Initial assessments of the military effectiveness of the Russian and Georgian forces are being written. Over to the blogosphere!

Robert Farley:

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….

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.

Georgia was not without some advantages:

Note: Some sources are disputing whether Russia actually deployed T-80s in any significant numbers.

David Axe at Popular Mechanics:

LAND
Russia: T-80 tank with reactive armor
Georgia: Unidentified antitank missile, possibly an Israeli-made Spike

Russia’s 58th Army, hardened from bloody fighting in Chechnya, led the charge into South Ossetia. Scores of low-slung T-80 tanks, armed with 125 mm cannons and sporting scalelike reactive-armor blocks that explode outward to deflect incoming fire, made quick work of Georgia’s older, but nearly identical, tanks. One Georgian tank unit lost 400 out of 500 soldiers, according to an Ossetian soldier and blogger fighting for the Russians. But tank killers from the Georgian infantry, armed with unidentified guided missiles—allegedly of Israeli origin—sparked a minor panic and a major diplomatic row between Russia and Israel, when they destroyed several T-80s, apparently by punching right through the reactive armor. The possible secret? A twin warhead: one charge to set off the reactive blocks, another to punch through the tank’s steel hull.

+ Advantage: Georgia

So, despite some areas of organizational and technical obsolescence (see: Russian mechanics working on broken down tanks strung along the road to the Roki Tunnel) it appears Russia’s successful combined arms approach carried the day against a scattered and piecemeal resistance. Georgian C2 appeared non-existent. As for the Russians, the NY Times quotes a Pentagon official with laudatory words for the Russian military:

“They seem to have harnessed all their instruments of national power — military, diplomatic, information — in a very disciplined way,” said one Pentagon official, who like others interviewed for this article disclosed details of the operation under ground rules that called for anonymity. “It appears this was well thought out and planned in advance, and suggests a level of coordination in the Russian government between the military and the other civilian agencies and departments that we are striving for today.”

The big loser (aside from the entire nation of Georgia, and perhaps what remains of the Bush Administration’s international credibility) seems to be the Russian Air Force. Its superiority over Georgia did not come without a cost:

Georgian air defenses managed to shoot down as many as 10 Russian warplanes during the fighting over South Ossetia, including several Su-25 close-air-support planes, an Su-24 medium bomber (maybe) and a large Tu-22M “Backfire” bomber. This despite “Georgian command and control … [breaking] down almost immediately after the initial foray into South Ossetia,” according to Dave Fulghum’s new piece over at Ares.

* Russia had not prepared a plan in advance of the air campaign.
* Perhaps as a result, Russia made little attempt to take out Georgian air defenses, including SA-11 missiles (pictured), before the main attack.
* “Russian intelligence failed to analyze the numbers, locations and capabilities of the Georgian air defenses.”
* The Russians never used radar-homing missiles against Georgian radars. Indeed, the Russian air force used very few long-range guided missiles at all.

Dave Fulghum’s piece is found here.

A full accounting of the conflict and the run up to it has yet to be written, but the initial assessments don’t contain any big surprises. While some commentators apparently expected much better from the Georgians (indeed, the failure to seal the Roki Tunnel remains baffling) or much worse from the Russians (the speed and effectiveness of their response hints that they had an op plan ready to go), in my opinion the conflict played out pretty much as expected. Georgia never had any chance against Russian Trans-Caucasus military forces, and absent a Georgian success at seizing the initiative and changing the nature of the fight, a loss in a stand-up fight was inevitable.

Saakashvili made a sucker’s bet and lost.