NEWS ANALYSIS : Chechnya Setback Reveals Cold War Secret: Red Army Wasn’t So Mighty

MOSCOW —  For nearly half a century, the West waited with dread for an onslaught of Russian tank divisions into Europe.

Today, after the beating the Russians took in an abortive New Year’s tank assault on the capital of tiny breakaway Chechnya, that dread has been replaced by puzzlement: What happened to the great and terrible Red Army?

No one anticipated that the Russians would fight so poorly against Chechen President Dzhokar M. Dudayev’s few thousand irregulars--and be so battered after nearly four weeks of engagement. Could this really be the same army that stopped Hitler’s forces in World War II? That crushed anti-Communist uprisings in Budapest and Prague?

The truth is that the Russian army was never as powerful as it appeared on paper. The superior numbers of tanks and artillery pieces were misleading. The Soviet army’s fundamental weakness was Moscow’s great Cold War military secret. Russian tank and mechanized rifle divisions were unprofessional, unprepared. The sergeants were--and still are--18- and 19-year-old high school graduates, poorly trained and motivated.

Western intelligence agencies could never reveal this truth. Any serious evaluation of the Soviet military threat might have led to cutbacks in Western military programs and in the strength of standing armies. So year after year, evaluations showed that the Red Army was getting stronger and stronger.

The Soviet army’s defeat in Afghanistan in the 1980s began to stir doubts in the West and in Moscow about its combat capabilities. Soviet intelligence officers began telling the military leadership and the Politburo that the army was unprepared and that the 100,000 tanks amassed by the Eastern Bloc would not help if the Cold War turned hot.

If an attack on Western Europe had indeed taken place, Russian tanks would probably have burned in the streets of Germany just as they burned this past week in the Chechen capital of Grozny. Russian forces not only would have failed to make it to the English Channel, they would have been defeated before reaching the Rhine.

But no one listened to realistic assessments from Soviet intelligence officers: They were dismissed from service. Russian generals still believed that, as in World War II, the number of tanks is the determining factor and that “if we run into problems, we can resort to tactical nuclear weapons.”

When Russian officers complain today that they cannot use “all available firepower” or “all means at our disposal” in Chechnya, they are really complaining that they cannot destroy Grozny with a few tactical nuclear strikes.

The Russian army was shaped to fight a nuclear war, not a conventional one. Its heavy artillery and attack aircraft, like its tanks, are numerous. But the 100 or more heavy howitzers and scores of fighter jets and helicopter gunships deployed in Chechnya have given ineffective support for the ground assault units around Grozny.

This is because Russian aircraft are mostly using “dumb” gravitation bombs and unguided missiles. Poorly trained Russian pilots are widely missing their targets. Commanders complain that low clouds and fog have prevented use of laser-guided precision weapons. Most likely, the Russians in Chechnya are simply not trained to use such expensive modern weapons.

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The Russian army was built big but cheap. It has practically no well-trained infantry, no elite divisions. All units are understaffed, undertrained, not battle-ready. Declining manpower, because of draft evasion and shrinking budgets, has slashed all tank and mechanized rifle divisions to skeletons; they cannot be used in combat operations as whole units.

The task forces fighting in Grozny were hurriedly put together from small bits and pieces of different army and airborne units. The soldiers never fought or trained together because the Russian army, for lack of funds, has held no large maneuvers in the last two years. The Chechen fighters are much better motivated and know the city they are fighting in.

One high-ranking Russian general complained this week: “We have too few troops to control such a big city as Grozny. When our armor broke through the Chechen defenses and entered Grozny, the Chechens simply closed ranks behind them and cut them off from the rear. On Jan. 2, we lost contact with our forward units.”

The general, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said this suicidal Light Brigade-type assault on Grozny was thought up by the staff of Pavel S. Grachev, the Russian defense minister. The plan has apparently been shelved.

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For several hours this week, until Russian forces retreated from the center of Grozny, the situation was extremely dangerous. The army faced serious defeat, and its already sinking morale might well have broken. Grachev and his boss, President Boris N. Yeltsin, risked losing control of the army, which can always turn its weapons against democratic institutions.

The forces in Chechnya are the best the Russian army has. If their discipline breaks down, no one will be able to restore it.

For now, those forces are still fighting and keeping a foothold in Grozny--the northern part of the city and the railroad terminal. With their superior numbers and firepower, they can still defeat the Chechens--like the unpolished but stubborn Red Army that, after a dismal start, turned the tide in World War II.

A high-ranking official of the army general staff explained how. There will be no more full-blown assaults on Grozny, he said. The Russians plan to concentrate forces on the edge of the city and use their firepower along with hit-squad raids on selected military targets.

The Chechen fighters are not getting any significant supplies of munitions or equipment. They have no facilities to repair their heavy equipment. With each hour of battle they are getting weaker, while the Russian army has practically unlimited equipment and munitions.

If the Russian army fights on long enough, it will exhaust the Chechen fighters in a battle of attrition. The roads south from Grozny have been left open to allow the defenders an escape to the countryside, where Russian attack aircraft can hit them.

Pavel Felgenhauer, a military history specialist, is defense and national security editor of the Moscow newspaper Sevodnya. Respected for his access to senior Russian military officers, he contributes regularly to other Moscow publications and appears on Russian television as a commentator on military affairs.