The Georgian military received very little from the US that was useful in a force-on-force clash. No F-16 fighters, no M1 tanks, no Apache choppers, no AC-130's. Even today, the major American items in the Georgian inventory are Humvees, Cougar MRAP's and a couple of former US Coast Guard vessels. Just how under-equipped were they? Here's a telling passage:
Even prior to the 2008 conflict Georgia had no missiles for the two vessels (Dioskura and Tbilisi) that had missile tubes.Even today, their coast guard/naval inventory isn't missile-armed:
As a new acquisition, and contracted prior to August 2008, the Georgian Coast Guard has placed one Turkish built MRTP-33 patrol/fast attack boat, the P-24 Sokhumi, into service. At least one more ship of this class is reportedly on order.[7][unreliable source?] These vessels are multi-mission capable so as to serve the diverse needs of Coast Guard response. The heaviest armament seen on these ships are 25-30mm cannon.6 years after the clash with the Russians, Georgia still has no American-made fixed wing aircraft. Its US inventory is limited to Vietnam-era Huey choppers.
They employed poor tactics, as well, for which the Russians had prepared.
Likely the Russians are even more prepared for hostilities in Eastern Ukraine now, they certainly are showing the discipline necessary for a carefully prepared battle plan.
However, we both know that the likely first casualty is the battle plan.
It’s hard to understand how navy “patriot” can be so wrong on Georgia and what the US supplied it. Perhaps he was being duped by the Putin press even then and believed the US really was training and equipping the Georgians in a big way. This much is true, though, the Georgians fought bravely with our troops in Afghanistan and actually owned their own battle space.