300 gun barrels were firing simultaneously,

says Georgian chief of staff of the Artillery Brigade

The following is a translation, prepared by BBC Monitoring, of an article by Irakli Aladashvili in a privately owned Georgian weekly paper, called Kviris Palitra, on 25 August 2008.

Since the Russian aggressors have now pulled out of the central Georgian province of Kartli, we can reveal a secret. There is a reason why the Russian military barbarians set fire to our forests during the occupation of Kartli while their helicopters and armoured vehicles roamed around the area. The Russian invaders were desperately searching our forests and valleys to find Georgian artillery weapons that our artillerymen had hidden during the retreat.

Capture Georgian artillerymen and destroy their weapons! These kinds of orders were transmitted via the radio sets of the Russian invaders. Would you like to know why? The Russian aggressors who invaded Georgia suffered heavy casualties as a result of powerful and most precise artillery strikes.

Much like the 1992-1993 war in Abkhazia, Georgian artillery made an impact during the August 2008 conflict in Tskhinvali and delivered a heavy blow on the enemy. We destroyed several Russian columns on their way to Tskhinvali. The Russians are concealing the fact that they suffered heavy losses," Artillery Brigade Commander Maj-Gen Devi Chankotadze, who has gained extensive experience in the Abkhazia war, told us.

"Some 100 tanks and armoured vehicles, about 70 trucks and hundreds of dead and wounded - this is the list of losses that the Russian military columns suffered as a result of our artillery fire," Col Arsen Tsukhishvili, chief of staff of the Artillery Brigade, said. "No-one should think that we have made up these figures. We had four observation points in strategically important areas near Tskhinvali and Java districts and the people whom we deployed there adjusted artillery fire. They used advanced optical equipment and laser distance measuring devices to examine the areas hit by our shells and missiles and they supplied us with exact coordinates of the targets. They were the ones to assess the damage inflicted on the enemy and therefore these figures are most accurate," Col Tsukhishvili added. Georgian artillery opened fire on 7 August after the enemy shelled the Georgian-controlled villages near Tskhinvali and attempted to launch an offensive.

At least 300 gun barrels of Georgian artillery were firing at the enemy simultaneously! These included the 203-mm Pion systems, the 160-mm Israeli-made GRADLAR multiple rocket launchers, the 152-mm Akatsiya, Giatsint and Dana self-propelled guns, the 122-mm Grad and RM-70 multiple rocket launchers, as well as the D-30 and Msta howitzers of the infantry brigades.

Lt Giorgi Dalakishvili, a platoon commander of a battery of Pion self-propelled guns, recalls: "We held the best possible position near the TV tower in Gori. This became evident when the Russian attack planes that bombed us repeatedly failed to hit us. We fired at least 600 of 203-mm shells at the enemy. You can imagine what 110-kg shells would have done to the Russian column of armoured vehicles. When Sgt Temur Kekoshvili learned that the Ossetians and the Russians had set fire to his home village in the Didi Liakhvi Valley, he fired some 200 shells at the enemy from his Pion! All of them hit the targets since the Pion was operated by Corporal Archil Tughushi, one of our most skilful gunners".

"The GRADLAR systems proved to be very effective. They fired 300 rockets at least. I was in the operational command centre together with the Artillery Brigade commander and every single piece of information about the movement of the enemy's columns was delivered there. There were enemy columns on the Dzari secondary road, near the village of Didi Gupta and on the main road. Our spotter supplied the operational command centre with the coordinates of one of those columns and our GRADLARs were put into action. When the artillery fire stopped, the spotter informed us that only two vehicles of the Russian armoured column remained intact," Col Otar Vacheishvili of the Artillery Brigade said.

All servicemen of the artillery units are saying that they inflicted a complete defeat on the Russian artillery. They did not even feel the counter strikes carried out by the Russians. The Russian air force attacked them repeatedly but, since the positions were selected carefully (and changed frequently), not a single artillery weapon was damaged on the firing line though two soldiers were wounded (it is possible that Russian pilots feared anti-aircraft fire and dropped the bombs without aiming properly).

Unfortunately, there were casualties among artillerymen of the 4^th Infantry Brigade who fought heroically in the immediate vicinity of Tskhinvali and were hit directly by Russian attack planes.

During these battles that only lasted three days but were very difficult for our country, Georgian artillery proved that it is indeed the "god of war". If not for the enemy's complete dominance in the sky, Georgian artillerymen would have moved closer to Tskhinvali and would have hit the Roki tunnel and the road.

The Artillery Brigade has now returned to Gori. The local military base was destroyed by the Russian invaders. The brigade lost several Pion and Dana self-propelled guns. The enemy failed to hit them on the firing line but was later able to find some of the weapons hidden in the forest and destroy them.

Still, Georgian artillerymen proved once again that they can fight and can fight well. It was the first time many of them were involved in combat, so they had a chance to gain experience and improve their skills. At any rate, Georgian artillerymen can proudly say that they did not lose the battle against the enemy hordes.

From: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chechnya-sl/message/55785