The Russian army's response to the situation in South Ossetia was seriously hampered by the fact that the Vladikavkaz-Tskhinvali road (167 km) was the only one and had a very limited capacity. The troops suffered heavy losses when advancing in columns towards Tskhinval, there were a large number of road accidents. The transfer of reinforcements by air was not used due to the actions of the Georgian air defense. The duration of the advancement of troops through the Rokk Tunnel and the need to quickly concentrate units from different regions of the country gave the layman the impression of the slowness of our command.
In about a day, the grouping of the Russian army in the region was doubled. The speed and success of their reaction, as well as subsequent actions, came as a surprise not only to the Georgian leadership, but also to the Western countries. In three days, a group of troops was created in a limited and extremely difficult operational area in terms of natural conditions, capable of carrying out effective actions and inflicting a quick defeat on the Georgian army, which is not inferior in number to the group of forces.
Betting this during the war, many shortcomings in the current state of the army, the concept of its development and improvement, were manifested. First of all, it should be admitted that in terms of the level of operational and technical equipment, the army was not ready for such a conflict. During the first day of fighting, there was no sign of the advantage of the Russian Air Force in the air, and the absence of air controllers in the advancing troops allowed Georgia to shell Tskhinvali for 14 hours. The reason turned out to be that the operational groups of the Russian Air Force were unable to allocate specialists to the troops without the parallel deployment of the command post and the ZKP. There was no army aviation in the air, the tanks of the equipment moved into the conflict zone without air cover. Neither airborne assault forces nor the methods of helicopter mobile mining detachments were used in the areas of withdrawal of the Georgian forces.
The traditional weaknesses of the Russian army remain combat operations at night, communications, reconnaissance and logistical support. Although in this conflict, due to the weakness of the enemy, these shortcomings did not play a significant role in the hostilities. For example, the absence in the troops of the Zoo-1 complex, intended for reconnaissance of positions of artillery and rocket launchers, complicated the life of the Russian military. This complex is able to detect flying projectiles and missiles and determine the point of fire within a radius of 40 km. It takes less than a minute to process the target and issue data for firing. But these complexes were not in the right place and at the right time. Artillery fire was adjusted by radio guidance. Therefore, the suppression of the Georgian artillery was not effective enough; it often changed its positions and fired not with batteries, but with separate guns.
The 58th Army of the North Caucasus Military District had mostly outdated tanks (75% - T-62 and T-72). For example, the T-72B tank has reactive armor or "reactive armor" of the first generation. There were a number of T-72BM tanks, but the Kontakt-5 complex installed on them does not withstand the hit of tandem cumulative ammunition, which were in service with the Georgian army. The night sights of our tanks, developed 30 years ago, are hopelessly outdated. In real conditions, they are "blind" from the flashes of shots, and the visibility is only a few hundred meters. Infrared illuminators are capable of increasing the aiming and aiming range, but at the same time they strongly unmask the tank. Old tanks did not have a friend or foe identification system, thermal imagers and GPS.
In the columns of Russian troops were all the same BMP-1 "aluminum" tanks with thin armor, primitive observation devices and sights. The same sad picture with armored personnel carriers. Occasionally it was possible to find vehicles equipped with screens or additional armor. To this day, motorized infantry, paratroopers, reconnaissance ride "on armor", so it's safer. The vehicle is not protected from the detonation of a land mine or an armor-piercing projectile, which would burn everything from the inside. The columns went along the Zar road, leaving not so much lined as broken equipment. Under Java, part of the advancing equipment stood up, ran out of fuel, we had to wait for its delivery from the Rokk tunnel.
The experience of counter-terrorist operations in the North Caucasus had a negative impact on the Russian army. The techniques and skills acquired there were ineffective against fighting a mobile enemy, and units were noted to have fallen into the "fire sacks" of the Georgian military. Also, our units often fired at each other, incorrectly determining their position on the ground. Servicemen of the 58th Army after the conflict admitted that they often used American GPS, but after two days of fighting, the map of Georgia there became just a "blank spot". The fire adjustment was carried out using optical devices developed back in the 60-80s of the last century. Remote sensing of the surface using a reconnaissance satellite was not used because the units lacked receivers. During the fighting, poor organization of interaction between units and subunits was noted.
The Air Force was only involved to a limited extent. Perhaps this was due to political restrictions: for example, objects of transport, communications, industry, government bodies of Georgia were not subjected to air attacks. There was an obvious shortage of modern high-precision weapons in the Air Force, primarily with the possibility of satellite guidance, Kh-555 missiles, anti-radar missiles for the Kh-28 (range 90 km) and Ch-58 (range 120 km). The main strike weapons of aviation remain conventional bombs and unguided missiles. The Russian group included only one middle-class UAV complex - "Pchela". Such a "mechanical insect" weighs about 140 kg. and a radius of 60 km. has proven itself well in the Chechen campaigns. Unfortunately, now, due to the relatively small resource of application, this technique is physically worn out.
This war showed that the commander of the air force formation, to whom the army aviation regiments were subordinate, in the absence of the corresponding departments in the combined arms armies, in fact, could not draw up and plan the work of aviation - every day set tasks for regiments and squadrons in the interests of motorized rifle subunits. It is unlikely that this is possible at all when the communications system is overloaded with requests from the "infantry". Perhaps that is why the army aviation of the 58th Army was not involved in the implementation of operational-tactical landings.
At the same time, it should be emphasized that aviation control is complicated by the fact that there are simply no specialists in the use of army aviation in the air armies and in the air force apparatus. After the departure of the qualified leadership of the directorates and departments, managers from aviation and air defense became "specialists" in the combat use of helicopter formations. So it is not the fault of people from the Air Force and Air Defense and those who do not know the specifics of the ground forces, that they were not ready to plan and put into practice the attached aviation, which was manifested in the military operation of the army.
When analyzing the actions of the army in the conflict, the disadvantages include the absence of joint commands (in the United States they have existed for about 20 years) and a rather weak grouping of GLONASS and the associated non-use of guided mines and shells such as "Brave", "Centimeter", "Edge", and not using electronic warfare to suppress Georgian air defense. And the most important thing is the belated arrival of intelligence (space and radio direction-finding reconnaissance, radio, electronic warfare), which could not promptly inform the country's leadership about the deployment and concentration of the Georgian army.
