Georgia's South Ossetia Conflict - Military Commentary

[William F. Owen]

I can't understand why the Georgians would try to fight Russia using tanks? The Georgian Army should be a Army of 6 man cells, with the best shoulder fired weapons money can buy. I didn't hear about one Russian tank being hit by an anti-tank weapon? Why?

I assume that Georgia needs some armour protection to fight Chechen Guerrillas or other various "rebels" in their country? But so far, I can't say I'm too impressed with the Georgians.

If I was a Baltic State or Ukraine military planner, I would make note of this. It seems like these countries (and Georgia) have developed their militaries to take on NATO/American missions, while not thinking about their own territorial defense?

It seems necessary to have deployable units for peacekeeping or COIN, and then have units of small independent cells for the nation's defense against the bigger Russia. For a small country like Georgia, it shouldn't really be that expensive to equip and train some units to specialize in hit and run tactics, and supply line disruption?

I not only concur but applaud your observation. It is exactly this point I tried to present to the Royal Thai Army. A couple of points are worth expanding.

a.) Tanks are fire support. They can achieve little in themselves, but you still need some. Tanks engender human emotion in a way I can never understand and I believe their generally unchanging form nearing the limit of its usefulness. No the tank is not obsolete. It merely needs to evolve.

b.) Beware the heroic little tank hunter teams. Context is everything, and the tide can very quickly turn against them. In order to be consistently successful they need large amounts of support and preparation. Even then they may suffer considerable attrition, unless they have the ability to very rapidly disengage.

[Ratzel]

I not only concur but applaud your observation. It is exactly this point I tried to present to the Royal Thai Army. A couple of points are worth expanding.

a.) Tanks are fire support. They can achieve little in themselves, but you still need some. Tanks engender human emotion in a way I can never understand and I believe their generally unchanging form nearing the limit of its usefulness. No the tank is not obsolete. It merely needs to evolve.

b.) Beware the heroic little tank hunter teams. Context is everything, and the tide can very quickly turn against them. In order to be consistently successful they need large amounts of support and preparation. Even then they may suffer considerable attrition, unless they have the ability to very rapidly disengage.

a.) Countries like the Baltic States could probably use some armour if their Russian populations try to break away, but for actual war against Russia, they'd be useless.

b.) During OIF I my unit faced thousands of men acting in hunter killer teams, and it was very ugly for them (even in the cities). Terriean really makes a difference, as the desert is a bad place for the small AA team. However, a place like Georgia, or the Balkans is ideal for this. Another factor in OIF I was the Iraqi weapons. If the Iraqis had Javelins and Carl Gustavs instead of RPG 7's and 14's, we most likely would have had a lot of problems?

[Stan]

Some interesting (self) observations at RIA Novosti as reported in the Russian press.

The Georgian army has not yet tried many of its state-of-the-art weapons in the South Ossetian conflict, but is ready to do so at a decisive moment, Israeli media reported.

Even Georgia's Soviet-made T-72 tanks are better equipped than their Russian counterparts. Georgia has re-engineered its inventory of 165 T-72 tanks by fitting them out with the GPS navigation system, identification systems, thermal imagery systems for targeting fire, and up-to-date Falcon communication systems. The Georgian version of the tank, the T-72-SIM-1, is capable of night fighting and in adverse weather conditions, which is beyond the capability of Russian tanks.

The course of the war has shown that the Russian army needs overhauling. Meanwhile yesterday Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin refused to back a proposal by key security ministries to increase defense spending.

[William F. Owen]

b.) During OIF I my unit faced thousands of men acting in hunter killer teams, and it was very ugly for them (even in the cities). Terriean really makes a difference, as the desert is a bad place for the small AA team. However, a place like Georgia, or the Balkans is ideal for this. Another factor in OIF I was the Iraqi weapons. If the Iraqis had Javelins and Carl Gustavs instead of RPG 7's and 14's, we most likely would have had a lot of problems?

The weapons are certainly an issue. Some UK MBTs took 12 + hits from RPGs when doing "raids" into Basra. The poor quality of both enemy troops and equipment was explicitly noted in the post operational report. EG- Don't try this again!

As I have said before, Javelin and Spike (MR/LR) change the world in ways we may not yet fully appreciate, but they are vastly expensive (especially Javelin). I see there as being a clear requirement for low cost, light weight wire guided ATGM, such as 9K115-2 or a much improved M47 Dragon.

...and yes, I know Dragon sucked more than a blind stripper with a club foot, which is why I said "much improved!"