Russia Vs Georgia..a widening crisis!

Norfolk said:

The other thing here of course was the continuing Russian predilection for utter disregard of own casualties. Most of a Tank Battalion Tactical Group was apparently wiped out during the initial Russian lunge at Gori, but that Georgian tactical success only bought time for the Georgians to get out of town as the sheer mass of Russian force was subsequently brought to bear. The Russians could absorb losses that would cripple the Georgians (or for that matter, many Western Armies), and just keep pushing on, which of course is what they did (after levelling the area with artillery and air strikes - another continuing Russian predilection).

BTW, nice analysis, Finn.

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Thank you. The engagement outside of Gori that you refer to is still a bit of a mystery. By all accounts it did happen, and it was a Russian defeat. However it appears that it was not witnessed by any reporters, since there was not any independent account of that I've seen, only a statement by the Georgian Interior Ministry that a Russian tank column had been turned back outside of Gori (the Russians didn't mention it at all). I interpreted that to mean that the Russians had sensed that the Georgians were collapsing after they fell back from Tskhinvali and made a probe towards Gori to see if they could exploit it, but were hit hard and had their reconnisance-in-force turned back. However you seem to think that it was a headlong tank assault (i.e. the Russians sensed the Georgian Army collapsing and decided to charge rather than feel it out first) and they suffered heavy casualties. We don't know which but I'd like to see where you got that report of a whole Tank Battalion Tactical Group being destroyed. I sensed that the Russians had their nose bloodied at some point like that in the time in between the Georgian retreat from South Ossetia and the Georgian retreat from Gori because of the Interior Ministry statement I mentioned earlier and because the Russians paused then and did not really attack forward for about 36 hrs.

Its interesting how we manage to piece together a more complete narrative of what actually happened on the ground based on news, rumours and analysis.

I think this indicates something that the U.S. is having to relearn after Vietnam, American training does not make a competent fighting force. People were touting Georgia's American training but in the end they could not stop Russia or even seriously hurt them. That could bode ill for Iraq and Afghanistan, though I think in general they may overall be better since those forces have a great deal of fighting experience compared to Georgia.

Russian combat doctrine taught to me at NTC Ft Irwin was we were always first engaged with very small 1 or 2 BRDM's then we would get hit along all phase lines with heavy armour recon in force.

Which ever unit the Russians found the least resistance they would then pounce usely with a full tank battalion of 31 tanks, 31 BMP and 9 more BRDM/ATGW. This would then increase to a reg of about 90 tanks and 31 BMP along with a massive 40 tube arty attack.

They would then shoot strait though that gap now created and look to cause havoc in the rear areas such as the command "talk" and supply/fuel and such. This was countered with "pass off the bear" and kill it. How....ya would love to know...sorry not saying

We were told this was based off a modified German tactic used in WW2. They did not practice land air war 2000 doctrine which was used by my unit. We were on direct Comm with A-10/F-16 and gunships. They had eyes on what we were seeing and we would talk to them directing with means/tactics I will not talk about as I have not seen some of this info go open source. only units in contact or operating with air combat controllers know this info and it would blow your mind compounded with a field grade officer saying you will never speak of this. so I wont...other than we ALWAYS had great situational awarness.

so, If those Georgians met this kind of aggressive tactic which they kind of did with the exception the russians were stoping alot unlike at east German/russian training was much more aggressive and fluid in the 80s's and they did not stop it was a red storm, red wave a intergrated mech machine of death. Much has changed with the exception they still dont have air combat controllers and a NCO cant talk to a SU-25 to direct a PGM strike.

Also the russians have no problem getting killed. They would limit radio issue and still do so units dont realy know how othe units are doing(IE getting killed) except for the platoon leader but that is limited also. I mean, I guess it kind of works if you think about it....No news is good news

Norfolk said:

The other thing here of course was the continuing Russian predilection for utter disregard of own casualties. Most of a Tank Battalion Tactical Group was apparently wiped out during the initial Russian lunge at Gori, but that Georgian tactical success only bought time for the Georgians to get out of town as the sheer mass of Russian force was subsequently brought to bear. The Russians could absorb losses that would cripple the Georgians (or for that matter, many Western Armies), and just keep pushing on, which of course is what they did (after levelling the area with artillery and air strikes - another continuing Russian predilection).

BTW, nice analysis, Finn.

It seems that the Russians lack a certain sense of urgency in withdrawing from Georgia - and according to the Defence Ministry, a withdrawal is only being considered; no orders have been given. Instead, Russian troops are incrementally edging closer to Tblisi, and have not only re-occupied some areas that they had raided earlier, but are now pushing into new areas of the country. The Russians, where they are not advancing, are

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.

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I must confess that I am not convinced by claims of Heavy Russian casualties as they advanced on Gori and the reason for this is simple; Body Language!

Russian High Command may not be phased by casualties, but I am sure this is not shared by the lads on the ground and given the relatively small war zone and the amount of noise and smoke a major armoured engagement would generate, a Tank Battalion getting a bloody nose would not stay secret for long.

If you have had a bloody nose from someone, you move around and act respectfully of them. In places like Afghanistan and Iraq troops stay under cover, move carefully, wear helmets etc and generally cautious. The Russians however move around like holiday makers without a care in the world, soft hats, out in the open and in total disregard of the opposition.

Likewise, the Georgians appeared nervous and cautious from the word go, they did not look like an army that had given the Russians a bloody nose. Nor did they act like one. A major victory such as the alleged would have sent moral sky high and encouraged them to dig in and at least make a slow fighting withdrawal . What we actually saw in Gori was no tactical withdrawal under fire, but a rout with barely a shot being fired in the towns defence.

I also suspect that much of what we have seen has been a side show to the key combat area




Just look at South Ossetia. Gori and Tashkinvali are well to the west of the province and look how the province curves and then plunges to the South and East. Look how it follows the Central Highway for at least 20 miles towards Tbilisi before heading away more North East. This is why understanding the security zones argument is so important, as this legitimises a Russian presence on the highway very close to the Capital. It also seems as though Georgian forces are still in the high ground of South Ossetia's South East and that these were the forces that held the high ground around Tashkinvali during the Russian counter offencive and the main target for Russian forces.

What is the rifle that this guy is holding? Custom sniper rifle?

That looks like a VSS “Vintorez” sniper rifle.

Georgian Troops Taken Prisoner In Black Sea Port

By Bela Szandelszky, POTI, Georgia, AP
Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Russian soldiers took about 20 Georgian troops prisoner Tuesday at this key Black Sea port in weste

rn Georgia, blindfolding them and holding them at gunpoint, and commandeered American Humvees awaiting shipment back to the United States.

Elsewhere, Russia exchanged POWs with Georgia and pulled back some troops from the strategic city of Gori.

It was a day of deeply mixed messages that left the small, war-battered country full of anxiety about whether Russia was aiming for a long term military presence in Georgia or was just trying to inflict the maximum damage before adhering to a troop withdrawal that Russia had promised under a EU-brokered cease-fire.

At an emergency meeting in Brussels, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her 25 NATO counterparts demanded that Russia immediately withdraw its troops from Georgia, a U.S. ally that wants to join NATO. The NATO foreign ministers announced the alliance "cannot continue with business as usual" with Russia as long as its troops remain in Georgia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized the NATO comment, saying the alliance was pursuing anti-Russian policies and supporting an aggressive Georgia.

But it was in Poti _ Georgia's main oil port _ where Russia flexed its military muscle most visibly.

Russian forces blocked access to the city's naval and commercial ports on Tuesday morning and towed the missile boat Dioskuria, one of the navy's most sophisticated vessels, out of sight of observers. A loud explosion was heard minutes later.

Several hours later, an Associated Press photographer saw Russian trucks and armored personnel carriers leaving the port with about 20 blindfolded and handcuffed men riding on them. Port spokesman Eduard Mashevoriani said the men were Georgian soldiers.

The Russians also took four Humvees that were at the port awaiting shipment back to the United States, equipment that had been used in earlier U.S.-Georgian military exercises.

The deputy head of Russia's general staff, Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, said in Moscow that Russia

n forces plan to remain in Poti until a local administration is formed, but did not give further details. He also justified previous seizures of Georgian soldiers as a necessary crackdown on soldiers who were "out of any kind of control ... acting without command."

An AP television crew has seen Russian troops in and around Poti for days, with local port officials saying the Russians had destroyed radar, boats and other Coast Guard equipment there.

A Georgia official said Russians were slowing down food aid shipments to Poti.

"Right now there are Russian soldiers and tanks at Poti," Georgian Finance Minister Nika Gilavri said. "They want to open every single container" and inspect them.

Russian troops have also been busy at the nearby Georgian military base in Senaki. Convoys of Russian trucks and armored vehicles moved in and out of the base all day Monday. Late in the afternoon, three separate blasts appeared to destroy the base's runway and shook the leaves off trees up to a mile (1.6 kilometers) away.

Russian troops and tanks have controlled a wide swath of Georgia for days, including the country's main east-west highway where Gori sits. The Russian presence threatens pro-Western President Mikhail Saakashvili's efforts to keep the country from losing territory to Russia after a short but intense war over the separatist areas of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

In central Georgia on Tuesday, a small column of Russian tanks and armored vehicles left Gori. Col. Igor Konoshenkov, a Russian military officer, told The Associated Press the unit on Georgia' only significant east-west highway.

AP Television footage showed relatives weeping with joy as they embraced the soldiers later in Tbilisi.

Near Igoeti, Russian troops were seen dismantling a makeshift roadside checkpoint, but showed no sign of leaving. The road seemed deserted. Some 200 yards (meters) away, Georgian police waited at their own checkpoint, hoping for a Russian withdrawal.

Georgian student protesters tried to march Tuesday toward a Russian checkpoint near Igoeti, chanting and waving Georgian flags and banners, including one that read "Russia Your Hands Are In Blood," but they were turned away by Georgian police.

Finn McCool said:

Thank you. The engagement outside of Gori that you refer to is still a bit of a mystery. By all accounts it did happen, and it was a Russian defeat. However it appears that it was not witnessed by any reporters, since there was not any independent account of that I've seen, only a statement by the Georgian Interior Ministry that a Russian tank column had been turned back outside of Gori (the Russians didn't mention it at all). I interpreted that to mean that the Russians had sensed that the Georgians were collapsing after they fell back from Tskhinvali and made a probe towards Gori to see if they could exploit it, but were hit hard and had their reconnisance-in-force turned back. However you seem to think that it was a headlong tank assault (i.e. the Russians sensed the Georgian Army collapsing and decided to charge rather than feel it out first) and they suffered heavy casualties. We don't know which but I'd like to see where you got that report of a whole Tank Battalion Tactical Group being destroyed. I sensed that the Russians had their nose bloodied at some point like that in the time in between the Georgian retreat from South Ossetia and the Georgian retreat from Gori because of the Interior Ministry statement I mentioned earlier and because the Russians paused then and did not really attack forward for about 36 hrs.

Its interesting how we manage to piece together a more complete narrative of what actually happened on the ground based on news, rumours and analysis.

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If said Tank Battalion Tactical Group was indeed destroyed as per Georgian claims, it may have been while it operated as its parent Formation's Forward Detachment, which is a sort of dual-purpose reconnaissance-in-force/exploitation element. There is no direct Western counterpart to the Russian Army's Forward Detachment; even Western Armoured Reconnaissance/Armored Cavalry units don't normally operate in the same manner as the Russians, who themselves also use a dedicated Reconnaissance Battalion for most of the same tasks. Checking things, it turns out that said unit was destroyed in the fighting for Tskhinvali, not Gori, to the Georgians (the AP version also). My apologies for the confusion; this then was the "Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion" that was reported mauled during that battle prior to the advance on Gori itself.

SampanViking wrote:

I must confess that I am not convinced by claims of Heavy Russian casualties as they advanced on Gori and the reason for this is simple; Body Language!

Russian High Command may not be phased by casualties, but I am sure this is not shared by the lads on the ground and given the relatively small war zone and the amount of noise and smoke a major armoured engagement would generate, a Tank Battalion getting a bloody nose would not stay secret for long.

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The unit in question was indeed destroyed, but you have to remember that the Russian Army is not a Western Army; radio communications are restricted almost soley to officers, and in the Russian Army (as well in many other Eastern Armies), you don't ask questions, you don't take initiative, and you obey orders...or else. This makes it very easy for officers to clamp down in case the boys start to get a little excited. Not to mention that Russian society has rather strong fatalistic tendencies. There's an old saying about the difference between Americans and Russians, for example: an American, facing certain doom, will fight to the last to escape it, while a Russian will simply accept his fate. From Tannenberg to Grozny, when Russians are ordered into deathtraps, they advance, because they're more afraid of who's behind them than who's in front of them. So, as to the destruction of the Russian Tank Battalion (40 tanks certainly amounts to that), the Russians certainly aren't going to admit to such an event yet, at least not for a while; it was probably pushing their own limits to admit that 58th Army's commander was wounded by Georgian artillery fire not long afterwards. Finally, the follow-on troops knew they had beaten the Georgians, who were retreating in front of them. They weren't much afraid of the Georgians then.

How funny, Russia realy thinks the georgians are going to leave their defensive positions around tbilisi and go back to their former military bases right near major russian formations that have those bases sited with mass arty and air power. This takes the cake. The russians realy have gone to funny with that 6 point plan

utelore said:

How funny, Russia realy thinks the georgians are going to leave their defensive positions around tbilisi and go back to their former military bases right near major russian formations that have those bases sited with mass arty and air power. This takes the cake. The russians realy have gone to funny with that 6 point plan

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See my latest update for the 18th and 19th on the following page:

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Significant happenings at Porti (of course) and at the one base where Georgian personnel turned back Russians at the gate.

Lots of flash points...but also hope with the prisoner exchange, and with Medvedev's statement that Russian troops would be back to the "security zone" by end of Friday.

We shall see.