Talk:Battle of Hill 776

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[edit] What are the titles of the miniseries and the musical?

I don't remember now.

Miniseries were called “Chest imeyu” (Russian: Честь имею, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405831/), sorry, can’t translate that. Musical was called “Voiny Dukha” (Russian: Воины духа), it can be translated as “The Warriors of Spirit” or “The Warriors of Courage”. Also there was the movie “Grozovye vorota” (The Storm Gate, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0902981/) about the Hill 776 battle. 195.248.189.182 (talk) 21:01, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other units?

"The losses of the other Russian units operating in area were never disclosed." Did any other Russian unit fought on Hill 776 or nearby? 195.248.189.182 (talk) 07:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


Yes, three battalions of paratroopers and several special forces detachments, supported by a battalion of artillery. --84.234.60.154 (talk) 18:15, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok. Did these battalions and special forces detachements had any losses in the battle of Hill 776 (or it isn't known)? And what are the unit numbers of these three battalions? 195.248.189.182 (talk) 20:38, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Of course, it was heavy fighting. Read [1] - it's the Russian version taken at the face value, and it shouldn't be to just recall these official lies about the Russian losses (Troshev, Shpak, Yastrzhembsky, everyone shamelessly lied only 31 Russians died until the truth about it came out) and also things like this and so on. --HanzoHattori 19:40, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
And yes, including on this hill. Some words of explaination: I chose to limit Russian strenght to just 90 of the doomed company to not complicate things needlessly (and to not guess, too). Also, the things known for sure are extremally scarce - either Shpak or Troshev even claimed there was not air support (because of bad weather), and it may or may be not his another lie... you know. And so on. Russian official (Red Star) number of Chechen losses is 400 killed, but a guy claims he counted 200 "on the hill 776 alone". It wasn't just a single company vs the Chechens on one hill - but in this article, it is... mostly, others are briefly mentioned (outside of the infobox). OK now? --HanzoHattori 19:59, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Alternatively, we can skip the "strenght" altogether, and just say "at least 84" (these known for sure now, even if just one of the units engaged) and "at least 25" (confirmed for the area) killed, respectively. Talking about the infobox, of course. --HanzoHattori 20:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I did this way. --HanzoHattori 20:14, 4 December 2007 (UTC) I think it's much better now. --HanzoHattori 20:23, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why the heavy editing of the Russian version?

Quote "And yes, including on this hill. Some words of explaination: I chose to limit Russian strenght to just 90 of the doomed company to not complicate things needlessly (and to not guess, too). Also, the things known for sure are extremally scarce - either Shpak or Troshev even claimed there was not air support (because of bad weather), and it may or may be not his another lie... you know. And so on. Russian official (Red Star) number of Chechen losses is 400 killed, but a guy claims he counted 200 "on the hill 776 alone". It wasn't just a single company vs the Chechens on one hill - but in this article, it is... mostly, others are briefly mentioned (outside of the infobox). OK now?" Still you disregard basic information that is available from the article, that Chechen strength was at least or around 10 times the Russian VDV force on the hill, as well as the number of the supposed Chechen's dead. I checked this article about three months ago and it was far more informative then it is now. What happened to this article? One good source is the article written by two us army reservists, yet a majority of the information they provide there does not seem to be used in here at all. Because now all you have is 86 of vdv troops were massacred by Chechens, with the number of chechen dead number to about 400. Also what happened to the section about strength numbers. Also why is this [2]even a source? Obviously some online pro chechen rebel site has to be a credible source when it ends its news story with the following "Russian propaganda, trying to distort the real events, continues to tell fables about “the hordes of Mujahideen and a small group of Russian soldiers”. Telling these tall stories, these penny-a-liners are trying to make of the true and faithful Pskov commandos the allies of their good-for-nothing generals, whom the same commandos abused left and right during the battle of Ulus-Kert. The participants of the battle in the environs of Ulus-Kert remember that they could hear on the portable radio transmitter how the Pskov commandos cursed their general, calling them rats and prostitutes.These rats and prostitutes every year organize shows of next propagandistic anniversary of their disgrace, having covered themselves with the deaths of the soldiers devoted to them. "

BTW the pictures on the site of the purported dead Russian vdv paratroopers are so grainy that anyone versed in military matters wouldn't hesitate to call them suspicious. There is no evidence of russian insignias or ranks present on the uniforms on the bodies. Whoever butchered this article on hill 776, way to go.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Tebepizdetssuka (talk • contribs) 08:27, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Russians provide various numbers: (numbers AFAIR) 400 (Red Star article), 500, 700, or even more killed Chechens (I do not keep an exact track, you know) - and here even someone wrote 300. Same with the supposed Chechen strenght: 500 (Yastrzhembsky during the battle), 800, 1,000, 1,500, 2,500 and so on (Chechens say 90 were engaged aginst the company, and 12 died). They are unreliable because there are manym and remember the really, really shameless lies on the number of dead Russians in the destroyed company, before the thruth came out itself. And the same thing kept happening ever since the start of the first war, for example there are only 110 names on the official memorial to the Maikop Brigade (to cite from the NYT: Almost every soldier can name someone who died who does not appear on the official list. Survivors of the 131st Maikop Brigade said that over 1000 men died in Grozny. In Maikop, the capital of Adygeya, the North Caucasian town where the Brigade is based, one of the tanks destroyed on New Year's Eve stands on a plinth. Repainted but still bearing the hole from a grenade hit, it dominates a memorial to those who died. Lists of the fallen are carved on six black granite slabs. They hear just 110 names.). It goes to the point when they completely invented the "Chechen ambush" (completely with a detailed account, including how "the bandits managed to escape because they mined they escape routes") in order to hide the deadly attack on one OMON unit on another, and this was also in March 2000. And again, there isn't even a ONE really official version from the Russian perspective, or at least I'm not aware of such one. --HanzoHattori (talk) 14:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

You know, we would, for example, believe Yastrzhembsky, and say 500 Chechens attacked, believe someone else and say 1,000 of them died (as someone wrote here), making them all die twice, and then this geroy Shpak and say 12 Russians died. (Let's see: Col. Gen. Georgy Shpak, the Russian paratroops commander, said Saturday that 12 of his troops and hundreds of rebels had been killed in recent days around the gorge. "We're seeing the heaviest fighting ... and several losses," he told Russia's RTR television. But he denied reports that 70 paratroopers had been killed in the past two days. Federal troops were suffering losses in a battle with some 500 militants near the village of Selmentauzen, halfway between the Argun and Vedeno gorges, according to the office of the top presidential aide on Chechnya, Sergei Yastrzhembsky. The office refused Saturday to provide numbers of casualties.[3] Back then, cautiously, At least 50 Russian servicemen were killed in the area during the past week, the Interfax news agency quoted unidentified military sources as saying Saturday. - and even this was denied by geroy Shpak... also known as a "rat and prostitute", to cite Tebepizdetssuka now, and then only proceeded to "update" his 12 to 31 (lies, lies, lies). In the same article, there's also on the glorious OMON-OMON battle, how it was shown back then - as the "well-organized" Chechen attack, and also some major spin at "freeing" of the hostages who were free already for a quite some time - it was only evactuation from the war zone.) We can. But I won't. --HanzoHattori (talk) 14:19, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, I believe the final official number is 84, not 86. --HanzoHattori (talk) 14:33, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] alright

Alright, there is some valid points there, but that still does not really answer anything. I am just saying that to have something in the wiki page on this is better then anything. For example to mention whether or not the 6th vdv company was getting the air or artillery support it needed or requested. I mean despite that supposedly the quality and training of Russian forces have went down overall the top elite units are still have high standards of training and they are not supplied that shabbily either. VDV being more or less the equivalent of us army rangers it is hard to imagine them just being slaughtered like babies, and the pro Chechen guerrilla site does not have any tangible proof to offer that it only took 70 of their Mujahideen to wipe out the vdv company, or that the company was 200 man strong. I'll be back later, the official Russian version as presented in the by the 2 army reservists didn't really make much sense either. BTW did you ever hear of incidents where Russian units purposely engaged each other to fight over supply dumps and ammo in Chechnya. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tebepizdetssuka (talk • contribs) 08:56, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

They actually said it was 100-strong ("Pskov commandos"), the others were others. And no, but I heard about clashes over illegal oil production and transportation (between pro-Russian Chechen formations too, like here) and the OMON-OMON fighting too was presented by some survivors as a hit job on their commander (who was killed). The latter is releated to our article's subject, as both "took place three weeks before the presidential elections in Russia, and the authorities were therefore loth to allow any bad news from Chechnya to hit the headlines. (...) With only three weeks before the presidential elections, the public had become accustomed to news reports claiming successive victories in the military campaign against the Chechen separatists."[4] Also, the Russian paratroopers are just paratroopers. There are whole divisions of them, and actually VDV are a kind of a separate service to the Army (alike the US Marines). --HanzoHattori (talk) 12:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Also, if you'd like to check out the performance of the REALLY elite Russian troops (Alpha, SOBR - no, the OMON are not elite), supported without limitations by heavy firepower, check out Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye hostage crisis (which is, yes, "my article" - but with a plenty of independent sources and neutral eyewitnesses, as you see). By the way notice the fantasy story about the "destroyed Chechen convoy" (supposedly 150 killed[5]), later completely abandoned in favor of 150 killed in the whole incident. Stuff like this is usual in the official Russian reporting. Also look at the scale (hundreds of Chechens, thousands of Russians, thousands of hostages, several days of the most intense attacks and counter-attacks) and casualties (maybe about 200 or so killed total). --HanzoHattori (talk) 00:24, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
In Pervomayskoye, the best Russian troops were used in stupidiest way possible (pretty typical feature of the whole First Chechen war), like ordinary infantry. 15 January assault (yeah, not "for the next three days", there was just one assault) was like First World war - you know, infantry attack in the open field with several BMPs and helicopter support (no artillery, no aviation, no Tu-160s, no nuclear bombs, believe it or not) - is it the way Special Forces meant to be deployed? Do you remember Mogadishu, October 3-4, 1993, or Iran, April 25, 1980? How many superb SEALs died after just one lucky RPG shot on June 28, 2005? And hey, what is heavy firepower - what number of artillery pieces/bombers was used, could you please give any figures except three GRAD launchers and several Su-25 sorties (one GRAD rocket per minute sounds like a hell of fire support)? By the way, the whole Pervomayskoye affair reminded me of Ap Bac '63, this comparison appeared in my mind right now. Sorry, I know it have to be discussed on different talk page, but you mentioned it here.
Talking about 6th Company, no, they hadn't any air support, and yes, they had heavy arty support (1200 shells on Feb 29 - Mar 1). 195.248.189.182 (talk) 07:57, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chest imeyu

It has no English title whatsoever? --84.234.60.154 (talk) 19:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)