished dropping genuine groups in another area. The route they follow has to be deliberately complicated, with several phoney places where they drop torn parachutes and shroud-lines, airborne troops’ equipment, boxes of ammunition, tins of food, and so forth.

  Next day the enemy observes the following scene. In an area of dense forest in which there are important targets there are obvious traces of the presence of Soviet parachutists. In many places in the same area there had been simultaneous explosions. In broad daylight a group of Soviet terrorists had stopped the car of an important official on the road and brutally murdered him and got away with his case full of documents. At the same time the enemy had noted throughout the area a high degree of activity by spetsnaz radio transmitters using a system of rapid and super-rapid transmission which made it very difficult to trace them. What does the enemy general have to do, with all these facts on his desk?

  To lead the enemy further astray spetsnaz uses human dummies, clothed in uniform and appropriately equipped. The dummies are dropped in such a way that the enemy sees the drop but cannot immediately find the landing place. For this purpose the drop is carried out over mountains or forests, but far away from inhabited places and places where the enemy’s troops are located. The drops are usually made at dawn, sunset or on a moonlit night. They are never made in broad daylight because it is then seen to be an obvious piece of deception, while on a dark night the drop may not be noticed at all.

  The enemy will obviously discover first the dummies in the areas which are the main places for spetsnaz operations. The presence of the dummies may raise doubts in the enemy’s mind about whether the dummies indicate that it is not a false target area but the very reverse. . . . The most important thing is to disorient the enemy completely. If there are few spetsnaz forces available, then it must be made to appear that there are lots of them around. If there are plenty of them, it should be made to appear that there are very few. If their mission is to destroy aircraft it must look as if their main target is a power station, and vice versa. Sometimes a group will lay mines on targets covering a long distance, such as oil pipelines, electricity power lines, roads and bridges along the roads. In such cases they set the first detonators to go off with a very long delay and as they advance they make the delay steadily shorter. The group then withdraws to one side and changes its direction of advance completely. The successive explosions then take place in the opposite direction to the one in which the group was moving.

  Along with operations in the main, reserve and false areas there may also be operations by spetsnaz professional groups working in conditions of special secrecy. The Soviet air force plays no part in such operations. Even if the groups are dropped by parachute it takes place some distance away and the groups leave the drop zone secretly. Relatively small but very carefully trained groups of professional athletes are chosen for such operations. Their movements can be so carefully concealed that even their acts of terrorism are carried out in such a way as to give the enemy the impression that the particular tragedy is the result of some natural disaster or of some other circumstances unconnected with Soviet military intelligence or with terrorism in general. All the other activity of spetsnaz serves as a sort of cover for such specially trained groups. The enemy concentrates his attention on the main, reserve and false target areas, not suspecting the existence of secret areas in which the organisation is also operating: secret areas which could very easily be the most dangerous for the enemy.

  * * *

  Notes

  [1] See Viktor Suvorov, Soviet Military Intelligence (London, 1984). [Return]

  [2] Leningradskaya Pravda, 14 July 1928. [Return]

  Chapter 14

  Future Prospects

  Spetsnaz continues to grow. In the first place its ranks are swelling. In the next few years spetsnaz companies on the army level are expected to become battalions, and there is much evidence to suggest that this process has already begun. Such a reorganisation would mean an increase in the strength of spetsnaz by 10,000 men. But that is not the end of it. Already at the end of the 1970s the possibility was being discussed of increasing the number of regiments at the strategic level from three to five. The brigades at front level could, without any increase in the size of the support units, raise the number of fighting battalions from three or four to five. The possibilities of increasing the strength of spetsnaz are entirely realistic and evoke legitimate concern among Western experts. [1]

  * * *

  The principal direction being taken by efforts to improve the quality of the spetsnaz formations is mechanisation. No one disputes the advantages of mechanisation. A mechanised spetsnaz soldier is able to withdraw much more quickly from the dropping zone. He can cover great distances much more quickly and inspect much larger areas than can a soldier on foot. And he can get quickly into contact with the enemy and inflict sudden blows on him, and then get quickly away from where the enemy may strike him and pursue him.

  But the problem of mechanisation is a difficult one. The spetsnaz soldier operates in forests, marshland, mountains, deserts and even in enormous cities. Spetsnaz needs a vehicle capable of transporting a spetsnaz soldier in all these conditions, and one that enables him to be as silent and practically invisible as he is now.


  There have been many scientific conferences dealing with the question of providing spetsnaz with a means of transport, but they have not yet produced any noticeable results. Soviet experts realise that it will not be possible to create a single machine to meet spetsnaz needs, and that they will have to develop a whole family of vehicles with various features, each of them intended for operations in particular conditions.

  One of the ways of increasing the mobility of spetsnaz behind enemy lines is to provide part of the unit with very lightweight motorcycles capable of operating on broken terrain. Various versions of the snow-tractor are being developed for use in northern regions. Spetsnaz also uses cross-country vehicles. Some of them amount to no more than a platform half a metre high, a metre and a half wide and two or three metres long mounted on six or eight wheels. Such a vehicle can easily be dropped by parachute, and it has considerable cross-country ability in very difficult terrain, including marshland and sand. It is capable of transporting a spetsnaz group for long distances, and in case of necessity the group’s base can be moved around on such vehicles while the group operates on foot.

  The introduction of such vehicles and motorcycles into spetsnaz does more than increase its mobility; it also increases its firepower through the use of heavier armament that can be transported on the vehicles, as well as a larger supply of ammunition.

  The vehicles, motorcycles and snow-tractors are developments being decided today, and in the near future we shall see evidence that these ideas are being put into practice. In the more distant future the Soviet high command wants to see the spetsnaz soldier airborne. The most likely solution will be for each soldier to have an apparatus attached to his back which will enable him to make jumps of several tens or even hundreds of metres. Such an apparatus could act as a universal means of transport in any terrain, including mountains. Since the beginning of the 1950s intensive research has been going on in the Soviet Union on this problem. It would appear that there have so far been no tangible achievements in this field, but there has been no reduction in the effort put into the research, despite many failures.

  The same objective - to make the spetsnaz soldier airborne, or at least capable of big leaps - has also been pursued by the Kamov design office, which has for several decades, along with designing small helicopters, been trying to create a midget helicopter sufficient for just one man. Army-General Margelov once said that ‘an apparatus must be created that will eliminate the boundary between the earth and the sky.’ Earth-bound vehicles cannot fly, while aircraft and helicopters are defenceless on the ground. Margelov’s idea was that they should try to create a very light apparatus that would enable a soldier to flit like a dragon-fly from one leaf to another. What they needed was to turn the Soviet soldier operating behind enemy lines into a sort of insect capable of operating both on the ground and in the air (though not very high up) and also of switching from one state to the other without effort.

  Every farmer knows that it is easier to kill a wild buffalo that is ruining his crops than to kill a mass of insects that have descended on his plants at night. The Soviet high command dreams of a day when the neighbour’s garden can be invaded not only by buffaloes but by mad elephants too, and swarms of voracious insects at the same time. On a more practical basis for now, intensive research is being conducted in the Soviet Union to develop new ways of dropping men by parachute. The work is testing out a variety of new ideas, one such being the ‘container drop’, in other words the construction of a container with several men in it which would be dropped on one freight parachute. This method makes it possible to reduce considerably the amount of time set aside for training soldiers how to jump by parachute: training time which can be better spent on more useful things. The container enables the people in it to start firing at targets as they are landing and immediately afterwards. The container method makes it much easier to keep the men together in one spot and solves the problem of assembling a group after it has been dropped. But there are a whole lot of technical problems connected with the development of such containers for air drops, and I am not competent to judge when they may be solved.

  Another idea being studied is the possibility of constructing parachutes that can glide; hybrid creations combining the qualities of the parachute and the hang-glider. This would make it possible for the transport aircraft to fly along the least dangerous routes and to drop the parachutists over safe areas far from the target they are making for. A man using his own gliding parachute can descend slowly or remain at one level or even climb higher. Since they are able to control the direction of their flight the spetsnaz groups can approach their targets noiselessly from various directions.

  The hang-glider, especially one equipped with a very light motor, is the subject of enormous interest to the GRU. It makes it possible not only to fly from one’s own territory to the enemy’s territory without using transport planes, but also to make short flights on the enemy’s territory so as to penetrate to targets, to evade any threat from the enemy and to perform other tasks.

  The hang-glider with a motor (the motodeltoplan) is the cheapest flying machine and the one easiest to control. The motor has made it possible to take off from quite small, even patches of ground. It is no longer necessary to clamber up a hillside in order to take off. But the most important feature of the motorised hang-glider is, of course, the concealment it provides. Experiments show that very powerful radar systems are often quite unable to detect a hang-glider. Its flight is noiseless, because the motor is used only for taking off and gaining height. By flying with the motor shut off the man on the hang-glider is protected from heat-seeking means of detection and attack.

  The distance that motorised hang-gliders can fly is quite sufficient for spetsnaz. It is enough to allow a man to take off quite a long way behind the frontier, cross it and land deep in the enemy’s rear. Flight in a dangerous area can be carried out at very low altitudes. They are now developing in the Soviet Union a piece of equipment that will make it possible for motorised hang-gliders to fly at very low altitudes following the contours of the ground. Flights will have to take place at night and in conditions of bad visibility, and a simple, lightweight but reliable navigation aid is being developed too.

  The motorised hang-glider can be used for other purposes apart from transporting spetsnaz behind the enemy’s lines. It can be used for identifying and even for destroying especially important enemy targets. Experiments show that the deltoplan can carry light machine-guns, grenade-launchers and rockets, which makes it an exceptionally dangerous weapon in the hands of spetsnaz. The main danger presented by these ‘insects’ is of course not to be found in their individual qualities but in their numbers. Any insect on its own can easily be swatted. But a swarm of insects is a problem which demands serious thought: it is not easy to find a way of dealing with them.

  The officers commanding the GRU know exactly the sort of deltoplan that spetsnaz needs in the foreseeable future. It has to be a machine that needs no more than twenty-five metres to take off, has a rate of climb of not less than a metre per second, and has a motor with a power of not more than 30 kilowatts which must have good heat isolation and make a noise of not more than 55 decibels. The machine must be capable of lifting a payload of 120 to 150 kilograms (reconnaissance equipment, armaments, ammunition). Work on its development, like the work carried out in the 1930s on the first midget submarines, is being carried on simultaneously and independently by several groups of designers.

  The GRU realises that hang-gliders can be very vulnerable in daytime and that they are also very sensitive to changes in the weather. There are three possible ways of overcoming these difficulties: improving the construction of the machines themselves and improving the professional skills of the pilots; employing them suddenly and in large numbers on a wide front, using many combinations of direction and height; and using them only in conjunction with many other weapons and ways of fighting, and the use of a great variety of different devices and tricks to neut
ralise the enemy.

  At the same time as developing ways of dropping people in the enemy’s rear, work is being done on methods for returning spetsnaz units to their own territory. This is not as important as the business of dropping them; nevertheless there are situations when it is necessary to find some way of transporting someone from a group, or a whole group, back to Soviet territory. For many years now this has sometimes been done with low-flying aircraft, but this is a risky method which has yet to be perfected. Better methods are needed for evacuating men from territories where there is no sea nearby, where the helicopter cannot be used and where an aircraft cannot land.

  * * *

  A Soviet general named Meshcheryakov opened up a vast area for study and research when he made the proposal that the armed forces should ‘create for spetsnaz the kind of conditions in which no one should interfere with its work’. There are many problems here which Soviet science is concentrating on trying to solve. Who interferes with the work of spetsnaz? Primarily the enemy’s radar system. Radar installations interfere with the activity of the entire Soviet Army. In order to open the way for the Soviet Army into the territory of the enemy it is necessary first of all to ‘blind’ the enemy’s radar system. That is always one of spetsnaz’s principal tasks. But to carry it out, the radars obstructing spetsnaz itself have somehow to be put out of action. One solution to this problem is, prior to dropping the main spetsnaz force, to send small groups behind the enemy’s lines who will clear the way for spetsnaz which will in turn clear the way for the whole Soviet Army. Such a solution can be regarded as satisfactory only because no other solution has so far been found. But terrific effort is being put into the work of finding some other solution. The Soviet high command needs a technical solution, some method that would make it possible, even for a short period, simultaneously to ‘blind’ the enemy’s radar over a fairly wide area, so as to give the first wave of spetsnaz the opportunity to carry out its mission.