Georgia's South Ossetia Conflict - Military Commentary

[badtux]

The 19th MRD was equipped with equipment that was mostly 1970's/1980's equipment.
I am observing a board that focuses on hardware and they have running commentaries on the equipment on the published photos. They identified BTR-70 and T-62 (in a later wave), BMP-1 (probably part of the original peacekeeping force), mostly T-72 / BMP-2 / BTR-80.

Thank you, I did not take a look at the published photos but relied on someone who saw the reactive armor on a T-72 and thought it was a T-90. Of course the two have completely different turrets but the same hull so if you aren't looking closely it's a reasonable mistake to make. I probably should have checked more but it wasn't really the point of my piece so (shrug).

The 19th MRD is a rapid-raction division with a lower than usual share of conscripts and higer than usual expenditures for training.
It still needed a rapid reaction force in itself (which formed the advance guard of few battalions) to have at least a part of it at a level of readiness approaching that of all Soviet ground forces in Central Europe during the 1980's.

I am not sure that the readiness of Soviet ground forces in Central Europe during the 1980's was all that high, other than their equipment being thirty years newer then. The Soviet infrastructure was crumbling, the Soviet economy was in the toilet, discontent and dissent were rife, they had the same problem of poorly-trained draftee soldiers as the heart of their army that afflicts the current Russian army. But that is a topic for another area.

[Fuchs]

The Cold War readiness of WP forces in Central Europe was beyond belief.
Evacuation of bases in a matter of minutes upon alarm, for example.

They had two different sets of tanks; some for training, many always ready for immediate action (maintenance done, ammunition, fuel, oil, zeroed gun).


Exile Russians who were in the Soviet Army are VERY embittered about the post-Cold War developments in the Red/Russian army. The standards dropped to the bottom and 19th MRD was not much above that bottom apparently.

[Ken White]

...I am not sure that the readiness of Soviet ground forces in Central Europe during the 1980's was all that high, other than their equipment being thirty years newer then. The Soviet infrastructure was crumbling, the Soviet economy was in the toilet, discontent and dissent were rife, they had the same problem of poorly-trained draftee soldiers as the heart of their army that afflicts the current Russian army. But that is a topic for another area.

Significantly lower readiness than many wanted to presume for various reasons, I'd say...

Vastly over rated as a threat...

[Fuchs]

Readiness and threat are two different kettle of fish.

[Tom Odom]

For Entropy

Unchallenged air power was Russia's trump card

By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers

TIRDZNISI, Georgia — The Russian fighter jet screamed low to the earth and peeled off so quickly that the bomb wasn't visible until it hit the ground. The explosion shook everything and sent a shower of debris flying over the head of a young Georgian soldier.

The soldier, lying against an embankment on the side of the road, shouted in a panicked voice for everyone to stay still. His palms were flat on the dirt in front of him. "It's Russian MiGs," the soldier said, his eyes wide.

For three days, Russian jets and bombers have unleashed a massive aerial campaign against Georgian forces that, more than anything, dramatically changed the war's direction.

Until Russian jets showed up, Georgian tanks and infantry looked to be on their way to defeating rebel forces in Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway province of South Ossetia.

[Van]

Tom,
Please redirect "Unchallenged air power was Russia's trump card" responses to the Ever-ready Bunny of SWC - The Never Ending Airpower Versus Groundpower Debate ...



Although, no one should be surprised if we see this cited in the future as an example of the "Ten Propositions Regarding Air Power", especially "Whoever controls the air. generally controls the surface" and "Air power is primarily offiensive".

[Tom Odom]

Tom,
Please redirect "Unchallenged air power was Russia's trump card" responses to the Ever-ready Bunny of SWC - The Never Ending Airpower Versus Groundpower Debate ...



Although, no one should be surprised if we see this cited in the future as an example of the "Ten Propositions Regarding Air Power", especially "Whoever controls the air. generally controls the surface" and "Air power is primarily offiensive".

posted a copy and linked it

And a partial from Aerospace Daily (requires subscription) via ebird:

Georgia Strikes Back With Air Defenses

If the land war in Georgia so far seems to be going decidedly in favor of the Russian army and navy, the Georgians seem to be racking up a lopsided score with their air defenses....

...However, Georgian air defenses appear to be taking a steady toll on Russian aircraft. Russia has admitted to losing a total of four aircraft (the Georgians claim 10) in the conflict. So far they've admitted to the destruction of three Su-25 Frogfoot strike aircraft and a Tu-22M3 Backfire bomber that was flying a reconnaissance mission.

[Ratzel]

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?

[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.

[kaur]

As Estonian I can say that due to our joining with NATO (now) 99 percent of effort is commited to joint operations with Allies. This means that platoon and company-sized units are trained to work as part of bigger Allied forces formation (company, batallion) against insurgents. This tactics changes 180 degrees from guerilla war. There was proposal that Ministry of defence chould produce side mines against armoured vechicles (that Finnish deep operations units use, kind of side mines used by Iraqi insurgents), latter was chocked. You can say that at least lessons are known, but you have to also drill this during conscription. This is not done. Picture of war in small country depens A LOT wether this is done with the help of allies or alone.

This case study is part of topic "how decisions are done."

If I remember correctly, US train and equip program was started to make Georgian army able to fight against Chechen isurgents that inflitreted Kodori gorge and established safe haven there. Russians were complaining this all the time and bombed Georgian territory.

Even US officer proposed deep operations concept.

http://www.bdcol.ee/fileadmin/docs/b...w/08bdr200.pdf

This paper is about territorial defence.

http://www.bdcol.ee/fileadmin/docs/b...w/07bdr200.pdf

Here you can find tons of papers.

http://www.bdcol.ee/?id=64

[VMI_Marine]

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?

Indeed, it seems they missed some of the key lessons of Chechnya. Trying to take on the Russian Army in a conventional fight was an exceptionally bad idea. It looks to me like the Georgians wanted to use armored shock to quickly overpower the South Ossetians, but they appeared to have no contingency plan for the rapid response from the Russians. Light infantry could have hidden until the Russian main body had passed and then attacked the Russian LOC. This would have slowed the Russian advance and taken some of the Russian combat power away from the units facing the Georgians further south.

[Rank amateur]

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.ain some units to specialize in hit and run tactics, and supply line disruption?

I'm glad that someone who knows what they're talking about raised this issue, because sometimes I look stupid when I ask obvious questions.


I wondered if:

A) we didn't want to sell the Georgians sophisticated AT weapons or

B) we didn't want to teach these type of tactics because now that Hezbollah uses them that makes them "terrorist tactics."


After reading here though, the previously mentioned, we only trained the Georgians to get rid of terrorists because that's all we cared about, makes the most sense.