IMO the idea of such vessels for the marines is pretty dumb

Everything has it place, better to send that money for these new “Marines” carriers to the Navy..money that really need it, instead to mess the marines functions ,duties and objetives

And seriously..the 35B is overcomplicated for them, i think it will bring more headaches than advantages…better to send the 35B money to more practical systems like the sea-apache..or something similar

So apparently the Russians DID employ ballistic missiles – as I think even Bush said?

I was wondering if it was the Iskander, but the 58th army has SS-21s available (wonder if they are mod B or C?).

Is the Iskander being serially deployed now for the ground forces?

I heard its CEP is 17 meters, which is quite impressive.

A top Russian MOD official stated that no new weapons would be used/tested during this conflict. Was a press conference hosted by RIAN shown on RT.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread286791/pg1

INTERESTING FIND. Seems like the Iskander-M is indeed in service of the NORTH CAUCUSES force! So the attack could have been either the SS-21 or SS-26!

Where these missiles were targeting, and where was taken the pic above?

I have seen the SO map, so all their air strikes comes from that corridor from the north?, is a bit complicated for the air force, actually, it can be SAM surrounded, someone could upload the map?

Its not competely clear cut who started what at this stage, some say the Georgians were provoked, baited if you like by South Ossetian rebels who were firing on Georgians, who to believe at this stage its impossible to know without some sort of third party looking into the timeline of events, even then evidence as to who started what exactly is going to be very hard to come by and piece together.

Dude, on hot bordes/zones everybody is provoked….i bet there were some bullets here and ther on both sides, but that doesnt start such mobilization

Edit: Although thinking about it, the terrain in Georgia is pretty densely covered with trees, and the Georgians aren’t just parading around on the roads I don’t think. Most of the stuff, except bases of course, like artillery/SAMs/etc are probably camouflaged, so what good would a guided missile / bomb be, unless you know the exact location of the enemy?

Yeah, they did make a lot of artillery on the chechenian conflict, because they didnt have the resources to a heavy aircraft operation

Now they didnt make a lot of artillery, but heavy su-25 bombing (it seems), the resoult is clear, they were fast enough to avoid the infantery mess

I really dont think they are using very advance weapons on that campaign, that was a “surprise” for the russians, and the deployement needed to be fast, because if not..well the things would become very nasty -door to door street figthing-

They did it well, it was not the slow response on the mid 90s over the first chechenian war

I think it shows that the russian armed forces are way in better state than in the middle of the 90’s (especially i find surprising the most likely heavy operations from the su-25’s)

On the international view, well it seems it show that doesnt matter a lot if you are supported by the west (because ur oil), if the ruskies are near

“pilots want the F-35”

Hmm..pilots from Norway have flown the 35?

But, but..you dont understand! imagine these huge quantities of coffee over the electronic boards!…man that Awacs is dead just by the splited coffee..

At least u learned that…