The Foreword written by Les Grau sums up this book quite well,

“’Fangs of the Lone Wolf’ is a unique book. It is not so much a history as an exploration into numerous fights, large and small. There are no epic heroes of impeccable virtue, unsurpassed intellect and athletic invincibility. These are ordinary men who are fighting outnumbered and outgunned against a modern army. They are fighting for their land, family, neighbors, or just out of plain cussedness. This book is their story. It is not about right or wrong and has no political points to make. The war was what it was and this is the story of combatants in that war.”

In 1991, Russian President Boris Yeltsin encouraged Soviet people to “grab as much freedom as they can.” As Author Dodge Billingsley wrote,

“This was directed at major ethnic groups in such distinct former Soviet Republics such as the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and the Baltic Republics. Chechnya “grabbed” its freedom and declared independence from Russia; however, Yeltsin, had not included the Chechens among the people that should grab their freedom for many reasons, including the following: Chechnya sits on the southern mountain wall of Russia, blocking the Caucasus region from southern peoples and empires; Chechnya’s oilfields produce low-sulfur oil that requires little refining to produce high-grade aviation fuel; a major pipeline crosses Chechnya and Grozny was a major oil-refining center.”

The post-Soviet history of Chechnya can be divided into the following parts:

• 1991-1994: Pre-war period and path to confrontation
• 1994-1996: The First War
• 1996-1999: The interwar period
• 1999-2009: The Second War

Chechnya is a small republic of 17,300 square kilometers (6,700 square miles, which is between the sizes of Connecticut and New Jersey), with three regions: the Greater Caucasus in the south; the broad valleys of the Terek and Sunzha Rivers; and the rolling plains of the Nogay Steppe in the north. Chechnya has about a million citizens. These factors weighed heavily on how the Chechens fought the Russians.

This book is broken into 30 vignettes that are highlighted on a map on page 5 (attached) that span both wars. Each vignette has a map to highlight and accompany the combat tactics being described. The Casemate webpage referenced above states the lessons succinctly,

“The military professional will appreciate the book’s crisp narration, organization by type of combat, accurate color maps and insightful analysis and commentary. The civilian reader will discover the complexity of “simple guerrilla tactics” and the demands on individual perseverance and endurance that guerrilla warfare exacts.”

The book is a fascinating and remarkable insight into Chechen operations, complete with extensive photographs, maps, detailed illustrations, and a color profile section composing the following eleven chapters:

1. A Brief History of the Chechen Conflict
2. Defense of an Urban Area
3. Breaking Out of An Encirclement
4. Raids
5. Ambush and Counter-Ambush
6. Defense of Lines of Communication
7. Defense of a River Line
8. Mining and Antitank
9. Attack
10. Shelling and Sniping Attacks
11. Conclusions

Historians and modelers will gain a lot from this book. The color photos of the terrain, weather and combatants are worth the price of the book alone. The color profile section has great illustrations of T-62, T-72s, T-80, PT-76, BTR-80, BRDM-2, R-381 (signal reconnaissance based on the MTLB chassis), BMP-1, BTR-ZD, 2S4 Tulpan (Tulip self-propelled 240mm mortar), 2S3, 2S23 Nona-SVK, MT-LB, Mi-8, Mi-24, Su-25 and Il-20M. There is a lot of modeling inspiration within the 106 pages of this book.

Author Dodge Billingsley is the Director of Combat Films and Research, a fellow at the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies at Brigham Young University, and a senior faculty member at the Naval Post Graduate School’s Center for Civil Military Relations. Mr Billingsley has the requisite military history credits (BS in History from Columbia and MA in War Studies from King’s College, London), but more importantly to this former grunt, he spent time on the ground in the Caucasus in 1992-1993, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, 2004 and 2011. He has produced two documentary films based on his time with Chechen combatants. When Mr Billingsley talks (or writes), it is best to listen (read) as there is a lot to learn.

If I was still in the Army, I would make this book mandatory reading for my unit. There are numerous lessons learned from both sides of the conflict. After two decades of fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and other places, there is still a lot to be learned to ensure success on the battlefield. This book could save lives with its lessons.

Profuse thanks to Casemate (https://www.casematepublishers.com) and IPMS-USA for providing the review sample.