Shot column
Before the army, I was a pure "nerd." Dad - colonel, mom - commercial director of a solid store. He graduated from the school pretty well and entered one of the prestigious Moscow universities, to the delight of parents. But in the first year I banged: “I want to join the army!” After serving in the marines for a year and a half, I got into the police, but I really wanted to smell the powder in the war. Once I heard on television news that many contract soldiers had died in Chechnya. Then it dawned on me how much my desire just now to implement.
I went straight to the military registration and enlistment office: “I want to go to Chechnya!” In just two days I prepared the necessary documents. Started call waiting. Clearly, "hang out" every night ... Two weeks. And when he no longer waited, an officer in charge of the recruitment of contract servicemen called from the military registration and enlistment office: “Everything, December 18 is sending one hundred percent.”
In the morning I arrived at the military registration and enlistment office. Then me and others began to hang noodles on their ears: they say, they will send us to Nizhny, where in two weeks they will be made “rangers”: they will train to shoot everything they can, and also two or three military registration specialties. After that, to Chechnya, where a crowd of “buyers” will meet us right at the airfield, and we will choose a military unit ourselves. We will sign a contract on the spot, and we will be provided with everything necessary according to the certificates.
On the morning of December 19, 1995 arrived in Nizhny. By evening, our consolidated company was assembled at the club and told how wonderful we are, that we are going to fight, albeit for money, but this is still good.
December 21 signed a contract. With whom? About what? What part? Do not say anything. I still have this “linden” at home. 21-th same we were given uniforms: one simple "Afghan", one winter, all the rest of the old sample. They gave me a form: size 48, height III. I ask: “How am I going to keep a rifle in the mountains, I have sleeves to the elbow?” - “Oh, nothing, everything is fine. What they give, then take it! ”Somehow you got the right size of a pea coat. Dates gave out 100 thousand (old), making a mark in the certificate.
December 23 flew to Mozdok. After the frosts of the Volga region - here is the sun. We spent the night in a tent, and the next day we were already sent to the unit. Only from the “turntables” we learned from the ensign and officer who flew with us that we were in 245 msp. According to them, “not a regiment, but an ass. They are all holes, losses ... "
We are on the spot. Heat 25 degrees, mud knee-deep. Shatoy right in front of us, here they are - the spirits roam. All this, of course, led, to put it mildly, to some confusion. The fact is that many only then realized where they were. Okay, I served the urgent in the marines, but I didn’t shoot at people, and half of the recruits didn’t hold machine guns in their hands, because the promise to make us “rangers” remained a promise ...
Intelligence and Tailed San Sanych
Profit "buyers" from the divisions. First, the scouts made up for the losses, then the rest of the combat units. I was forced to sign a contract in Nizhny to the position of a radiotelephone operator, and not on a sniper, as I wanted. Radiotelephonist reconnaissance and I got.
Ensign from the "turntables" was the foreman of reconnaissance. San Sanych, according to the general conviction, lacked only horns and tail. He was a personal cook of the regiment and, accordingly, had an influence even on a company officer. Could fault to the post. What touched the most was the fact that, as it should be for the foreman, San Sanych was not in any operation, but he behaved like an experienced intelligence officer, tired of war.
December 29 took my first exit. The day before, the spirits had broken our “New Year” column. The people, however, almost did not suffer, but the cargo was taken away by the Chechens. And on the 29-e appointed negotiations. Intelligence should cover. The company asked if I could use the grenade launcher. I answered yes. He brought me a GP-25 and a brand new pouch for grenades. I must say that in Chechnya, equipment, and especially a cartridge pouch, was a royal gift. I gained impudence and asked for a second company company, but, of course, I was refused.
The first exit is like the first date, so I want everything to be okay and even better ... In short, I borrowed the second pouch from my friends and six more stores for AK. I am dragging all this on myself, and even the P-159 station with the “historian”. All so tuned in to the war ... Then San Sanych appears: “Why are you dressed like that? Where so much fastened? Such as you, and perish immediately. Yes, I'm already tired of sending you 300-mi and 200-mi ... "On the way out, we, of course, went without him, but I will never forget the sodden mood.
San Sanych disliked me. February 3 with his efforts I was transferred from the reconnaissance company to the 3 th company, the 3 th platoon, and I ended up at the 33 st block. To Shatoi 500 meters. It should be noted that local people respected us for working normally. Pass mode was carried out without quibbles. At night, foolishly in the village did not shoot. No one broke through our checkpoint, but they were not even going to take us prisoner. In short, the spirits treated us with respect, considering them normal people ...
Dreams Come True
On the 33 BP, I also served as a radio telephone player. But some time later, a battalion officer calls me and reports that I am attracted to snipers for training. It turns out that I was in his staff recorded as a sniper. At the training camp I was given SVHU: a song! If the bullet was lowered into the barrel from the breech, it would fall to one third of its length. If you look at the barrel from the muzzle, then the rifling could be seen only by straining the eyes very much. Butt one of my predecessors managed to split. At the sight PSO-1, the front part of the bracket is broken, while firing, the sight lived its own life.
A colonel in charge, in my opinion, the deputy regiment commander. To inspire military training, he moved it, the meaning of which lay in the fact that only us snipers in the Chechen war all hope. But what attitude to the snipers really was in the regiment, can be judged by the participants fees. Those who could actually perform sniper tasks turned out once or twice and miscalculated. Basically, these people were just appointed snipers. He saw one sniper rifle only when he received it from the warehouse: a new SVD with all the spare parts, which was put to the “screw” and which he lost on the very first day.
During the day, each shot at half a zinc. The trunks literally almost melted. With the snipers of our battalion was engaged zamkombat, a good man, "Afghan". Somehow the deputy regiment came to us, shows a cartridge with a punched sleeve. Here, they say, as in the 2-m battalion shoot! We, of course, raised high, that does not happen.
Started to shoot. I was interested to try to get on the sleeve. I stuck three rounds in a piece of foam. I shot a series of four rounds, asking: “Can I have a cartridge case?” Zamkombat says: “Go ahead!” Come on watch the target - there is no cartridge. I say zamombat: "Got it!" And he: "You'll show me a cartridge full of holes, then I will believe." The second time it was the same. The third cartridge, however, I shot down with two shots. The colonel shouts: "The first battalion is not worse than the second!"
How were we going to storm Goyskoye
At the end of February 1995, the battalion commander decided to remove our checkpoint, and from the 3rd company to make a raid group. Our equipment is ZGVshnaya. Of the eight available vehicles, only three are on the move. On March 18, our company was to provide the Center-Podvozmo movement with three machines. The task is simple. The regiment is nearby, if anything, artillery will help. They took with them only the most necessary, about a third of ammunition, of ammunition. We met and carried out "Tsentrpodvoz", moved through Argun and stopped at the former 33rd checkpoint. We stand an hour, two. The 6th company pulled itself up, sappers appeared in the head of the column, three tank pulled up. Something obscure is going on. Nobody knows anything. The company went to the battalion, and returning after an hour, he could only report that we were going somewhere. Where - he did not know.
Go. No ammunition, no warm stuff - nothing. Spring in Chechnya is the time of year when water literally hangs in the air. At the exit of the gorge stood 324 msn. Day we stayed with them. And the next was brought up ammunition, literally having filled them up. The only thing that was not was sniper cartridges. By that time, I had already gotten a new rifle from that bummy peasant, and mine was sent for write-off. I put my whole soul into my SVD. On the butt attached rubber butt plate from the kit GP-25. On the butt and sight put on a camouflage cloth cover. Hood PSO replaced the hood of their own making. From the store to the trim barrel also put on the cover. Covers sewed himself. If you put a rifle on the ground, no one would have realized what it is.
Five days have passed. Finally it became clear that we would go to the area of the village of Goiskoye. I think during this time the spirits have already figured out where we will attack. On the sixth day, we started the movement, but, having spotted and met some spirits, we returned back to 324 MSP. We lived in a clean field, without tents and camping kitchens. Ate haphazardly. On the seventh day, they nevertheless advanced to Goysky and stood up - naturally, again in the open field. The rain has not stopped for several days. It was possible to dry out only at the exhaust of the T-80 tank. Bonfires were not lit at night so as not to unmask themselves. With 18 March, our existence can be briefly described as follows: there is nothing, there is nowhere to sleep and nothing to. I don’t remember exactly, but either at the end of March, or in the first days of April, an order came: “Go ahead to Goiskoye!” The maneuver that was done then was neither an attack, nor an assault. Because of the periodic back and forth movements, the soldiers gave this occupation a non-print name. We did not equip any positions, and who will set the task, if the battalion commander is drunk every day, and with it the whole battalion control.
... And how we stormed him
4 April around 15.00 gunner BMP pushed us: "Get up, let's go soon!" And indeed, after 15 minutes moved forward ... 600 meters to the road overcame an hour and a half. The spirits were above and shot us, as in the dash. The 2 and 3 platoons left the company from our company, while the 1 and company management remained at a position two hundred meters behind, the 2 and 6 companies went around the left side.
We decided to move for the road, asked to cover up, but my SVD did not shoot: a fragment of a grenade hit the gate. I disassembled the rifle. There were some other pieces of iron in the receiver, as well as fragments. I checked everything, tried the rifle - nothing works.
Our group went behind the road, throwing grenades at the perfume. At first, a pair of machine gunners fixed on the spot. And the rest had already come under cover. We knocked the spirits from the position. Apparently, there were about twenty of them. Departing, they left five for cover. These unfortunate grenades were blown to shreds. The holes dug under the road did not help them either.
We are entrenched. At this time, 6-I and 2-I companies were fighting a fierce battle in the "Zelenka". Eleven people, together with the platoon commander, who performed the duty of the company, lay down there. Two weeks later, the spirits asked to take away the corpses, as they had already decomposed greatly. But it is later, but for now we have blocked the right flank of the 2 and 6 mouth. In one of the holes they found a living “Czech”, who managed to fill up the kid who found him. No matter how hard we tried to czech, all for nothing. We poured kerosene into a hole, set it on fire, and threw grenades. Apparently, the move to the shelter was cranked, so he did not reach ...
While the court case, we look, the main forces of the company came up. It turns out that they, having lost four, could not overcome the field. Our platoon mated with company company about their late approach. The company company shouts: “There were no clear instructions from the battalion commander!” Vzvodny: “The battalion commander is drunk. I had to make the decision myself! ”While they were sorting out, we examined the Chechen trenches and dugouts, finished off the wounded. After some time, the team: "Get away!".
The fact that this is nonsense is clear to everyone. One of the conscripts demobels tried to explain on the radio station, they say, it is necessary to be fixed, because if not we, then the spirits will come, and we will again have to seize the position with losses. He shouted themselves hoarse, with swears, but, of course, could not convince anyone.
Having ensured the output of the 6 Company, they began to retreat themselves. The self-propelled guns from 324 msp began to holing Goiskoye, and we were divided into two groups. The first leaves with all belongings, the second covers. Went away as a whole is normal, but not without jokes. The last departed tank board number 420. He covered everyone, "to the heap." During the assault, the spirits burned two infantry fighting vehicles: one of ours, one of the 6 companies. For fidelity, the tank hit the wounded BMP. And then some gunner-operator from the "two" on him as shy! Tankers then said: “Of course, we don’t care for us, but when they beat you in the ass when you went away ...” They didn’t find out who shot them.
At the disposal of the battalion commander
A countryman came, Dima from Mytishchi. He was kicked out of reconnaissance too. He was now listed as a communications company, and worked as a chief of staff, led reconnaissance, and slowly shot down spiritual snipers. 5 April in 23.00 he went to "Zelenka" in Goyskoye. After about an hour and a half, there was a fierce shooting there, and they fired from one end of the village to the other and back from everything that only spirits could. "Flies" flew into the sky and exploded. Our artillery added a light ... The firing ended at about 3 hours of the night. Towards morning, the shell-shocked Dimych crawled in, he was just between the warring parties, but he never understood a damn thing. Later, according to unverified data, it turned out that at the time of the assault in Goiysk there was a group of about 1,5 thousand people (this is against our raid group of 286 people), of which some convicts had 400, who decided to throw the attack from there. The rest of the spirits resisted their departure. A fight started.
Dima offered to work together. We climbed once in the "Zelenka". He taught me the basics of sniper tactics, how to overcome mines on stretch marks, and other wisdom. After some time, he advanced to the battalion commander the idea of creating a non-standard reconnaissance group (two snipers and two machine gunners to cover), which would conduct reconnaissance in his interests. Combat thought like. From 7 April to 24 May, when we left Goyski, our group supplied him with intelligence. Sometimes the battalion commander gave us a few people from the 1 platoon, but then nonsense began, which we called "provocation". Knowledge in them, and in our country, in the art of intelligence, is zero points and as many tenths. We lie, we observe the spirits. Boring The boys from the 1 platoon throw a couple of grenades and report to the battalion commander on the radio station: “We were shot at from an RPG, allow me to return fire?” The battalion commander didn’t dry out and therefore, without hesitation, replied: “R-authorize!” white light, like a pretty penny. Spirits in our direction, we in them. It all ended with the arrival of the "turntables", and the spirits shut up.
Later in the magazine “Soldier of Fortune” I read that the first shot of the reconnaissance group was the beginning of its end. I was convinced of this in my own skin. Two hundred meters from the bush in which our reconnaissance station was located, we found a group of spirits with weapons. They reported it to the battalion commander, and he drunk ordered them to be filled up, a weapon to be captured, and we would drag the corpses with us — we would change them to our prisoners. We expressed doubts about the possibility of an operation, but the battalion commander assured us that we are heroes, and for such eagles the similar task is as mundane as sending a small need.
We imbued, spirits filled up. But what started after that! From the village they shot at us from everything that shot. Little of! They also sent reinforcements to their chums. And we, because of dense fire, cannot take a step back. All right, sailed! On the radio shout: "Everything, help out!" We must pay tribute, our entire "armor", able to move independently, instantly fell to us. Spirits, seeing such a "tank attack", fell behind. We started to move away, but at that time the battalion commander sent us the “turntables”: “Aim!” Then they all remembered at once that I was a radio telephone player, they put P-159 on me. As I suggested, it is better not to remember. We are moving along the channel, and here we are covered with the AGS-17 line. Miraculously no one hooked, only one kid cut off his pocket with a splinter. In general, they departed with a sin in half.
Sold column
Between Goysky and Komsomolsky are gardens, and behind them the ATGM positions are among the spirits. The operator they had a cool, versts for three fell into the nalivnik. Moreover, he tried to cover the command post of the 324 regiment, fired at the roadblock, and before it was all four kilometers.
It was this battalion that aimed us at this ATGM. We proceeded from the assumption that the position is well guarded, and if you drop the operator, then silently. Therefore, they asked the battalion commander to write out from the RAV VSS Vintorez warehouse. He ordered the rifle, but someone had to go after it along with the chief of the rocket-artillery service. In the regiment, we decided to go on a passing column.
The situation in Goisky was as follows: the spirits could not turn the tide in their favor, since we exceeded them in firepower (artillery, aviation etc.), but we could not take Goiskoy because of our small numbers. One way or another, we got the spirits, and they conveyed that if some other unit of the 245 SMEs approached Goisky, they would block the gorge and block the regiment.
In Nizhnye Atagi, where we waited for the column, she came in half past one. In its composition were to follow in the regiment demob-conscripts from the raid group, as well as those who went to take shape on leave for family reasons. (Naturally, they, like me, were not taken into account anywhere, and therefore later, when the battle was already over, the exact number of losses in our unfortunate column was difficult to calculate. In particular, Ural with demobels, of which there was a 20 man, burned after one hit by the “Bumblebee.” There was food carried there, and the boys were sitting on sacks from above — that’s how it all burned ...)
I walked through the column to find out about the mail - there were no letters. I go back, I look - there are four painters in a row, and one of them has my good friend and countryman Arkasha. It turned out he was the castle platoon of the cupcakes. Well, lucky! “Arkasha, is there a free space in the cabin? It’s not a white man’s sniper on the armor to shake by dust ”. He says: “Go in, see for yourself!” I went in, pushed a bag of vodka, which he was carrying to someone for his birthday. Nothing, fit.
Around 14.00 started moving. In 14.10 passed Chishki and jerked shutters before entering the gorge. Arkasha says: "Look, only women and children." And just yesterday, the guys from the 324 regiment would tell me: “If there are men, women and children on the road, everything is fine. If some women are cranky, an ambush will come soon. ”
The column stretched out in the "Teschin language" (this is a serpentine). The painters barely unfolded on it, and the MAZs that pulled the faulty equipment didn’t know how they went. Everything is quiet, calm. We go, we jokes jokes. We drove Yarysh-Mardy, the head of the column was already around the corner, the bridge was running through a dry channel. And then - the explosion in front, we look - because of the knoll, the tank tower was thrown up, the second explosion was also somewhere in the head of the column, and the third just banged between the one in front and our nalivniki. The explosion blew off the hood, loosened the glass. It was the first time I had a concussion. Arkasha had already got out of the car, and I got confused in the two door handles - well, I was simply stunned.
In the end fell out of the cab. The fire is very dense, but I have already begun to think, and ran away from 15 meters on the nalivnik, despite the fire of the spirits. I found some recess in the side of the road, shoved my ass there. Nearby fighter-conscript lay down. The first shock has passed - I observe how things are. And things are not important. Bulk embarked on the road. The guys from the platoon of cupcakes are shot in all directions as they can, where the spirits specifically are still unclear. Arkasha from under the wheel of his cupcake wets in white light.
Then a grenade passed by me like a blinker in the cupcake that was behind us. Bulb burns. I estimate that if it explodes now, it will be very hot for all of us. I'm trying to figure out where this thing came from. Looks like someone fumbles meters in 170 from us. He looked into the scope, and the "dushara" was already preparing a new grenade ... I dumped him from the first shot, I liked it myself. I start to look in the target. Another “taint” in a trench sits, watering it from a machine gun. I shot, but I can’t say with certainty whether I killed or not, because the bullet hit the upper edge of the breastwork at chest level, behind which he sat. The spirit is gone. Either I got him anyway, or he decided not to tempt fate anymore. I took the sight again, I look, on the rift, the spirit “on four bones” creeps up the hill. The first shot I just scared him. He moved his limbs more actively, but did not manage to escape. The second shot, like a good kick in the ass, it already threw over his head.
While I was scorching through the spirits, Arkasha was burning a burning candlestick and dropping from the road. I listened, like a machine gun works. Behind something was set on fire, and black smoke went in our direction along the gorge, because of it, no sight is visible in the sight. We figured with Dmitry. - so the conscript was called, - that it is time for us to fall off from here. Gathered and rushed across the road, fell over the concrete blocks in front of the bridge. The head is not raised, and in the meantime, the machine-gunner is hammering on the handlers, and not without success. He set fire to them. Dima and I are lying, and a river of burning kerosene about one and a half meters wide flows past us towards the bridge. From the flame is hot unbearable, but as it turned out, this is not the worst. When the fiery river reached the "Ural" with charges for self-propelled guns, all this stuff began to explode. I look, some pieces with rags fly out of the car. Dima explained that these are lighting projectiles. We lie, we believe: Dima said that they were in the car about 50 pieces. Meanwhile, the second “Ural” with high-explosive shells caught fire. It’s good that he didn’t completely detonate; shells were thrown into explosions by explosions.
I lie and think: “Damn, what is it that no one commands us?” As it turned out later, Khattab so competently planned everything, that literally at the very beginning of the battle all control that was driving two command and staff vehicles was mowed down by small arms fire and the KSHM themselves remained untouched during the whole battle.
Suddenly in the second “Ural” with high explosive ammunition something exploded so that the rear axle with one wheel of a candle meters on the 80 went up, and, according to our considerations, it had to flop right on us. Well, we think sailed. But lucky: he fell about ten meters. Everything is in smoke, everything explodes. In the sight of the smoke can not see anything. Shooting is disorderly, but the machine gunner spirits stood out against the general background. We decided to get out of this pitch hell, ran into the "Zelenka". Distributed with Dima sectors of fire. I am leading the fire on the front, but he covers my rear and looks so that the spirits from above do not go. They crawled out to the edge, and on the tank, which stood in the tail of the column, the RPG spirits were beating. Once eight hit, but to no avail. Then all the same struck the tower from the commander's hatch. Smoke poured from it. Apparently, the crew was injured, and the mechanic began to hand over backwards. So backwards he went through the whole column and, they say, reached the regiment.
Then count we became wounds
An hour has passed since the beginning of the battle. Shooting began to subside. I say: “Well, that's it, Dima, we are pulling at the end of the column!” They ran under the bridge, I look, some people are sitting in “Afghans”, about seven people, next to two dead bodies. We run up. One of those sitting turns. Oh my God! He has a black beard, a crooked nose and rabid eyes. I lift the rifle, press the trigger ... The rest turn - ours. Well, I did not complain. Kontraktnik bearded turned out to be. He is sitting still, stupefied, without me, and he cannot say anything. I shout: “Uncle, I almost threw you in!” And he doesn’t get it.
In our direction, the BMP "lame" crawls, collects the wounded. She hit the torsion bar, and she hovers. They threw the wounded inside, pushed out onto the road - they burn out around the car, something breaks in them. The shootout almost subsided.
We are going. Somewhere closer to Argun on the road, men shout: “Guys! We have wounded here. Help!" I jumped to them, and the car went on. I go to the guys. They say: "We have a major wounded." The major is in camouflage, with the Marine Corps sign on his sleeve. Passing wound to the arm and chest. All pale from blood loss. The only thing I had was a tourniquet. I drew his hand to him. We talked, it turned out that he was the political officer of the Pacific battalion navy. At this time, one of the guys remembered that in the car they brought beer, cigarettes, juice, etc. I covered the guys, and they ran away dragged all this stuff.
We lie, we drink beer, we smoke. Darken the beginning. I think: “It will be dark now, the spirits will descend, there is no help, and we are cranky!” We decided to choose a better position. They took a pick of the little ones, occupied it, lay down, wait. The guys from the RMO show me the situation. Machines with ammunition spirits burnt out of an RPG, and those with food, just whipped small arms.
Whether help will come ...
She earned artillery, very carefully, only on the slopes, and not touching the town, nor us. Then came four Mi-24, worked over the mountains. It got dark. We hear, from the side of the 324 regiment - a terrible roar. It turns out help rolls. Ahead of the T-72, followed by the BMP, then again the tank. Short of 50 meters, he stops and points a gun at us. I think: “Everything! The spirits didn’t crash - they would finish theirs with a fright! ”We jump up, wave our hands - they say, his own. The tank shook the barrel, turned around and, like a blinker, in 20 meters away from me. With this "help" people povyshkakivalo - crawling on the grass, around themselves from the machines watered. We shout to them: “Guys, what are you crawling about? There is no one there anymore. ” It turns out that this was the intelligence of the 324 regiment. I approached the officers, saying: “What are you fighting here? We need to go to the head of the column! ”And they told me: since you were here, and you also understand, take ten people and move with them where you said.
I was like, I found the scouts, and we moved forward. I counted more than forty burnt corpses. Judging by what cars remained intact, the spirits had clear information about where they were. For example, the medical MTLB generally remained untouched, only the mechanics of small arms were filled up, and the ear hook behind it was literally turned into a sieve. Then we wondered why help came so late: if they had come an hour and a half earlier, then someone would have survived in the head of the column, and so there until the last one, the BRDM resisted, in which almost everyone was killed.
As the guys from the 324 regiment told later, when they reported that they were wetting our convoy in the gorge and it would be nice to rush to help, they were told not to twitch and stand where they were. Help came to us two and a half hours later, when it was all over.
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