Question about ambushed Russian armored column in Georgia conflict.
It's my understanding the 58th army lost around 25 vehicles in this ambush. Does anyone know which Georgian forces was responsible for this ambush? Please do not turn this into some BS flaming war.
The 58th Army's advance column, led by General Anatoly Khrulyov, ran directly into a Georgian ambush as it entered South Ossetia on 9 August, due to poor intelligence. Only five of the thirty vehicles in the convoy survived, and the column took heavy casualties, including General Khrulyov himself, who was wounded in the leg.
you have wrong information
I think there were only 3 casualties from Russian side during that ambush by GE special forces, which were by the way momentarily suppressed by fire.
you probably mistaking that situation with the one where the whole column was hit by GE artillery.
That is why The Komsmolskaia Pravda should not be used for serious analysis.Originally Posted by Eagle9294
3 Vehicles? I was under the impression that it was all but 5 of the 30, as Eagle said. .
Then again I can't read Russian, so I've really only read the articles written in the U.S or U.K.
I would of course be relieved to hear that it was only three instead of such a high number.
I think photo from this article could be used as a reference: http://www.proza.ru/2010/05/02/784
White oval is the place of the fight.
Basically there are no places where Georgians could hide properly and inflict such losses, almost all houses there have one floor.
It wasn't an ambush and there were no mass casualties.
http://www.cast.ru/files/The_Tanks_of_August_sm_eng.pdfOn the edge of the city, the Russian convoy encountered the Georgian 2nd Infantry Brigade’s reconnaissance company. Both sides were taken by surprise, and both took casualties in the ensuing brief and extremely short range exchange of fire. Three Russian solders were killed, and the bodies of at least eight Georgian soldiers were later found at the scene. The commander of the 58th Army, Gen Khrulev, was injured, along with several Russian journalists who accompanied him. The Georgian reconnaissance company pulled back after taking heavy casualties, and the Russian convoy continued onwards along the city streets towards the peacekeepers’ South compound.
I was told by a Russian who was there that there was.
This is possible.
The way I understand it the convoy was made up of the 1st Motorized Battalion 2nd and 3rd company + the mortar battery + Khrulev HQ + a recon element
If I'm not mistaken that's 22 BMPs, 8 trucks, 3 BTRs and a unknown number of BRDM-2 (at least 1 no more than 4).
The chronology went (again roughly) like this:
Around 1400 they got shelled by artillery and lost 1 BMP and 3 trucks.
A bit before 1500 They stumbled upon the Georgian 2nd Infantry Brigade Reconnaissance company, brief but intense firefight with casualties on both sides, the recon company retreat quickly. No vehicles losses reported (only damaged?), the convoy pursue it's advance.
Meanwhile the Georgian main force (21st and 41st Light Infantry Battalion and the Separate Light Infantry Battalion from Adlia, supported by the elements of the 2nd Infantry Brigade Tank Battalion) was storming the city.
At 1530 the head of the convoy find the Georgian main force, the queue of the convoy manage to break away and withdraw to the countryside (roughly 1/4 of the force) while the others are pretty much right in the middle of the Georgian assault (which seems like a bad idea but doing so they cut in two the Georgian forces that were attacking the SO forces and the Russian MC base which was about to fall, so it worked).
They lost 4 BMP and 1 BRDM during the initial contact, but quickly scattered into platoon sized formations, got the vehicles out of direct sight from the streets thus saving most of their heavy equipment. Then the battle in itself ensue and it's a lot harder to follow (Spetznaz and part of the Vostock Battalion are sent to help disengaged the convoy along with the 135th Motorized Rifle Regiment Reconnaissance Company and elements of the 141st Independent Tank Battalion, while Russian CAS and more importantly the Russian artillery came into play).
On losses by nightfall the 1st Motorized Battalion battalion counted 15 dead and "dozens" (so at least 24) of injured which out the 200+ they were when they left certainly is a lot (they make for nearly 1/3 of the Russian losses by hostile action for the war), and at least 5 BMP lost, 3 trucks and a BRDM (5/22 3/8 1/? roughly a third of their vehicles, that's starting to be a lot in my book).
It's perfectly possible that with the thing they went through a lot of the remaining vehicles were damaged but still operable which might account for the only 5 left (intact) of your guy...
Last edited by Bidoul33t; 08-06-2012 at 08:46 PM.
Name, rank and unit please.
I'm certain his first name was Ivan.
if you ask of people not to turn this thread in "BS" and "flame war", plase refrain from flame baiting yourself.I'm certain his first name was Ivan.
Everybody provided information for you with sources. If you aren't going to provide yours, you might just as well keep your comments to yourself.
I provided info in my initial post.
This is recollection of Khrulev himself:
http://shurigin.livejournal.com/347736.htmlBy that time peacekeepers had a critical situation - they was fired upon by Georgian tanks from point-blank range, in the city there was a "layer cake" of Georgian units and South-Ossetian militia; three hours earlier, mechanised battlegroup of 693-rd regiment rushed into a city from north-west, but in the same time Georgians brought up their reserves. There was no point in staying on Galuan hill, and I decided to move with command group to southern outskirt of Tskhinval along with company, which is was on their way to unblocking of the peacekeepers. On the road fork company went ahead, and I stayed with militia to get more info about the situation. In reserve, I had one platoon from company which is covered the rear and artillery. Moving from a road fork to peacekeeping battalion on APCs of 135-th regiment, we are bump into a retreating Georgian unit of 30-40 men that ran straight at us on the road. We had to dismount and take the fight, but it turn out to be that a Georgian special forces was hiding in the bushes on this same place, and we actually got encircled while the reserve that is covered our rear still wasn't got here. In a course of short fight we pelted SF with grenades, and fought off running on the road Georgians by assault rifles fire. I had an APC driver's rifle with clips and grenades in a pocket as usual, and one [grenade] attached [he means, probably, the grenade attached with cord inside a pocket: russian officers tend to do this since first Chechen war in the order to avoid to be captured], and a pistol. But there is no Georgian ambush or special tracking of me or command group, this is just a coincidence. At war like at war!
- How many people was with you?
- 8 to 9 men, not more, and group of journalists, joined to us in a morning. In this fight was killed major Vetchinov, I was seriously wounded, also was wounded journalist Aleksandr Sladkov and RTR cameraman Leonid Losev
Last edited by Cyborn; 08-11-2012 at 09:46 AM.
ok let me analyse Khrulev's systematic degration of GAF:
that guy actualy writes, 8-9 militiamen + himself fought off 30-40 Georgian infaterists ( who strangly ran on open street, retreating into wrong direction .... ? makes no sense ) and a special operations group ( and it doesn't matter what kind of SF unit ) standing just a couple of feet away with the advantige of having their enemy encirceled, plus writing he wasn't aware of beeing surrounded before they engaged the infantry group ..... I am highly critical to the GAF performance in 2008 but hey sorry, this is just a fantastic tale for the national spirit. This event could have possibly never happened the way he describes it in the article, no chance. Better wait 5-10 years for accurate information. Maybe he or media won't be biased anymore.
Only one thing I know for certain is that GAF officialy describes August 9, 2008 as it's most succesful engagement with Russian forces during the entire war and special forces are renowned for their performance on that very day.
Call it whatever you want but as long as there is no actualy valid reflection of what happened, I stick to the journalists/GAF version.
Last edited by WhiteGeorge; 5 Days Ago at 11:10 AM.
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