Quote Originally Posted by walrus View Post
I am however surprised at the speed of Russia's action, which suggest to me that it had to have been premeditated. Those troops must have been on twelve hours notice to move or less, and my recollection is that you don't keep people standing around like that for very long. I'm also not sure that the reactive armor is left in place during training, those tanks look "" dressed", to me, although I was Inf.
You may note that Georgia borders a Russian province called "Chechnya", and you may recall some unpleasantness there. Well, there is also a province immediately to the west of Chechnya between Chechnya and North Ossetia called Ingushetia which has also been restive due to Chechnyan fighters who fled to its mountains after the Russians defeated them in Chechnya. Because of all this, Russia had approximately 250,000 servicemen in the area six months ago as well as approximately 200 aircraft. There was/is a major Russian base in Vladikavkaz to deal with the Chechnyan situation to keep Chechnyan fighters from fleeing westward, indeed this is an ancient Russian fortress city built in 1784 to deal with the Chechnyans (who were rebelling then too, go figure). Which city, if you are looking at your maps, is 80km from the Roki tunnel, and then a further 40km to Tskinvali.

In short, it is not unusual for Russia to have forces in the area that are on alert, and furthermore, not unusual for Russia to have some of their best forces in the area -- as, undoubtedly, those T-90 tanks with reactive armor indicate. It is a two hour drive from Vladikavkaz to Tskinvali at 60km/h, so Russian troops arriving in Tskinvali twelve hours after fighting begins indicates that it took about ten hours for the Russians to get sorted out and underway -- not a great showing for a rapid reaction unit intended to respond rapidly to problems in Chechnya, but certainly not indicative of anything other than the fact that this region has been problematic for Russia for quite some time and South Ossetia happens to be close to Russia's main base in the region. In other words, the rapidity of Russian response does not indicate the Russians were necessarily expecting this particular trouble. They have plenty of other troubles to expect in the region too. Indeed, one wonders what the Chechnyans are thinking, now that the main force to their west keeping them suppressed has taken a detour into Georgia...