ПОЧЕМУ ДУШМАНЫ БОЛЬШЕ ВСЕГО БОЯЛИСЬ ВСТРЕЧИ С СОВЕТСКОЙ ЗУ-23-2

In archive folders that have harbored the smell of dried paper and gun oil for decades, one sometimes comes across documents that stand out from the general rhythm of staff reporting. The dry lines of reports usually don't tolerate emotion. But in the file of the 4th Motorized Rifle Company for July 1985, a sheet of paper, written in a hasty, uneven handwriting, was tucked between the standard ammunition receipt forms. It wasn't an official report, but rather an attempt to document something that didn't fit into the tactical schemes. "They call it the 'Broom.' If there's a 'Zushka' mounted on the armor, they don't get within point-blank range. They wait for us to pass, or fire from a distance, just to avoid being blasted." In the diaries of mujahideen fighters confiscated after the fighting in Parwan Province, this word—"Broom"—appears more often than any other Soviet weapon. This ominous call sign, originally applied to the most dangerous Soviet vehicles, stuck indelibly to Sergeant Myznikov's ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft gun. Why did the ordinary ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft gun, designed to combat low-flying aircraft, become the main nightmare of mountain warfare? Today, we'll uncover this archival layer to understand how the "Broom" swept out ambushes where the armor of armored personnel carriers was powerless, and why the mujahideen preferred to engage a tank platoon rather than be in the sights of this twin-barreled gun. Sergeant Myznikov didn't like parades. He loved metal. His hands, perpetually stained with graphite grease, knew every burr on the breech. Myznikov was the ZU-23-2 gun crew commander. He was of medium height, wiry, with deep wrinkles around his eyes that seemed scorched by the ultraviolet rays of Afghanistan. In the regiment, they called him "Grandfather," even though the sergeant was barely twenty-one. His mount wasn't mounted in the back of a truck, as was often the practice for mobility. It was welded into the hull of an old, battered MT-LB—a "motolyga." It was an improvisation, born not in a design bureau, but in a repair shop near Bagram. "Gnatyuk, check the feed. The left barrel's clogging up on the third burst again," Myznikov spat out thick, gray dust. Private Gnatyuk, a mechanic-operator, was fiddling with the tape feed. He was a guy from Poltava, broad-shouldered, with a perpetually surprised expression that belied his calm ability to aim the mount. Gnatyuk felt the Zushka like an extension of his own body. He knew that at a rate of two thousand rounds per minute, the metal in the barrels would begin to "flow" after just a few long bursts. "I'll check it, Mikhalych. The spring is slack, I tightened it, but for how long..." Gnatyuk wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving a black streak of fuel oil. The ZU-23-2 has two 23-millimeter barrels. The manual says: "designed to engage aerial targets at ranges of up to two and a half kilometers." But in the mountains of Afghanistan, the sky was empty. The enemy was on the ground. More precisely, in the rocks, in the crevices, in the "greenery" that deceptively rustled at the bottom of the ravines. The problem with the standard armament of the BTR-60 or BMP-1, which formed the backbone of the armored group in this column, was the angles of elevation. When the ambush struck from a steep slope, the armored personnel carriers' machine guns simply couldn't elevate high enough. The turret hit the limiter, trapping the infantry in a fiery trap. The Zushka, however, was pointed skyward. An eighty-degree angle was acceptable for it, and its rate of fire and fire density exceeded any on-board gun of the time. It could reach the enemy where they felt completely safe, looking down on the Soviet columns. That day, July 14, they were positioned at the head of the column. Officially, it was called "escorting a food shipment." In reality, Myznikov understood they were being used as bait. The column was to pass through the greenery near the village of Charikar, where Abdul-Vakhid's unit had recently become active. Abdul-Vakhid wasn't a fanatic. He was an experienced tactician. He knew that Soviet soldiers feared sudden fire from roadside thickets. But he knew even better what a 23-millimeter shell was. This ammunition didn't just kill. It annihilated cover. Where a 7.62 caliber bullet would get stuck in a wall or ricochet off a boulder, a Metla shell would turn the stone into a cloud of rubble, which in itself became a destructive force. Myznikov climbed into the gunner's seat. The metal burned even through the thick cotton fabric. The air in the ravine was still, permeated with the smell of hot rubber and diesel exhaust.