Elite forces of the Russian special forces, GRU "Dolphin"
The Soviet army special forces units (reconnaissance-sabotage and anti-sabotage units and groups) have always been interested in the West. And many foreign secret services would have given much in due time for information about the special forces of the allied military fleet. These naval units were especially classified.
To begin with, it is worth noting that the training, tactics of actions, technical equipment and armament of the Union’s special forces were higher than those of the NATO countries. In addition, in the seventies of the last century, our saboteurs engaged in hostilities in Egypt, Angola, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Mozambique, about which the country's leadership preferred to keep quiet.
Creating an elite special forces has its own background. In 1955, the cruiser Ordzhonikidze with the then leaders of the USSR, Khrushchev and Bulganin, arrived in England. While the government was negotiating, the British decided to study the screws of the ship, because they believed that it was their form that allowed the ship to reach speeds of more than 35 nodes. The saboteur was Lionell Crabbe, captain of the 2 rank, a combat swimmer of the English fleet. However, it became known to our agents about the Crabbe raid, and the ship’s screws seemed to have “accidentally” worked. The saboteur was killed and the Soviets expressed their deepest regret.
And our Ministry of Defense decided to seriously study the issue of creating an underwater special forces. And only after a year and a half, in 1957, the year Zhukov issued an order to create special submarine reconnaissance and sabotage units. But then he was dismissed from his job and the case went out.
And only after 10 years the “Training and training squad of light divers of the Red Banner Black Sea Fleet” was created. Members of the squad performed the usual routine work - tested diving equipment, carried out diving and various works under water, studied the coast ... But, especially not reporting to the leadership, developed and engaged in their program.
They defeated admirals and generals with their skills (all combat officers, after WWII) at the first combat exercise, after which, as part of the Pacific, Northern and Baltic fleets, PDSS detachments were created to combat submarine sabotage forces and facilities. They were part of almost all naval bases, especially those that were armed with nuclear submarines. weapons.
After that, the GRU decided to create a “Dolphin”, which, starting from scratch, overtook similar formations of the US, West German, French, British, Italian fleets in a couple of years.
The composition of these units was recruited from volunteers, marines. They had to be emotionally stable, balanced in emergency situations, physically fit, able to withstand pressure drops and dive to a considerable depth. Preparation lasted 26 weeks. At the first 7 weekly stage, the school day lasted 15 hours, 3-4 sleep hours - the cadets trained and tested themselves for extreme mental and physical exertion. Of the 20 cadets, this stage was on average one. The second stage is 11 weeks. They learn to own all types of weapons, control all kinds of vehicles, tactics of combat operations on land and water, study sappers, parachutes, rock climbing, hand-to-hand combat, methods of deadly, traumatic and shock impact on a possible enemy. In the same period, formed twos, triples, fours, who learn to work as a single coherent mechanism. The last stage is 8 weeks. Then some enter the PDSS detachments, others join the brigades, the most capable are trained in a special reconnaissance and sabotage center. Until now, he was on the lake Balkhash.
The most significant achievement of the "dolphins" was the fact that they have learned to delicately bypass the entire underwater defense, where it is completely unrealistic. They could parachute in 30 kilometers from the coast in a storm, bypass the land mines, signal lines and the underwater explosive network (not cut and not dive under it), penetrate the enemy’s naval base and blow up the target object there. In this case, note that the top - spotlights and sentry with machine guns.
"Dolphins" turned into the legend of our Navy. These "sea devils" were able to disable cable connections at a depth of several hundred meters. It didn’t do without intelligence - we monitored the testing of new weapons systems, the movements of enemy ships of Great Britain and the United States, especially those who had nuclear weapons on board. Also "Dolphin" acted as rescue services.
It is a pity, but in 90-s this unique and elite division was disbanded, and then transferred to the Ministry of Emergency Situations. By the way, the "dolphins" could well have saved the submarine "Kursk" - they had equipment with which it was possible to hold out in icy water for several hours. Having penetrated into the middle of the Kursk, could they have brought the boat to the surface? Why did they not remember them? History he is silent about this ... Today with the elite unit is over. But this was not just the elite, but the elite of the elites of our Navy. The principles of selection and training were by no means inferior to the American combat "Seals." On the basis of PDSS and Delphine, the Vympel reconnaissance group was also preparing for the special forces of the Office of Illegal Intelligence of the KGB.
Not so long ago, the midget Piranha submarines were also in service with the Russian Navy - they could "stick" to any object at any angle. There was also a self-propelled device "Siren", designed for two combat swimmers, so deep that it was sometimes confused with a torpedo. R. A diving instruments for orientation at zero visibility and RobotsManipulators are also yesterday's reality.
“Dolphins” also specialized in regions - countries of the Mediterranean, Latin America, Western Europe, Southeast Asia, the USA, South and South-West Africa, Canada, the Middle East, and so on. In the Sevastopol Dolphinariums they learned to fight animals that were trained to destroy swimmers. The seemingly loving dolphins could turn out to be a powerful adversary — they could pierce a man with a metal pin. .
And only after all these preparations, the fighter began to be attracted to combat operations, although each year he was also obliged to undergo a refresher course.
The work of the special squad is impossible without the support of scientists. They provide information about
situations at the bottom (temperature, terrain, currents, etc.), communicate, orient, carry on boarding. Usually, technical personnel at this time are aboard the so-called research ships or are hidden in the compartments of floating factories for processing squid, crabs, fish, and shrimp. Military designers also provided them with silent super-speed weapons, infrared, optical and laser sights and target indicators, land mines, vacuum ammunition, rocket launchers, flamethrowers, and means of suppressing various devices. And everything was our production and the quality was not inferior to Western models. And still many hours of breathing apparatus, insulating suits, devices for underwater vision and much more.
In the event of war, combat swimmers of Vympel, Dolphin and all PDSS detachments could block the operation of all anti-submarine defense systems in the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Pacific Ocean and sabotage the control and communications centers of the main naval forces of the NATO countries, disable boats -Amphibious compounds, special means, and the like, that is, everywhere, wherever nuclear weapons are used.
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