There may be an answer emerging from the current conflict about why the Israeli Air Force was able to penetrate Syria’s Russian-made air defenses and the Russian Air Force was not able to finesse Georgia’s Russian-made air defenses.
Indications from U.S. analysts are that the simplicity – meaning far less networking – of the Georgian air defenses made it tough to knock out or blind major parts of the system all at once.
The exploitability of Russian-built and designed air defenses was demonstrated last year when the Israeli Air Force’s totally shut down Syrian air defenses prior to bombing a suspected nuclear site. But Russia apparently didn’t have or didn’t use the digital keys to unlock the Georgians' network.
A veteran U.S. combat pilot, who now is deeply involved in development of systems that help strike aircraft evade radar detection, tried to summarize the difference between the Israeli and Russian air strikes.
“The Israeli's attacked with U.S and Israeli equipment, training and expertise,” he says. “The Russians had none [or at least none was employed in Georgia].” So far, there’s been no evidence they fielded any of the necessary electronic warfare and electronic attack capabilities beyond basic defensive flares and chaff. The loss of a Tu-22M3 bomber also points out that even Russia’s front line assets were left vulnerable.
Theories abound about the apparent effectiveness of Georgia’s air defense that range from Russian fratricide to electronic slight-of-hand.
Wartime operating frequencies for the very formidable SA-11/Buk-1M and Tor-M1 can be changed making them hard for Russian electronic warfare systems to defeat, note U.S. aerospace industry specialists.
SA-11 credit: Finnish Defense Forces
Another reason why the Russians would have difficulty affecting the whole Georgian air defense system lies in its simplicity, says a senior U.S. Air Force officer with combat flying experience in two wars and long-experience in the stealth community.
“The Georgian air defense system is much less networked than that of the Syrians and [relies on] autonomous sector operations,” he says. Therefore, there’s no way for tactical EW systems to create massive blind spots.
A Washington-based analyst also pointed to the fog of war and the likelihood of fratricide of Russian aircraft by Russian SAMs.
"I think it's probably something much more simple [that also was at work],” he says. “If you look at some of the videos of Russian equipment poring into the conflict zone, you'll note a couple SA-11 surface-to-air missile systems included. Quite possibly, it could be a case of the [Russian] air defenses not realizing the aircraft were Russian systems or something silly like that. Or, it could be simply that they just didn't factor [friendly aircraft] into the mission planning like they should have."
With additional reporting by Douglas Barrie.
The simplest explanation is that the Su-25's lacked precision guided ordinance and entered into the range of Georgian shoulder fired missiles that hit them from behind and below. Their pilots never saw the incoming missile that took them down.
The Tu-22 was lost over Tblisi to an SA-11 that was not jammed because of the Georgian Su-25 strike that took out the 58th Army's commander on the 2nd day of the invasion.
The Russians could not protect their own armored columns with SA-11's if they were busy jamming Georgian SA-11s.
The Tu-22 went on a recce mission during that time and got killed by an unsupressed Georgian SA-11 as a result.
From the reports I have seen translated from Live Journal by the Russian members of www.tanknet.org, the Georgian airforce used their Su-25's the first two days of combat.
The Russian commander of the 58th Army was nailed by either a Georgian Su-25 air strike or by Georgian artillery. The Georgians and Russians are claiming either or both, depending on the source. The Russian media did confirm the 58th's commander was hit, wounded and evacuated.
I suspect that if the Russian advanced guard was hit by Georgian airpower, the Russians would have turned on everything ADA wise to protect their armored columns. This would preclude jamming SA-11's because they would be shutting down their own air defenses.
The Tu-22 was lost on the second day of the conflict in a raid on Tblisi and raids by TU-160's happened almost immediately after that. So that would fit, timeline wise.
I think that the Russian Army agreeed with your sig-int speculation. American military commentors over on the Belmont Club blog mentioned that the Russian air force and artillery systematically destroyed Georgian Army radio repeater towers between the South Ossetia border and Tblisi starting on the second day of the conflict.
Once the Georgian military lost it's radio net and faced the full power of the Russian Air Force and Red Army artillery, they routed back to the river line outside Tblisi and left between 15 and 100 deadlined military for the Russian forces to pick up.
Note, there are also reports over on www.tanknet.org of wreckage from a destroyed Su-24 Fencer in photographs posted there.
Somebody was shooting at a lot of Russian aircraft and hit a few.
Who was doing the shooting is still a good question.
"...left between 15 and 100 deadlined military _vehicles_ for the Russian forces to pick up."