MrMatt
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- Mar 3, 2009
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Originally posted by: PJABBER
Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Originally posted by: PJABBER
This move was accelerated because of the poor performance of the Russian Army against the tiny Georgian military last year.
Maybe I missed something but from what I read the Russians kicked Borat and the rest of those Georgian Monkeys asses when they fought. Please if you will go into the details of how poorly the Russian Army performed.
I don't have time to pull out a lot of background data but at least let me offer one fairly authoritative after action analysis for your reading pleasure. For convenience I will just use extracts from this single report, though others are available.
Remember, the Georgian War was a preplanned Russian military operation with prepositioned forces using some of their best units, not the typical low readiness divisions that are charged with responsibility for that region.
Russia?s Conventional Armed Forces and the Georgian War
Russia?s Conventional Armed Forces and the Georgian War
ROGER N. McDERMOTT
2009
Mr. Roger N. McDermott is an external researcher at the Strategic Studies Institute, United States Army War College. He is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent at Canterbury (UK) and Senior Fellow in Eurasian Military Studies, Jamestown Foundation, Washington, DC. Mr. McDermott is on the editorial board of Central Asia and the Caucasus and the scientific board of the Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies. His articles appear in scholarly journals including the Journal of Slavic Military Studies, and his weekly assessments of security developments in Central Asia, Eurasia Daily Monitor (Jamestown Foundation), are read by policy planners. He is also the co-editor of the book, Russian Military Reform 1992-2002 (Frank Cass: London/Portland, 2003). Mr. McDermott is a graduate of the University of Oxford, specializing in defense and security issues in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
First, what went well -
Within a few hours of the commencement of the operation the 76th (Pskov) Airborne Division?s 104th Regiment was already in action in the Tskhinvali suburbs with 1,550 soldiers and more than 100 vehicles, accompanied by no fewer than 200 men from the Pechora GRU brigade Glavnoye Razvedyvatel?noye Upravleniye (Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff). Russian mobility was arguably far superior to that seen in previous conflicts. Within 24 hours the deployed forces almost doubled in size even though Russia could not begin an immediate airlift, owing to Georgian air defenses, and the army columns? slow movement toward Tskhinvali via the Rokki Tunnel forced commanders to commit troops piecemeal.
A key factor in the speed of the Russian military victory was the opening of a second front in Abkhazia using mechanized infantry. In South Ossetia, Russian forces captured Tskhinvali and then crossed into undisputed Georgian territory to effectively cut the main highway and railway routes west of Gori. At least 2,000 soldiers occupied Zugdidi, a Georgian town ten kilometers from the border, and an armored column continued another 30 kilometers to Senaki, capturing a military base and airfield, severing the main highway and railway at a second location, enabling de facto Russian military control of all heavy traffic movement across Georgia. Abkhaz separatists subdued Georgian positions in the Kodori Valley, while Russia?s Air Force (Voyenno-Vozdushnyye Sily?VVS) destroyed military facilities in Tbilisi and Poti.
So far, so good for the Russians, right? A well executed strike by an overwhelming force on several fronts, including some air envelopment despite failure to take out AA which resulted in the loss of at least six planes, including a top of the line Tu-22M3 strategic bomber. (Official data provided by deputy chief of the General Staff Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn showed Russia lost three Su-25 ground attack aircraft and one Tu-22M3 long-range bomber. But providing crew names, exact times, locations and types of aircraft, the Moscow Defense Brief argued that Russia in fact had lost six aircraft in combat during the five-day war. The two aircraft that were lost but not mentioned in official reports were Su-24M front-line bombers, the report said.) More on that a bit later.
Arguably the rapid collapse of the Georgian armed forces, however, was more a result of Georgian military weakness, poor management, and limited combat capabilities, than anything accurately reflecting the prowess of Russia?s armed forces.
It is this author?s contention that the Russian military and political leadership came to perceive the Georgian war as a setback to their aspirations of projecting the image of a ?resurgent Russia.? This negative assessment of Russia?s conventional armed forces in the conflict sent a seismic shock throughout the security establishment.
The Georgian war was arguably the last war of the twentieth century for Russia?s armed forces; in the sense that it was largely fought using organizations, tactics, and equipment designed in the last century.
The retrospective critique of Russia?s armed forces that publicly unfolded in the autumn of 2008 was centered on key aspects of the military?s combat capabilities. A recognizable pattern emerged which focused on aged vehicles, hardware, and weaponry; ineffective command and control organizations and systems; lack of interservice coordination; failures of intelligence support and the GLONASS (Global?naya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema, or Global Navigation Satellite System)... Shamanov?s analysis of the weak performance of the Russian military in Georgia encompassed three factors: poor interoperability between the Air Force and ground units, communication problems during combat, and low-resolution reconnaissance systems.
General Makarov, whose prominent role in the military reform campaign seemed intended to deflect criticism away from Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov, addressed a meeting of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences in Moscow on 16 December. He highlighted the immense operational and planning problems and low levels of combat readiness that were prevalent during the war in Georgia. In short, Makarov suggested that Russian forces were incapable of fighting a modern war and had to be radically reformed. ?To find a lieutenant colonel, colonel, or general able to lead troops with a sure hand, you had to chase down officers one by one throughout the armed forces, because those career commanders in charge of ?paper regiments and divisions? just could not resolve the tasks set.? Once officers were allocated personnel and equipment they soon demonstrated their ineffectiveness by ?losing their heads? or in some cases refusing to fulfill assignments.
Russia?s use of airpower in the campaign undoubtedly played a major role in securing the military?s operational goals. Yet, as the media and officials developed their criticism of Russia?s conventional forces, they extended their criticism to include the Air Force. The root cause of this negativity stemmed from the downing of a Tu-22M3 strategic bomber by Georgia?s air defenses. The bomber was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission, an event that was singled out by the media as intolerable. It is remarkable that the VVS conducted no suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) operations; however, this may have been a reflection of the lack of night-fighting capability. On the eve of the campaign the VVS had no around-the-clock SEAD capabilities, which meant Russia did not possess the option of mounting an air campaign such as those executed by the United States in the 1991 Gulf War, Afghanistan in 2001, or Iraq in 2003. Retired VVS commanders Army-General Petr Deynekin and Army-General Anatoliy Kornukov harshly criticized the failure to suppress Georgia?s air defenses. General Kornukov was especially damning, saying the Tu-22 ?was sent to its death,? and he raged at ?the miscalculations of intelligence and the incompetence of the Air Force leadership.? General Deynekin added that the ?poorly organized? search-and-rescue service contributed to the capture of Russian pilots. Other critics attacked the absence of a unified command system as a cause of aircraft losses.
Communication systems and electronic warfare assets employed by commanders and frontline forces were obsolete, in many cases ?unchanged since Soviet times.? The 58th Army commander, Lieutenant-General Anatoliy Khrulev, was reported to have communicated with his forces in the midst of combat via a satellite phone borrowed from a journalist, since communication between units was unavailable.20 Intelligence failures were quite evident, as demonstrated by the inability of units to communicate space-based and electronic intelligence, which consequently ?failed to inform the country?s leadership of the concentration of Georgian troops.? Additionally, such failures resulted in electronic warfare systems not being employed to suppress Georgia?s air defenses. Commanders were forced to struggle in their efforts to gain timely information related to events on the battlefield; difficulties compounded by the fact that maritime and topographic maps provided conflicting data. Satellite-targeting support to artillery was woefully absent, thereby preventing the use of precision-guided munitions and the accurate adjustment of artillery fire. Despite promises made in December 2007 by Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov to fully equip the Russian Army with GLONASS receivers by mid-2008, the Russian Army largely went into combat in August with World War II-era compasses and maps. Russian forces allegedly attempted to use the US Global Positioning System (GPS), but were thwarted in their attempts by the fact that the map of Georgia was blanked out for 48 hours. They were forced to resort to targeting conventional weapon systems through the use of vintage 1960s optical equipment.
In fact, the calamitous performance of Russia?s C3I during combat operations in Georgia sheds some light on the rapid decision by Russian authorities to seek increased funding to address these weaknesses.
(Major-General Aleksandr Vladimirov) did acknowledge that the call for radical change, such as the reorganization to a brigade-based structure, with emphasis on a mobile permanent-readiness force, was a direct result of weaknesses exposed during the conflict in Georgia:
Our victorious five-day war with Georgia showed up the poor performance of the General Staff, the poor performance by the command of the military district, and the poor performance of the army command.
On 14 October 2008, Defense Minister Serdyukov announced a ?new stage? in military reform, promising the most radical change to the military since 1945. Serdyukov said this reform would affect the entire functional basis of Russia?s armed forces, transforming personnel numbers, central command and control agencies, and the officer training system. Although these plans were initiated prior to the war in the South Caucasus, he stated that the events in Georgia had ?strongly influenced? the character of the reforms. The program involves the following elements:
? Reducing the armed forces to one million by 2012.
? Downsizing the General Staff by 200,000 officers.
? Converting from a ?mobilization? to a ?permanent readiness? force structure by 2012.
? Introducing a three-tiered structure (military district, operational command, and brigade) to improve command and control efficiency.
? Streamlining the military education system, resulting in a reduction in the number of educational facilities.
? Reforming the airborne forces by distributing airborne brigades to all six military districts.
? Updating equipment and weapon systems in stages with the aim of achieving a modernized military by 2020.
Serdyukov explained that the overall aim of this reform is to create a professional, permanent combat-ready force. All formations of Russia?s Army will be fully manned and become permanent-readiness forces by 2012. Recognizing the controversial nature of the reforms, Minister Serdyukov expected a fierce reaction from the military. He made it abundantly clear that the top-heavy troop management system, more suited to large-scale conventional warfare, had to evolve. ?From the point of view of positions, our Army today is reminiscent of an egg which is swollen in the middle. There are more colonels and lieutenant colonels than there are junior officers. In three years we will build a pyramid, in which everything will be precisely structured and tested.?
The whole report runs just 16 pages and is worth reading if you are into this kind of stuff.
Another article of interest on the battle for South Ossetia can be found here -
Assault on Georgia! Exclusive Military Analysis on South Ossetia Conflict - Ralph Peters
great link, I didn't know stuff like that existed
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