Would the real MA of the Spetznaz please stand up.

**melk** · Posted On: 12/08/2007 12:34pm

Ok so to settle all of the discussion and argument about what the real MA of the Spetznaz was and is I finally decided to dial in some of my Russian contacts and see what was going on.

So here is what I got back. The GRU did actually fund the research of the Kadochnikov systems by backchanneling money through the Military Indutrial Commission. Why the picked his system no one could say. Also he wasn't the primary researcher, he had a team of researchers that did most of the work and the patents are all in their names, not his. He has no copyright or patent in his name until after 2001.

Despite the fact that they were funding his research(and by the way they may have funded other people as well aparently there was some institutional mistrust going on so they would often have two or three teams researching at once everyone even Kadoch stated that they didn't think he was the only one the GRU had doing this kind of stuff) they only trained in the system for about a decade and a half. Starting(again things are a little fuzzy) somwhere between 1978-1981 the Kadochnikov system(then under a different name) became of the "official system" of the GRU-Spetz. This lasted until sometime between 1993-1996. During this time Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin de-regulated everything. To give you an idea, at least two different times during his tenure Russian Missile bases had their electricity shut off because of failure to pay electric bills for the previous month.

Anyway capitalism became the new norm and diversification began. Initially it was held to within other instructors of his system that had a break with him, AI Retuinskih for example. Most of this was on account of loyalty within the ranks and his former students. However, after his break with his researchers in 2001-2002, the door swung wide open.

Each Battalion since the mid-90s has been able to decide what training they recieve in H2H with the CO taking responsibility for the effectiveness. This has at times even come down to the buck being passed lower down the food chain.

So today Spetznaz train in Kadoch, ROSS, Golytsin, Systema, Sambo, TKD(though Chechnya gave this one a heavy set back) Jui Jutsu and Judo.
Anyone of those could claim to train Spetz and be entirely honest about it.

**Kokujin** · Posted On: 12/09/2007 10:35pm

Do they (Spetznaz brigades) give a big importance to hand to hand combat compared to weapons,explosives, tactics, etc?

I ask this, because some of special forces units that I know don't give such an importance to hand to hand combat training after basic training and a speciality. Most of the sf guys that I know have great skills, but most of them train in civilian gyms (bjj, muay thai, karate, etc) and some even take their training back to the barracs! I'm talking about the portuguese example of course...

**melk** · Posted On: 12/09/2007 10:55pm

I don't know how much importance they place upon hand to hand currently. Some systems(Kadoch/Golytsin) incorporate weapons work, and maneuvering others don't. Getting current training methodology and mission parameters for the GRU-Spetz is hard.

In the Soviet era they placed incredible importance upon it, mostly because a high percentage of their mission profiles included being inserted into the enemy rear without weapons, or at least without firearms.

Currently I believe, on account mission parameters and profiles, that they are looking for an equivalent to the Navy Seals CQD system. Something that allows them to go from shooting to h2h and back seamlessly. Some do this, some don't(that is one of the problems). Training has been de-centralized and permitted to occur on a micro-level. So uniformity of training is lacking, a problem when one takes into account transfers between units, which I understand got a number of people killed in Chechnya.

**SFGOON** · Posted On: 12/09/2007 11:17pm

I'm not at all surprised by what I read, though the TKD training of the spetz really shocked the hell out of me.

Do we know how much migration of K-sys there was into normal "leg" units? I ask because this is a phenomenon we see in the US often, with TTPs being handed down to regular infantry from Special units.

The CQD idea of going back and forth between firing and punching seems asinine. Once that first round goes off a reasonable, mature soldier will do his utmost to ventilate the room.

**melk** · Posted On: 12/09/2007 11:42pm

Originally Posted by SFGOON

I'm not at all surprised by what I read, though the TKD training of the spetz really shocked the hell out of me.

Do we know how much migration of K-sys there was into normal "leg" units? I ask because this is a phenomenon we see in the US often, with TTPs being handed down to regular infantry from Special units.

The CQD idea of going back and forth between firing and punching seems asinine. Once that first round goes off a reasonable, mature soldier will do his utmost to ventilate the room.

Institutional fear kept kept a lot of interchange from happening between standard military and GRU guys. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, especially with Kadoch initially teaching anyone in the army that would learn before his system was picked up by the GRU as their own.

The CQD idea is the ability to respond with adequate and justifiable force to any situation. Its not so much punching as barrel strikes and butt strokes, but yes there is a back and forth. It was explained to me in terms of urban combat going on in Iraq. If a team enters a house to extract a known hostile, and their are children and elderly also within the domicile, when they react(and they may) the children will want to fight to protect what is theirs and possibily their guest, the elderly will want to fight to protect the children, you don't want to shoot Grand-pa and the Kids(especially if they are unarmed) however the bodyguard bringing is Kalachnikov into play you will want to put down hard. Last I heard the Seals liked the system(not sure if its used by other people in JSOC or not).

**Dr. Sleepless** · Posted On: 12/10/2007 3:15am

This is one of those moments where you go, "Huh. Really?"

And then are kind of speechless about it.

**Dennis Nist** · Posted On: 12/10/2007 3:49pm

That spetznatz train in different styles isn't really suprising to me as the word spetznatz can mean several different unrelated forces in the russian military, police, navy.

Thread hijack:
Does anybody know what the french foreign legion trains?

**melk** · Posted On: 12/10/2007 3:54pm

Actually when speaking of Spetsnaz I was speaking only the the GRU-Spets.

French Foreign Legion: they don't. They leave it up to the individual. During commando training if you want to go spec ops you will get some Penchak Silat training, but that's it.