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More on Military Performance

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Nexon asks for another assessment of the performance of the Russian and Georgian armed forces. Again, this is very preliminary; the lessons of this war will take a long time to learn and internalize.

The Georgians did have some technical advantages, such as nightfighting gear on their tanks and attack aircraft. While this article indicates that the Georgian T-72s (with the nightfighting gear and some other technical upgrades) were superior to their Russian counterparts, I’m not convinced; the Russians seem to have been employing more modern T-80s, which were equipped with reactive armor (this explodes outwards when hit, to deflect the force of the blow), while the Georgian tanks were not. David Axe suggests that this enabled the Russian tanks to massacre their Georgian counterparts (80% losses) in open battle. However, Axe also points out that the Russian T-80s proved vulnerable to Georgian hunter-killer teams employing missiles manufactured in Israel.

Galrahn (writing for Danger Room) gives an updated account of the Black Sea battle. Contrary to the previous report I relied on, Moskva was threatened not by the Georgian missile boat Tblisi, but rather by a Georgian gunboat. The rest of the Georgian fleet was sunk with land based artillery in Poti. Galrahn notes in particular the high readiness of the Black Sea Fleet, which is somewhat surprising; the Russian Navy suffered from more dramatic post-war cuts than either the Army of the Air Force.

In the air, Russian and Georgian loss accounts continue to differ. The Russians have acknowledged the loss of four aircraft, while the Georgians assert that they shot down 19. The former wouldn’t be great (compared strictly with recent Western bombing campaigns), while the latter would be downright disastrous. The Russians, like the Americans and the Israelis in recent campaigns, apparently used anti-tank cluster bombs. The Russians lacked UAVs, which prevented them from being as aware of the battlefield as possible, especially after the downing of the Tu-22 recon Backfire. Finally, the Russians didn’t dominate the airspace to anywhere near teh degree they should have; Georgian SU-25s continued to attack Russian ground concentrations as late as Monday. Simon Saradzhyan, writing for the Moscow Times, confirms my suspicion that the Air Force will face the toughest scrutiny in post-war Russian evaluations.

In terms of discipline and readiness, I’d say that Russian forces generally outperformed expectations. American and Israeli advisors toughened the Georgian military and helped give it some effective skills, but right now it’s a non-factor; the Russians are going where they please, and Saakashvili apparently hasn’t been able to put enough of a force together to conducting elementary blocking operations. Nevertheless (and this is the conclusion that most others have come to), the Russians still face some technological hurdles before they will achieve anything close to the efficiency of a modern Western military organization.

And of course Hassan Nasrallah points to the true culprits behind Georgian defeat: The Jews.

… read Dorian’s comment, which takes issue with some of this and provides additional information.

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