Posted on 09/09/2008 1:10:45 PM PDT by Schnucki
OK, please verify your facts, it was not small force: that's THE army Russians have, i.e. the only unit that had any combat exposure whatsoever, reinforced y Pskov airborne and their best units, two chechen battalions, each called East and West... that's the best these guys have! literally! The rest is even worse crap than these. That's the whole point! and if not for aerial support, it would have been way to much harder for them.
And one thing is superior firepower, another is use of this firepower against peaceful cities and population: are you really suggesting Georgian army had to hold onto Tskhinvali while Tbilisi was being bombed? REALLY?
As to the links, unlike most people here, I also read Russian and Georgian. Whenever I find something important, I actually go through the pains of translating this into English for others to read it as well. I never thought this stupidity - I frankly care less which thug runs the ministry of looting in that country - would have been of any interest for anyone to have this translated, and had you asked properly, I would have done it, but now I do not really feel like it anymore...
:):) Good one! Probably both....
The majority of the force was from the NCMD. The spearhead troops that I mentioned were VDV and GRU Spetsnaz. The Georgians simply didn’t have the forces, nor the back-up to stem or hold such spearhead forces.
Of course you use every resource that you have to back up a fight. How do you think the Taliban was routed in Afghanistan in 2001? It was airpower that cracked them allowing ground forces a much easier job. It was the same in Iraq with Coalition using airpower to decimate the Iraqi units that got in the way.
Collateral damage happens and occurs in all conflicts. It is a part of warfare and even in modern conflicts. Thousands of Yugoslav civilians died during 1999. Targets that were in cities and built up areas were struck - both economic and military. An unfortunate consequence, but civilians are going to die and get caught up in conflict. A fact of life. Ask some Yugoslavs and they will tell you that NATO was carpet bombing targets. Ask some Georgians and they will say the same against Russia.
Was Tbilsi carpet bombed? No. Were certain targets in Georgian cities targeted, Yes. The same with the Yugoslavs. The TV crews wouldn’t show you the military target struck, but only the collateral damage that occured to the surrounding infrastructure.
Take a look at the Russian bombing of economic and strategic targets in Georgia. Exactly the same as took place in Yugoslavia. The other side is bringing it home to the other side that it hurts to lose prime economic and military targets well away from the area of immediate conflict. The Georgian forces were simply routed from their attempts at a defensive hold. They hadn’t a hope to even stem a force with advantage of air power and artillery.
It wasn’t even a tactical withdrawal in order to fight another day. They simply left and abandoned equipment and didn’t even have time to take the precaution of disabling or destroying it. The Russians, if they had wanted to, could have turned the highway into a killing zone as per the Highway of Death in Iraq/Kuwait 1991.
Why would the retreating Georgians use a highway when they had abandoned their equipment and had lost air superiority ? The Iraqis still had their equipment and that was why they were still on the road. If you drop the moral equivalence crap you might have a chance some day of making a little sense.
Obviously you weren’t following the conflict or news reports very closely. The Georgians forces used the road/highway to retreat in their thousands. They simply used every vehicle they could find to get out and get out fast. A large proportion of their heavy equipment was simply abandoned and left behind. The road leading from Gori was a hive of activity as the Georgian forces retreated. If the Russians had wanted to they could have used their tactical aviation to target the road all the way to Tblisi. The routes out of Gori would have been lit up like a Christmas tree via infra-red due to the heat coming out of those engines. It would have been a target rich environment.
Copy and paste if the links don’t appear
Withdrawl footage at 01:35 in the following video
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SxyVg-yOwzU
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BAcApApy8Xk
Use some common-sense will you. Civilian radar is a legitimate target in conflict. Its feeds can be fed into the military system to provide part of the defense system. That is why the Belgrade radar facility at Belgrade International Airport was attacked by cruise missiles during April and May 1999. Iraqi civilian radar was also taken out in 1991 and 2003 as its feed could be used to provide the enemy with an aerial picture. Iran also uses feeds from civilian ATC radar as part on their limited integrated air defense system.
You seem perplexed as to how a military planner and his staff look at a conflict. Targeteers seek out such targets as radar (civilian or military), oil refineries, power stations, bridges etc. Take away all the hype and morale standing and put yourself in the shoes of the military planners. Those are targets that when damaged/disabled/destroyed put pressure on the enemy.
The Yugoslav civilians tried to prevent the bombing of certain bridges by flooding them people. The bridges were still hit as they were deemed to be a legitimate target. Even when the passenger train pulled onto the bridge at Grdelica in Yugoslavia the weapons systems officer in the F-15E still put his second AGM-130 TV guided missile into the bridge. The bridge was the legitimate target. You seem to forget that cluster munitions fell on Nis during the 1999 conflict. Ask the Yugoslavs who witnessed and survived that attack and they will say that the attack was deliberate. The fact was that the F-16 running into attack Nis airbase had a weapons malfunction and the cluster bomb was prematurely released. I’m not condoning any actions by Russian forces, but it is a conflict zone and weapons do malfunction, go astray with unfortunate consequences.
Purely civilian targets were hit in Yugoslavia. Why do you think that the Belgrade TV station was bombed? It was deemed by planners to be a legitimate target in order to disrupt its propaganda use. The same went for Iraqi TV stations in Baghdad.
And how long did it take to plan all of that in Yugoslavia? There was a war there for months if not years before others reacted. It took these guys less than 12 hours to accomplish everything, which indicates then that everything was well preplanned and had nothing to do with what Georgians attempted to do 12 hours before this, but was aimed at punishing Georgia for what it had wanted to become for the past years... that’s the common sense! and BTW, civilian radar was blown-up after Russians announced ceasefire and whatever anti-aricraft system Georgians had was already disabled.
There was nothing to plan. You forget that it was the Soviets/Russians that built those facilities that the Georgians were using. Command and control bunkers, airfields, former barracks. Doesn’t take much to plan a strike on those facilities when you already have all the details.
The Georgians were still attempting to fly recce drones over Russian forces and using the civilian radar to monitor Russian aerial movements. The decision was obviously taken to completely blind the remaining Georgian radar to deny them any surveillance picture.
Oh, obviously - considering their military targets also included forests in Borjomi valley; way outside of everything - absolutely legitimate military target!
Oh, and there was nothing to plan? they needed to get intelligence on whether these installations were actually used, which they did before, they needed to move to the border an entire army, they needed to recontruct the railway to supply troops where no hostilities were open - do not nowgo about telling me that all of this was not arefuly planned and orchestrated
I would repeat what I have already said - no rationale can be put into their stupid actions, FULL STOP! They are the thugs they are and need to get out of this country, pronto!
You are simply relying on Georgian government claims of the exact cause of the fires in the forest. Obviously you have made your mind up that this was a deliberate act.
Since when does a military installation have to be in use when targeted? Thousands of sorties were carried out in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia on empty barracks and infrastructure. Such infrastructure costs money to replace and that is whey they are hit even when they are empty. Any army in time of conflict isn’t going to sit in its barracks waiting to be bombed. The Georgians were simply using the sites of existing Soviet/Russian built military infrastructure. You seem oblivious to this basic fact.
You have obviously taken a side in this conflict. We could go round and round for ever debating it. Thank you for the debate and your point of view.
I am well aware of the fact that Georgian troops were using former Russian military bases, in addition to the ones they constructed after Russians left. We DO have different points though - you are trying to rationalize these from the military point of view while what I am saying is that all of that was wrong to start with! Russia acted as aggressor here and had no right to even move finger in Georgia, let alone step beyond conflict zone which was defined by a bunch of international treaties! These are completely two different points, don't you agree?
In relation to the forest fire. Russian helicopters were seen flying over the National Park. If you look at the footage even around Gori you will see numerous brush and crop fires. The footage even showed some helicopters actually starting the fires. How? Infra-red countermeasure flares deployed to deter heat-seeking surface to air missiles.
If you watch the footage of both Georgian and Russian helos and aircraft they constantly deploy the flares as protection. The Russians admitted that they sent helos over the region. Those helos would be dispensing flares simply as part of their standard operating procedures. To the crews what is more important. The risk of starting a forest fire or being taken out by a man portable heat seeking SAM? The same goes for aircraft on recce missions deploying flares.
And your point is? Is not that what I have said to you that Russians started fires? They had no business in Borjomi and obviously could have flown at higher altitudes to allow for flares to burn out before hitting the ground, but they were deliberately flying low, watching for pretty much nothing but a beautiful scenery which is now reduced to smoking char-coal!
The point is that any aircrew, regardless of nationality, is going to take preventative measures to protect their crew. Setting off forest fires is the last thing on the mind of a combat aircrew flying in hostile territory. Next you’ll be wanting them to avoid overflying Turkey farms and cattle ranches! Do you think that aircrew give much thought to where they combat jettison their fuel tanks in time of combat? They jettison them in order to a specific threat. That threat is immediate and fuel can still be in the tanks. Yugoslavia was littered with combat-jettisoned fuel tanks during 1999.
oh, absolutely, fly in the middle of nowhere! there was no legitimate military target in that area to start with, so the only thing they could be up to was setting forest fires! man, you no nothing of the way russians act:: you are trying to put their actions into rational behaviour frames, but you cannot be further from the truth! you have normal background and expect others tobe the same way, but it is not the case! these guys came in georgia to do as much wrong as they could, and please do not insult US military by comparing them with Russian army! go to georgia and see it for yourself! and read something a bit more about russian history and the way they are before trying to judge them from higher moral grounds!
As I’ve stated before we could go round and round in circles with the discussion. Thanks for the debate.
thank you!
This is aimed squarely at us. Russia was defeated in Afghanistan with US military hardware and they don’t want to see that happen again.
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