Was thinking along 'Charlie Wilson's War' today, wondering what could have blunted the Russians within the Georgian capability to employ.
The answer I came up with would have been Javelin Missiles. Fire and forget, will take out a T-80 (or an M1). Could have made life nasty in the armored columns.
Just a late night musing.
Cavguy, I was in Estonian military in the middle of 90-s. It was time when in the service was quite many officers who sereved in the Soviet army (in the rank of majors and up). During 1 exercise couple of those Soviet ones worked as advisers to young officers, who had finished Finnish military school. We were playing OPFOR column and moved to west. Half a day our units moved like snails under the instructions of Finnish military school graduates. In front of every possible ambush site recce was sent out. If cou calculate that recce on foot moves 1 km per hour, then it was slow going. Soviet school people got enought and instructed to "bomb" every possible amush site. Finnish ones opposed that there are farms etc. Soviet ones said "Just do it!". After first order, referees reported destroyed ambush. Finnish ones continued this pattern and columns were moving average 40 km per hour and we were showing middle finger to guys crawling out from the bushes. So much about ROE and possible Javelin sites.
Last edited by kaur; 08-15-2008 at 09:25 AM.
The terrain in Georgia offers more potential ambush locations.Originally Posted by kaur
Also, Hezbollah countered the bombing of potential ambush locations by spending 5 or 6 years digging in. With only a handful of roads, deep buried IEDs and EFPs would've been effective. Of course, we didn't want the Georgians doing that. Plus, making the Russians angry probably would've convinced them to flatten Tbilisi. "Don't poke the bear" is probably Georgia's only option. To bad we forgot that. It's really too bad they forgot that.
Just to add some backround info to my last post.
Terrain.
http://www.einst.ee/publications/nature/Mosaic of Forests, Meadows and Marshes
Almost half of Estonian territory (47.6 per cent) is under forest and woodlands; the area of forest stands has more than doubled during the last 50 years and is still growing.
Forests and woodlands are not evenly distributed in Estonia. The largest forests can be found in the northeast and in Mid-Estonia — a zone stretching from the Northern coast to the Latvian border.
Owing to abundant precipitation and slight run-off, Estonia is rich in wetlands. There are some 165 000 marshes greater than one hectare in area, of which 132 peatlands are larger than 1000 ha. The total area of marshes and swamp forests measures 1 009 101 ha which is over one fifth (22.3 per cent) of the country’s territory. Only Estonia’s northern neighbour, Finland, has a higher percentage (31) of peatland.
Approximately two thirds of the marshes in Estonia began as lakes which were gradually turned into quagmires by the spreading shoreline vegetation. The rest of Estonian swamps were formed by an opposite process, the paludification of mineral land.
It's all about TTP, but during the exercise I described, opponent failed.
About foresest. Most of the collective farms are dead. Grandparents, who were mostly peasant are now in the end of their life cycle. Children are useing those farms mostly like summer houses. This all means that there is no need for fields for agricultural purpuse. What happens to the field, if you don't use it? During first ten years there are bushes. After that comes forest.
Last edited by kaur; 08-15-2008 at 01:53 PM.
Thanks for the insight. As a tanker, I just know the fire and forget cpability of the Javelin scares me. Capable of top attack from 2.5k, with night sights, the "shoot and scoot" capability would seem ideal for a light unit seeking to harass armored formations. Get in range, pop a few off, and withdraw fast. Might work as the stinger did against the Russian helicopters in Afghanistan. It is also remarkably easy to use. Stories from SF employment with Pesh in northern Iraq (OIF 2003) is that Javelins decimated an Iraqi BN and forced a withdrawal.
Doesn't suprise me on the Russian counter-ambush tactics. Their COIN philosophy from Chechnya is brutal and effective.
Cavguy said:
EFPs?Was thinking along 'Charlie Wilson's War' today, wondering what could have blunted the Russians within the Georgian capability to employ.
Requires knowing the standard Russian lines of advance, and a population willing to hide the emplacers. EFP's work best in the "urban jungle" where the insurgent can get close to the road and hide in the populace.
Javelin is much more flexible.
Finnish tactics
Curious if there was any discussion with Finnish officers (as opposed to the Finnish trained officers) about differences in Russ & Finn anti-ambush tactics - and the reasons for the Finnish tactics.re: cavguy & kaur
....Finnish military school....
I suppose one reason might be that the Finns are such inherently sensitive people.
A better reason, I suspect, would be reflection back to the Winter-Continuation War and to avoid when advancing running into the defensive "motti" tactic (cutting up Russian armored columns into bite-sized pieces). Of course, Suomi has a lot more suomaat (swamplands) and erämaat (hunting wildernesses) to allow such tactics - and a hell of a lot of good ambush places to be "bombed"..
--------------------------
The Finns elected the Spike, rather than Javelin, for their own defensive purposes.
http://www.generalaoun.org/july8-12.htmlFinns buy Israeli missile tested on Lebanese civilians
Nicholas Blanford
Daily Star staff
Finland has agreed to purchase an Israeli anti-tank missile that members of UNIFIL’s Finnish battalion saw being test-fired against civilian targets in south Lebanon over a 16-month period. ....
http://www.eurospike.com/downloads/E...2-Aug-07-f.pdf
Finn use of Spike & not Javelin; going to MBT LAW for this year & next.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equipme...e_Finnish_Army
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_(missile)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGM-148_Javelin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLAW
http://www.mil.fi/laitokset/tiedotteet/3635.dspPuolustusvoimille uusia lähipanssarintorjuntaohjuksia
20.12.2007 09:25
Puolustusvoimat hankkii uusia, huippunykyaikaisia NLAW-lähipanssarintorjuntaohjuksia, jotka toimittaa ruotsalainen Saab Bofors Dynamics Ab. Hankinnan arvo on 38 miljoonaa euroa. ...
On the topic of Javelins...
How good is Russian IR capability and profilition?? Is it close to matching ours from the mid to late 90's? Also any word on effectivness of the Russian "Active" defenses against the Javelin? I ask becouse good IR capability could be a strong counter to the Javelin.
Reed
Not to contradict a rising star such as yourself, but my take is that when there are only a handful of roads, you know the lines long before the war starts and you can also place EFPs long before the war starts. Maybe it wouldn't have worked in S. Ossetia, but the Russians didn't stop there.
Relevant, because there are only a handful of roads through the mountains between Iraq and Iran. Also, I believe Hezbollah was able to take out some tanks with EFPS/deep buried IEDS placed before the war started/ (From memory; I could be wrong.)
I'm not sure I follow. What does the size and bulk of the Javelin have to do with anything, especially bringing in many systems? You can move them in the back of a pickup truck if you have to.In short, Javelin is good but it is not a "magic bullet" by any means. If you control the rugged terrain beforehand (which Georgia did not), you can do a Hezbollah and gopher into the hillsides along the only usable routes for tanks, but Georgia did not have that option here. You may be able to get a few hunter-killer teams into place despite all of this via some serious mountaineering, but the size and bulk of the Javelin system means that they couldn't bring many in, they'd be able to take out a few tanks at best, and the Russians would just push the burning tanks off the road into the gorge and keep going.
The bottlenecks were all north of T town. South of T town were almost Ukraine-like lowlands agricultural areas.
Seriosu mountaineering could have been avoided by helicopter insertion from the rear slope.
The firing position choice for ATGM teams would have been delicate, though.
Forward slope would have been suicidal.
The ridges were apparently mostly without concealment, probably too easily dominated by helicopters. And rear slope is not for Javelin employment, at best for waiting.
I believe it comes down to quite the same success factors as in comparably slow lowlands warfare;
- keep enemy air power away and
- keep enemy artillery suppressed or at least seriously hindered by counterfire.
Some LRRPs could have guaranteed effective artillery fire without much high-tech for the Georgians, but I guess that's just like a raid on the tunnel something that the Georgians simply forgot to do.
That's the problem...
'Some' being the operative word. 'Some' doesn't work, it has to be most...
Not that easy.
..and Spike more so. The video is a bit out of date, but the FO guidance is just scary.
I have been shown a video from the Lebanon where they flew the missile over a village to hit a rocket truck on the other side, that had been picked up by a UAV.
Yes, Spike has small war-head but when you can target a tank hatch, that's a bit academic.
...so IMO, with good tactics and the right equipment, you should be able to turn Georgia into an MRD grave yard... and vice versa.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
As a tanker, long range, high powered, top attack, fire and forget ATGM's scare me. I'll admit it. And there's no good countermeasure, although the Russians claim some. Fortunately, the only armies that have them in bulk are friendly to us.
Agreed, with the right tactics and employment, it could do a lot of damage to a numerically superior mechanized force.
Fuch said
Strix mortar round would be good alternative.The ridges were apparently mostly without concealment, probably too easily dominated by helicopters. And rear slope is not for Javelin employment, at best for waiting.
About military geography. Why Russians moved to town Gori? This is out ot LO borders, this is out of OSCE conflict zone borders? My humble opinion is that here starts the huge plain terrain until Tbilisi. It's easier to fight possible Georgian counter-attack. If this is the rationale, then tail wags dog or how the saying is.
About Finnish plans.
http://www.mil.fi/perustietoa/julkai...nglanti_02.pdf
About T-90
http://mdb.cast.ru/mdb/1-2008/item2/article4/Moreover, because of design differences between the domestic and export versions, the small batches of tanks ordered for the Russian army are expensive to produce. For example, the price of a T-90 rose from 42 million rubles in 2006 to 58 million in 2007 – an increase of 38%. This level of inflation can hardly be matched by similar increases in defense budget allocations, so a massive armored forces capability increase is highly unlikely.
Destiny of 1 Georgian squad.
http://vasi.net/2008/08/14/gruzinska...jj_osetii.html
Last edited by kaur; 08-16-2008 at 07:46 AM.
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