Thread by @FinestYew

The 9th Company of the 3rd Battalion, 345th Airborne Regiment would write their chapter in the book of history.

Fighting a ferocious battle on the 7th-8th of January, 1988; the understrength company of 39 would fight off 250+ Mujahideen & SSG.

This is their story.

1981 during the Soviet Afghan war would see the Mujahideen close off the road from Gardez to Khost. This was the main line of communication (LOC) to Khost. The other longer & more complex route to the city was also blockaded by the Mujahid's.

Consequently, the Khost garrison and city were primarily supplied by an air bridge; it's tenuous position reminding people of the the trapped French at Dien Bien Phu.

In February of 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev had enough. He pulled a Joe Biden (with a little more sanity) & announced the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan.

Now unlike the modern day yankees who simply packed up & ran for it, the Soviets did this in a more planned manner.

They were going to force the roads open. The DRA government they built needed to stand. To this end they launched numerous operations in the area over the years.

As 1987 rolled around, the Soviets decided that something a little more drastic needed to occur. They staged a massive fake paratrooper landing in the area to dupe the well dug in & armed Mujahid's into revealing their positions.

This proved to be successful & as they moved through the winding roads & lightly forested mountain terrain of Paktia province, they kept engaging the Mujahideen who were now being helped by Pak, just across the border.

The Mujahideen base camp at Sarani was a key objective the Soviets during these operations. It lay near the point where the main road turned east to Khost and where the main Mujahideen supply trace from the Shah-i- Kot valley interdicted that road.

Hill 3234 was an important feature of this area as it held important vantage point on the road

They used the ‘Afghanistan method’ in the predawn hours of the 23rd of December- heavy artillery barrage at night. Illumination rounds were fired first.

The large flares slowly descended revealing the area almost as if the Gods had switched on a torch. The gunners then fired a smoke screen to confuse enemy observers before pumping the hostile position full of high-explosive fragmentation rounds.

The 345th Airborne Regiment in the meantime had its paratroopers climb & crawl up the slopes. Here they could see the results of the
artillery fire; booted legs without a body, some smashed cooking utensils strewn about, several collapsed launching tripods for 107 mm rockets.

The destruction of the base was a major setback to the Mujahideen & a position they wanted back. After all, the Soviets suspected that they had just hit upon a major logistics site that probably belonged to Jalaluddin Haqqani.

They found 2 tanks, artillery, machine guns, grenade launchers, and assault rifles. There were land mines from China, Britain, the US and Czechoslovakia as well as gas masks, clothing, and sleeping bags from West Germany and the US. Vast amounts of ammunition were found in caves.

After taking Sarani base camp, Lieutenant Colonel Vostrotin of the 345th Detached Guards Airborne Regiment ordered the 9th company to capture Hill 3234, crucial for the defence of this camp.

So on the 24th of Dec, the 9th made for for the hill & established themselves on it. The frozen ground forced them to build Kladkis (Russian for Sangars) & lay mines on the approaches to the pass.

The company defense could count on 1 tripod-mounted 12.7 mm NSV HMG, numerous bipod mounted 7.62mm PKMs, and an AGS-17 AGL (Automatic Grenade Launcher). They also possessed SVD sniper rifles, and some RPGs.

The 3rd Platoon of the 9th Company under the command of
Warrant Officer Vasily Kozlov, held the top of Hill 3234. They brought the 12.7 mm NSV HMG and 2 PKMs with them.

The artillery fire coordinating officer, Senior Lieutenant Ivan Babenko, and his radio operator were with them. The third platoon was now some 300mts southwest and 200mts higher than the rest of the company.

The 2nd Platoon was deployed north, hugging both sides of the ridge. The 1st platoon and scout platoon were deployed on the flank of the 2nd platoon, also hugging both sides of the ridge.

The year for the 9th would pass without much incident hereafter until the 7th of January of next year.

This was largely because the major Mujahideen commanders, such as Jalaluddin Haqani, General Gulzarak Zadran, and Mawlawi Abdul-Rahman leaders had taken their families & fled to Pakistan for safety.

They would return with fresh reinforcements & arms, courtesy of their Pak sponsors. It is suspected that a 'Black Storks', Special Service Group, commando unit has also tagged along to help with the recapture of Hill 3234.

On the 7th of January, the paras were greeted by a hail of mortars & RPG fire. During a single 20 min period, close to 300 mortar and rocket rounds fell on Soviet positions. Rounds crashed into the rocky landscape with deafening explosions. The battle had just arrived.

Corporal Andrei Fedotov, the radio operator for the artillery fire coordinating officer, was KIA. The first fatality of the day. His radio was knocked out of action.

Luckily for the Soviets, the company and platoon radios were still working. The 345th artillery fired back to return the favour. Though they still maintained communications, the primary means to direct artillery fire was lost.

At 15:30, the 1st Platoon, commanded by Senior Lieutenant Viktor Gagarin, was hit by over 20 rockets. This was followed by a cacophony of rocket launcher and recoilless rifle fire from three sides. The silence of the peaks had given way to the roar of battle.

Gagarin called for counter fire on the positions he could detect. Soviet fire silenced many of these positions.

Suddenly, a large enemy force attacked up the hill but were about 200 meters from the Soviet positions. Junior Sergeant Vyacheslav Alexandrovich Alexandrov responsible for the NSV HMG, would be KIA covering the positional movements of his platoon.

Sat exposed & a magnet for enemy fire, it was almost inevitable.

At 16:10, the enemy again attacked under heavy covering fire.
They came from 2 directions this time, shouting “All-hu Akb-r”. The main attack came from the north. An eruption of gunfire saw the attack chewed through & beaten.

According to the Soviets, the attackers reportedly wore black uniforms that had chevrons of black, gold and red on their arms.

They also attacked as a well trained unit; moving in, bounding over watch, and coordinating their actions through hand-held radios. Tell tale signs of the "Black Storks" or SSG.

At 17:35, the enemy launched another attack from 3 sides. Senior Lieutenant Sergey Rozhkov’s 2nd Platoon was their target. Almost simultaneously, they also attacked the battalion Scout Platoon, located in reserve on another lower ridge line, commanded by Senior Lt A. Smirnov.

In a ferocious battles at ever closer ranges, these attacks were driven back. Ammunition was now running out.

At 19:10, the enemy launched their heaviest attack. They advanced in strength under heavy machine gun and RPG fire. The paratroopers were in the thick of it as they returned fire.

So desperate was the situation that Senior Lieutenant Babenko called in artillery fire directly on top of the Company!

The paratroopers were pinned down behind their kladki's as rockets and howitzer rounds smashed into the mountain they were on. Soviet soldiers were being squeezed ever so tightly. The enemy attack failed, but only just.

At points, the Muhajid had come within 10–15 meters of the soldiers. In other parts the paras were fighting for their lives in hand-to-hand combat. The soldiers had expended so much ammunition that they were down to 1-2 mags or just 30-60 rounds & all the grenades had been thrown

This is when Soviet radio interception purportedly picked up a message, from a HQ in Peshawar congratulating the enemy regimental commander for seizing the mountain top.

Reinforcements:

Darkness brought a stop to attacks. The 9th Company's acting commander, senior Lieutenant Tkachev had been requesting ammunition resupply throughout the battle.

6 km away at the 345th Regt HQ, aware of the precarious position of his men, Colonel Vostrotin was pulling together a relief force under his Political Deputy Nikolai Samusev.

On the 8th of January, at 01:00, a make-shift reserve from the regiment boarded BTRs and BMPS and began their ride toward the 9th Company. They drove as far as they could before dismounting & meeting the 3rd Battalion Scout Platoon & setting off for their rendezvous with the 9th.

They were met with quite the sight. 1500+ mortar rounds had been fired at the 9th. Ammo was so scarce that they were firing single shots instead of bursts;men had a mere 15 rounds left. Had the relief party not arrived the entirety of the 9th would cease to exist.

When Helos were requested to evacuate the dead & wounded, the request was denied by the commanders of the helicopter unit as they deemed the mission too risky. One of the pilots disobeyed this order & flew to evacuate the dead & wounded.

He later returned with more ammunition. Col Vostrotin would recommend him for the 'Hero Of The Soviet Union' award but found to his dismay that the pilot had been rebuked & sent back to the Soviet Union in shame.

The 9th had held it's own & though there would be sporadic shelling of their position, it never matched the intensity of the Jan 7 attacks.

Two of the soldiers killed, Vyacheslav Alexandrovich Alexandrov and Andrey Alexandrovich Melnikov, would be posthumously awarded the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union for their heroism in the battle.

It is estimated that the Mujahedeen suffered 200+ casualties attempting to take the position between Jan 7 & Jan 8.

Though we are all familiar with how the conflict would end, the heroism of the 9th is something to truly admire.

Source: tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

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