Georgia's South Ossetia Conflict - Military Commentary

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Not sure where else to put this yet...

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Georgian Artillery Inventory prior to Russian Invasion:

The BBC is lying (again)...

Didn't anybody else notice that the bulk of the Georgian artillery inventory was left abandoned to the South and East of Gori?

Dana 152mm SP guns parked on the side of the road to Tblisi, a whole row of D-30 122mm guns left lined up on a Gori city side street. The photographic evidence of this is stark and irrefutable.

Globalsecurity/FAS reports that pre-war Georgia had just one (1) 203mm Pion 2S7 SP gun, just one (1) 2S19 SP 152mm gun, thirteen 2S5 SP 152mm guns, twenty-four 152mm Dana SP guns, fifteen (or sixteen) BM-21 MRLS, six (or eight) RM-70 MRLS, and other sources reveal less than a dozen of the Israeli made GRADLAR MRLS systems, only one of which has been confirmed as of the long range (45km) variety.

That single long range truck mounted GRADLAR system may have been the only Georgian heavy artillery to have actually responded to the Russian invasion when it was reported firing on the Russian tank column exiting the Roki Tunnel on the night of August 8-9. That firing may be indirectly confirmed by the finding of a single unexploded M85 DPICM munition, which could only have been fired by the Israeli made GRADLAR system – or placed in its found location by Russian disinformation.

The Georgian towed artillery included fourteen 152mm guns, and one hundred and eight 122mm guns.

No matter how one adds up the Georgian artillery park, it doesn’t come close to the BBC’s claims of over 300 guns. My own estimate is less then 200 total pieces in the entire inventory, the majority of which appear to have never fired at the Russians (who were outside of the normal range of those guns), but were lost in the rout south and east of Gori.

It should also be noted that for all of the visible damage sustained within the city of Tshkinvali, there were very few actual impact craters.


MY
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[Rex Brynen]

Georgian Artillery Inventory prior to Russian Invasion:

The BBC is lying (again)...


No matter how one adds up the Georgian artillery park, it doesn’t come close to the BBC’s claims of over 300 guns. My own estimate is less then 200 total pieces in the entire inventory, the majority of which appear to have never fired at the Russians (who were outside of the normal range of those guns), but were lost in the rout south and east of Gori.

I doubt the BBC would be "lying," which would presume deliberate falsehood. They could, of course, be misinformed, or lack the military expertise to understand certain data (rather common in the media).

The BBC report that I saw cited a total of 95 pieces of "heavy artillery" in the Georgian inventory (without defining what was "heavy," but including MRLs). Their source was Jane's Sentinel Country Risk Assessments.

[badtux]

An interesting source for information on recent Georgian imports (which may not be reflected in the FAS/GS totals) is the U.N. Arms Register's online database, http://disarmament.un.org . In 2007, for example, Georgia reported to the UN that it imported five 203mm PION artillery pieces from Ukraine and four 22/160mm reactive launchers from Israel. In 2006 they reported importing 57 assorted large-caliber pieces from various states, mostly 125mm DANA systems from the Czech Republic (which is retiring all their old Soviet gear) as well as a number of 122mm mortars.

In short, in this contest it appears that if Global Security / FAS said that Georgia had only a single PION artillery piece, they were operating on old information that does not include recent arms transfers to Georgia. Also note that we have no 2008 information for Georgia's arms imports, those will not be reported to the UN until the spring of next year. It would not surprise me if the BBC's total is understated also, since Jane's is typically also at least a year behind. As for what qualifies as a "large caliber artillery piece", I presume that pretty much everybody uses the U.N.'s definition, which appears to be any mortar or artillery piece over 75mm.

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http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/0...orgia-pre.html

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chechnya-sl/message/55785

Eh…

It would appear as though the BBC was repeating somebody else’s lies, this time.

=

For what must be the most obvious of reasons there are certain limitations that come with using free open source information for this kind of analysis. Not the least of which is, you get what you pay for.

Still…

No matter how one slices up the open source and very unofficial inventory of the Georgian artillery park, it just isn’t possible that they had 300 pieces of heavy artillery all firing at the Russian columns at the same time. If for no other reason then the Georgians, even by the highest of estimates, never had more than 200 pieces of heavy artillery in total. Even if one assumes a 100% reliability rate from elderly Cold War era guns and ammo…

Ok, now I’ve amused myself. I couldn’t keep a straight face while typing that last line.

GUFFAW,
R

[badtux]

That was an interesting piece of agitprop that you linked to indeed. For example, the person who wrote it obviously has no clue as to the geography of Georgia. It is less than twenty miles from Gori to Tskhinvali and the terrain between the two is relatively flat. Gori is in the center of the country on the main highway and rail line connecting Tbilisi with the coast and Georgia itself is a relatively small country where artillery could be redeployed from one end of the country to Gori in less than a day. This can be verified via Google Earth or other such open source geomapping service. So much for that.

The question of whether Georgia had 300 tubes of heavy artillery, however, boils down to the definition of a "tube". Looking at the UN database, Georgia reported a fairly insignificant artillery section of 116 tubes in 2002, which appears to be the FAS/GlobalSecurity inventory that you reference since over half of it is D-30 towed howitzers. They made acquisitions in 2004(8 pieces), 2005(43 pieces), 2006(57 pieces), 2007(9 pieces), and presumably more in the first half of 2008. But that adds up to 233 pieces plus whatever they purchased in 2008. I seriously doubt they purchased 67 artillery pieces in the first half of 2008.

On the other hand, the hoary old 82mm SovBloc mortar is considered an artillery tube by the U.N. since it is larger than 75mm (though Georgia sensibly does not report it as such). By that standard pretty much everybody has 300 tubes of heavy artillery .

[kaur]

Russian official list of South Ossetian and Russian casualties - civilians, paramilitaries and soldiers. In Russian.

http://www.regnum.ru/news/1050769.html

Here Russian side says that Russia lost 59 peacekeepers. In Russian.

http://newsru.com/arch/russia/05sep2008/victims.html

The data is really vague, because there is no precise data who were paramilitaries, South Ossetian army, armed volunteers from other parts of Russia etc.

Russian and South Ossetian officials say around 2,000 of the province's residents have been killed since Georgia began its ground and air offensive on South Ossetia on Friday.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who visited Russia's North Ossetia, where thousands of refugees from the Georgian province are being housed, called the killings an act of genocide.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20080810/115933126.html

[Culpeper]

Could someone please explain to me what happened? Didn't Georgia start an offensive that Russia was prepared for and and then Russia made sure Georgia couldn't wage war for some time?

[kaur]

Culpepper,

This is the question of the year. EU foreign ministers decided to send their investigators (if this is the right word) to Georgia to find out how the war really started. At the moment there is Shaakashvili's word vs Russia's word. To be more precise the question is "Were Russian tanks in Roki tunnel 07.08?" I understand that Russian units were guarding the Roki tunnel entrance on the South Ossetian side with their air defence weapons and in North Ossetia's capital Vladikavkaz there were located many Russian units, that had their own rapid reaction units (due to the constant low intensity conflict in that region). They were located really close to tunnel. Russians say that these rapid reaction units enterd South Ossetia first and only after the Georgian attack. If in the end it comes out that Georgians saw ghost tanks, then I dare to compare this situation with the beginning of 2003 war, when Bush saw ghost bombs. .... AND then The Economist should apologise (again); like they did after the US failure to present the world with evidence. In the general picture this fact turns everything upside down and a lot of people have to eat their words.