Georgia's South Ossetia Conflict - Military Commentary

[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.

[Render]

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.

[badtux]

To be more precise the question is "Where Russian tanks in Roki tunnel 07.08?"

That actually is a detail that does not change the accuracy of the thumbnail description. Russian tanks in the Roki Tunnel would not change the fact that Georgia launched an offensive upon South Ossetia that Russia was apparently prepared for and responded to -- Georgian tanks crossed the South Ossetian border and entered Tskhinvali hours before the Russian response force arrived. The location of the response forces at the time of the Russian response to the Georgian offensive, whether in North Ossetia or South Ossetia, is a detail rather than a contradiction of any thumbnail description of the military action. It's an interesting detail, and one that would be nice to know the answer to, but still does not contradict the overall thumbnail description given above, that is:

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?

The political questions of whether Russia had a "right" to station response troops on the South Ossetian side of the Roki Tunnel, or whether Georgia had a "right" to launch an offensive if the Russians indeed did so, are left to the political thread since they are not military questions and do not affect the overall summary of the military situation.

[Render]

It should be noted that Russian Cyberwar attacks on Georgia preceeded the Russian tanks in the Roki Tunnel by several weeks.

July 22nd, 2008

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1533

"Georgia President’s web site under DDoS attack from Russian hackers"

THREATENED
WITNESS,
R

[kaur]

badtux said:

The location of the response forces at the time of the Russian response to the Georgian offensive, whether in North Ossetia or South Ossetia, is a detail rather than a contradiction of any thumbnail description of the military action.

I think that that would be one huge scandal; as if Soviet troops entered just 1 m under the Brandenburg gates in a rush to come to help West German "peace organisations" in Berlin

I do understand that there was a regular traffic flow of military vehicles between South Ossetia and Russia during the last 17 years. SO troops were trained a lot by Russians in a former training base in SO and military exercises took place in the 58th Army training grounds in North Ossetia. Maybe just another such column was moving towards SO and the Georgians overreacted?

[kaur]

Russian Air Force after Georgia, part 1

Flight's Moscow correspondent Vladimir Karnozov guest-blogs this week with a five-part after action report on the Georgia Air War, obviously from the Russian perspective. Karnozov is kindly filling in while this blogger is traveling all week on an assignment. Here's part 1.

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/th...er-georgi.html

[kaur]

CONTENTS

Editorial

Saakashvili: “War At Last!”



International Relations

Conflict in South Ossetia: Political Context

Implications of the Georgia-Russia War for Global Politics



War And People

The August War between Russia and Georgia

Force Development and the Armed Forces of Georgia under Saakashvili

Georgia's Air Defense in the War with South Ossetia

http://mdb.cast.ru/mdb/3-2008/

[Stan]

Considering what I have available regarding aerial delivery ordnance data (or, the failure thereof), I wonder what the Russkies actual know about their overall (ahem) capabilities. Based on real data from 12 SEP 08, their "dud" rate is over 50% and climbing. That's not to say they even hit their targets... whatever those were.

However, that said perhaps it's Russian tactics to leave 250 to 500 kg bombs underground and unexploded to tie up logistics

Kaur, anything in the Russian language press about delivered (dropped) Russian ordnance? Kind of hoping their egos will permit them to brag... They're real good about showing us what the Georgians abandoned in South Ossetia (albeit rounds without fuses and packed munitions), and the latest about their reactive armor sent in empty , but little more.

Regards, Stan

[jmm99]

at Moscow Defense Brief.

Implications of the Georgia-Russia War for Global Politics
Fedor Lukyanov, Editor in Chief, Russia in Global Affairs
#3 (13), 2008
.......
Neighboring states now face the issue of how to guarantee their own security. Their dilemma is clear. One path is to seek the patronage of a strong state from outside of the region, finding support that goes beyond political one, to include real security guarantees. The other path is to conclude an agreement with Russia for the same type of guarantees against external threats, which also hedges against a possible worsening of relations with Russia itself.

http://mdb.cast.ru/mdb/3-2008/item2/article2/

Ah ..., back to the Treaties of Friendship.

If you remember Breakfast at Tiffany's: "Do they still put trinkets in Crackerjack boxes ?" "Yes" "Ah.. That is comforting."

same source
The reemergence of deterrence recalls not so much the Cold War (in the absence of real ideological conflict) but the type of competition typical of the 19th century. Ideological and political confusion only deepens the various imbalances that have accumulated in the world.

Perhaps, some evidence of the theory (which I think has some credence) that Vladimir Putin and Sergei Ivanov are very much influenced by the 19th century Russian nationalists. Small comfort for small countries in its path - that bear was very willing to devour.

It is interesting that to MDB, we have a "Stalinist North Korea" - so, Uncle Joe is not quite rehabilitated.

Anyway, a slick site (still under construction) - brings back memories.

[kaur]

Georgia has released intercepted telephone calls purporting to show that part of a Russian armored regiment crossed into the separatist enclave of South Ossetia nearly a full day before Georgia’s attack on the capital, Tskhinvali, late on Aug. 7.

The intercepts circulated last week among intelligence agencies in the United States and Europe, part of a Georgian government effort to persuade the West and opposition voices at home that Georgia was under invasion and attacked defensively. Georgia argues that as a tiny and vulnerable nation allied with the West, it deserves extensive military and political support.

Georgia also provided audio files of the intercepts along with English translations to The New York Times, which made its own independent translation from the original Ossetian into Russian and then into English.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/wo...r=3&ref=europe

[Stan]

Kaur, I understand there's now precise evidence that the Russians were already deep South as of 09 AUG PM and early morning 10 AUG.

I do however enjoy reading Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov's recent rebuttals...

Our military acted in response to aggression efficiently and professionally. Maybe that is what our critics simply cannot forgive us?

It was an able ground operation. That was why we could reach our limited objectives so fast.

[jmm99]

A while back, I asked (rhetorical question) where Sergei Ivanov was ca. 7 Aug. Now, I know, sorta ...

(from Times article, p.2)
Gen. Lt. Nikolai Uvarov of Russia ... said President Dmitri A. Medvedev had been on a cruise on the Volga River. Mr. Putin was at the Olympics in Beijing.
“The minister of defense, by the way, was on vacation in the Black Sea somewhere,” he said.

Not the worst place in the world to be for a Georgian operation - wonder where in the Black Sea. Maybe, the good general protested too loudly.

PS - Stan. I know three is a troika. If we add your buddy Lavrov, we get a fourka - is that the Russian version of a FORD.

[kaur]

IISS Strategic Comment devoted to Georgia-RF war.

http://www.iiss.org/publications/str.../latest-issue/

Russian SU-25 in Georgia. In the end of video you can see damage done by Georgian SAM's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYRBSpi2u8U

[kaur]

Very brave speculation by Felgenhauer.

The strategic exercise “Stability 2008” is no improvisation in response to the crisis of relations with the West after the conflict in Georgia. The defense minister Anatoly Serdiukov has noted it has been in preparation for more than one year. The intrusive troops had been mobilized and concentrated in the front lines by the beginning of August during the military exercise titled “Caucasus 2008”. Simultaneously, additional power forces were prepared for strategic support of Georgian operation, as it was not known till the end whether Americans would interfere or not. This time we landed on both feet, and now the mobilized forces and means are being trained for future, in this mega-exercise. It’s been for the first time after the Soviet Union collapse that our authority carries out military exercise intending direct preparation for the large-scale war with the West.

http://en.novayagazeta.ru/data/2008/72/03.html

[jmm99]

Blast kills 7 Russian soldiers in South Ossetia
7 Russian soldiers killed when car explodes outside military headquarters in South Ossetia
MISHA DZHINDZHIKHASHVILI
AP News
Oct 03, 2008 15:57 EST

A car exploded Friday, killing seven soldiers outside Russia's military headquarters in South Ossetia, and Russian authorities charged it was a terrorist bombing meant to wreck the tense cease-fire that ended their war with Georgia.

Georgia's Interior Ministry blamed Russia, accusing it of arranging the blast to provide a pretext for delaying next week's scheduled withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgian territory around South Ossetia and another Kremlin-backed separatist region, Abkhazia.....

http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=406557

Before you draw any conclusions from the headlines, read the whole article.

Competence of Russian EOD ?