The initial combat did not seem to include much territorial gains.
The Georgian troops in the large Georgian valley enclave north of teh city were apparently overrun by the Russian advance guard.
I have heard (read) that there was little resistance after the first couple hours of combat between the Georgians and the Russian advance guard at the southern front line.
It sounded a lot as if the Georgians were withdrawing even without proper delaying actions - Russian recce units were able to "take & occupy" objectives.
Gori, for example, was apparently evacuated when the Russians arrived.
There was apparently no numerical or equipment superiority to speak of at the front lines.
Whatever success the Russians had was probably 95% psychological; the Georgian likely assumed their overall inferiority and didn't want to make last stands.
Neither Russians nor Georgians seemed to have been much interested in camouflage & concealment (judged by the published photos).
Caucasus people have a reputation of being more aggressive & physically robust than Russians, bullying superior numer sof Russian recruits in the army a conscripts. Maybe that description only fits the smaller nations north of the caucasus mountain tops.
The Georgian air defense fought apparently fairly well - the Russians did not seem to wage a SEAD campaign or use proper SEAD escorts.
The Russian Air Power (Su-25 and Mi-24 were mostly on video/photos) attacked operational (supply depots) and tactical targets (at least vehicles on road march) targets. I'm not sure how significant it was, but it seemed to have had an impact.
Russian air supremacy allowed their troops to drive along the single road without beign attacked.
That's the snippets that I heard/read about.
It'll be easier to learn about the Russian story than about the Georgian one because of the numerical superiority of exile Russians to exile Georgians.
Originally Posted by Fuchs
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