[en] The status of the current understanding of the microscopic mechanisms operating in damped nuclear reactions is reviewed. Several experimental and conceptual problems of attempts to determine the nuclear interaction potential for distances inside the fusion barrier are discussed. An explanation of the unexpectedly large angular anisotropies of fragments from fission of heavy systems produced at large spins has been found in terms of the statistical scission model. In this model, the phase space available to the final deformed fission fragments governs the fission probability. Processes associated with incomplete linear-momentum transfer have been studied for 292-MeV ²⁰Ne-induced fission with targets of ¹⁶⁵Ho, ¹⁸¹Ta, ¹⁹⁷Au, ²⁰⁹Bi, and ²³⁸U. Preequilibrium neutron emission has been studied in central and peripheral ¹⁶⁵Ho + ²⁰Ne and ¹⁶⁵Ho + ¹²C collisions at bombarding energies between 11 and 25 MeV/nucleon. In preparation of kinematically complete coincidence experiments, a fast, position-sensitive avalanche detector with a large active area has been developed. The theoretical framework of the statistical scission model for fission has been reconsidered. Exclusive measurements were made of alpha particles emitted in the damped reaction ¹⁶⁵Ho + ⁵⁶Fe at E/sub Lab/ = 465 MeV. The data were interpreted with the aid of rather detailed Monte Carlo evaporation simulations. As part of an extensive coincidence study of equilibration mechanisms in damped reactions, inclusive measurements of projectile-like and fusion-fission-like fragments have been performed for the ¹⁹⁷Au + ⁵¹V system at E/sub Lab/ = 447 MeV. The damped reaction features have been interpreted in terms of phenomenological reaction models