Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

[davidoga]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Because the Mullah-regime is responsible for the execution of more than 30.000 Iranians, less freedom and more corruption. We have to deal with all kind of backward Islamic values. This period is the most darkest period in Iran's whole history.

The Pahlavis and SAVAK killed much more people I'm sure.

Besides, this is an Armenian forum. Most here will be in support of an Islamic Republic because it supports Armenia over Azerbaijan.

[Armanen]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Armenia doesn't need the latest and the greatest at this time. Older aircraft with the Armenian touch will do just fine (what happened to Russian discounts btw). What Armenia needs is a viable small fleet that can maintain control of her airspace and fend off any Azeri air attacks. I don't expect Armenia right away to be able to go up against the Turkish airforce, this is why we have the Russian airbase with Russian migs. There should be no reason why Armenian fighter jets can't fly along side Russian pilots over Armenia.

You want Russia just to give everything to Armenians for free or very low cost? They may consider it if they were to see Armenians become politically mature, and not flirting with the West or those morons who claim Russia is not an ally, etc. Armenian pilots receive their training from Russians, are you aware of that?

without proper air cover we will needlessly loose many of our boys on the ground sending them to the deaths. In regards to your bet that Russia would provide air cover during such an offensive I have many problems with that but I will go over two:

1- Russian pilots are not obligated to go all the way or risk their lives/aircraft in getting shotdown to save Armenian soldiers or Armenian towns if its too dangerous......now an Armenian pilot would be a different story, it would be his duty and honor to save the lives of his compatriots regardless of the danger and loosing his own life/aircraft.

2- If the offensive was successful we will never hear the end of it and the whole world will say that it was the Russians who won the war, not Armenians....and they will be right, even though Armenians did most of the work.

First, you are assuming Armenian forces would march to baku. Marching to baku would be a political act rather than a military necessity. And if Russia were to give the green light, Armenia would ask them for air cover if it thought it needed it. Are you familiar with an alliance system? Russia would help out its ally, and the pilot would follow orders, that is what he is trained to do. What you are talking about are emotions, that is another story.
Second, what does it matter what others will say, the bottom line will be that Armenia severely dominated azerbaijan, to the point that its soldiers marched all the way to baku. The taking of a capital city is the ultimate humiliation, and again, is a political act.

[davidoga]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

You want Russia just to give everything to Armenians for free or very low cost? They may consider it if they were to see Armenians become politically mature, and not flirting with the West or those morons who claim Russia is not an ally, etc. Armenian pilots receive their training from Russians, are you aware of that?



First, you are assuming Armenian forces would march to baku. Marching to baku would be a political act rather than a military necessity. And if Russia were to give the green light, Armenia would ask them for air cover if it thought it needed it. Are you familiar with an alliance system? Russia would help out its ally, and the pilot would follow orders, that is what he is trained to do. What you are talking about are emotions, that is another story.
Second, what does it matter what others will say, the bottom line will be that Armenia severely dominated azerbaijan, to the point that its soldiers marched all the way to baku. The taking of a capital city is the ultimate humiliation, and again, is a political act.

Completely agreed. Armenia would do well to get rid of its Russaphobes.

It's not just about politics. Armenian soldiers need to retake Baku with the same zeal that conquered Karabakh. Baku is, after all, an Armenian city.

[Armanen]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Guys it's been really interesting reading your analyses. (With some reservations regarding political issues being discussed here rather than military). I don't want to sound the least enthusiastic Armenian, but I think we should be more realistic about what our army is capable of doing.
At this point talking about "going all the way to Baku" is in least of the cases a childish dream, with or without a proper air force. Wars are not all about equipment. When we talk about reaching the Caspian, we're talking about 10s of thousands of kilometer squares of lands. Who the hell is going to control that? Our 50,000 active troops? You need half a million men to control such territory filled with enemy civilians!! You don't suggest we throw the 8 million Azeris living in Azerbaijan in the Caspian? Do you? (It'll pollute the Caspian and all the fish would die...poor fish)
Capturing Baku does not only need a Russian approval...It also needs an international approval, and is a mission that can only be carried out by a major power like Russia. It's both unrealistic and the terrain is impossible to maintained after capture...specially by us. (We're talking about years of occupation of an enemy territories crawling with enemy x-military personnel and inhospitable local residents)
And if we at some point capture these lands, and emtpied it of azeris...who's going to live in it? We're not even able to populate Karabakh let alone such a vast country.

Well there is a difference between conquering a country and intending to incorporate it into the victorious state, and marching to the capital to humilitate the enemy and force an unconditional surrender. Consider the Prussian march to Paris in the Franco-Prussian war. It was not done because taking Paris was a military objective, it was done to humiliate the French and to show the rest of Europe that Prussia, later German Empire, was a serious power and now the dominant land power of Europe. So if Armenia's position is the former than you are correct, however what I mentioned was referring to the latter. The next war, if Armenia wins, must end the threat from azerbaijan once and for all, which means we must have unconditional surrender, and some territories should be in consideration for taking. A land connection with Russia would be great, but I agree, Armenian officials would have to think of how to displace the azeris that live there, and that is a big no-no in the current international system, where the West will brand a country as genocidal even if it is legitimately cleansing its lands of disloyal subjects. Case in point, Serbia's dilemma in Kosovo during the mid to late 90s. And remember that ethnic cleansing does not mean killing, it means deporting a population, which can be done relatively peacefully with little to no deaths.

In the next war I think our main mission should be to preserve our gains and capture some strategic heights to improve the defense of our final borders, since I believe the next war must end the Karabakh issue once and for all, and we need to establish better borders for Karabakh.
In my opinion the next war will be a very short one, probably not more than few weeks at most, since Russia will try to come out as a victor in the region through Armenia, and the west will want Azerbaijan to quit fooling around and continue the oil supplies. To realize this; our priority should be to provide our troops with as much air cover as possible to conquer the difficult terrain. For that, some upgraded Su-25s will do a good job, so will Mi-35s. In addition to this we need to boost our anti-aircraft capabilities with mobile units as the Buk-M1 or Tor-M1, such systems could also provide good air cover to our troops that, in my opinion, after absorbing the Azeri blitzkrieg must try to counter attack not by advancing into 100s of kms of enemy territory, rather than advance for a very few kilometers maybe just to take position on hilltops and mountain tops that could in the future become natural defense positions and naturally defended borders of NKR and Armenia.

Disagree. An Armenian victory MUST ensure an unconditional surrender and forever eliminate the threat posed by the regime in baku.

[Vahram]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

I would like to start handing out an award on this forum. The first such award will be The Armenian Che Guevara award to our little revolutionary friend Davidoga.

[Vahram]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Levon with his Hahoodi wife who was going to give it all the land back? Way to go ARF! What is next join the gay parade? Wait they already did that, now what? A Revolution?

Where is Che now?...LOL

What happened? We had no Armenian flag?

[Joseph]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Guys it's been really interesting reading your analyses. (With some reservations regarding political issues being discussed here rather than military). I don't want to sound the least enthusiastic Armenian, but I think we should be more realistic about what our army is capable of doing.
At this point talking about "going all the way to Baku" is in least of the cases a childish dream, with or without a proper air force. Wars are not all about equipment. When we talk about reaching the Caspian, we're talking about 10s of thousands of kilometer squares of lands. Who the hell is going to control that? Our 50,000 active troops? You need half a million men to control such territory filled with enemy civilians!! You don't suggest we throw the 8 million Azeris living in Azerbaijan in the Caspian? Do you? (It'll pollute the Caspian and all the fish would die...poor fish)
Capturing Baku does not only need a Russian approval...It also needs an international approval, and is a mission that can only be carried out by a major power like Russia. It's both unrealistic and the terrain is impossible to maintained after capture...specially by us. (We're talking about years of occupation of an enemy territories crawling with enemy x-military personnel and inhospitable local residents)
And if we at some point capture these lands, and emtpied it of azeris...who's going to live in it? We're not even able to populate Karabakh let alone such a vast country.

In the next war I think our main mission should be to preserve our gains and capture some strategic heights to improve the defense of our final borders, since I believe the next war must end the Karabakh issue once and for all, and we need to establish better borders for Karabakh.
In my opinion the next war will be a very short one, probably not more than few weeks at most, since Russia will try to come out as a victor in the region through Armenia, and the west will want Azerbaijan to quit fooling around and continue the oil supplies. To realize this; our priority should be to provide our troops with as much air cover as possible to conquer the difficult terrain. For that, some upgraded Su-25s will do a good job, so will Mi-35s. In addition to this we need to boost our anti-aircraft capabilities with mobile units as the Buk-M1 or Tor-M1, such systems could also provide good air cover to our troops that, in my opinion, after absorbing the Azeri blitzkrieg must try to counter attack not by advancing into 100s of kms of enemy territory, rather than advance for a very few kilometers maybe just to take position on hilltops and mountain tops that could in the future become natural defense positions and naturally defended borders of NKR and Armenia.

Like arakeretzig, I agree 100% with what you've written

[Vahram]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

"In the next war I think our main mission should be to preserve our gains and capture some strategic heights to improve the defense of our final borders, since I believe the next war must end the Karabakh issue once and for all, and we need to establish better borders for Karabakh."

I thought we did that during the first war what happened? It was not enough was it, what fools we were! But then again the first lady at the time and her bou well you all know the story with that one now don't you? Or do you guys want another Yahoodi flag flying in an Armenian presidential election?

We were not even supposed to win the first war. I mean the leader was compromised to say the least and all the Armenians had were shutguns going up against formidable foes. And now we are to sit here and listen to another armchair general who says we can’t do it. Let us take a small chunck of land here and there and leave the problem unsolved. Had we gone ahead and finished it the first time we would not be here facing petro dollar army of theirs. From one General to another too shay!

[Joseph]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

A very sensible and reasonable post.
Don't expect everyone to be as rational and realistic as you are. Patriotic emotionalism can sometimes take some of our dear posters all the way to Baku and beyond.
Some of them are learning a lot by reading this forum.

Anyways, back to topic.

In case of war, our leaders/commanders will have objectives/aims/goals at various levels.
Here is a realistic hierarchy of our goals in case we are attacked:

1. Immediate goal: Hold on to what we have and push the aggressor back.
2. Short term goal: Capture key points (like certain hills, villages etc.) that will make our positions more defensible in case of a prolonged conflict or a future war.
3. Medium term goal: Pushing the borders back to where it will be almost impossible for the enemy to wage another war against us in the future, while destroying its economy and infrastructure. For example, capturing the land all the way to the Kura river.
4. Long term goal: Conquer enough territory so that we have a common border with the Russian federation. That will change the whole geopolitics for the region and guarantee the survival and prosperity of our nation for a long period of time.

Capturing Baku is not interesting. They can keep it and drown in their own excrement or convert it to a city like Dubai, it is up to them.

Agree

[Mos]

Re: Nagorno-Karabagh: Military Balance Between Armenia & Azerbaijan

Levon with his Hahoodi wife who was going to give it all the land back? Way to go ARF! What is next join the gay parade? Wait they already did that, now what? A Revolution?

Where is Che now?...LOL

What happened? We had no Armenian flag?

Levon's son is an Israeli Citizen also.