Clash forces
4. By the time the war started, the Armenian side had increased the number of armed forces of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR Armed Forces) from 18.5 thousand to 21.4 thousand people. Including 13 thousand military personnel were conscripts from Armenia and about 8,500 fighters - local natives. At the expense of the population of Karabakh, the Armenian side could call in approximately another 7-8 thousand people; the rest of the shortage would have to be replenished through mobilization from Armenia. The estimated limit for the deployment and supply of Armenian troops in the NKR was in the range of 80-100 thousand fighters. This figure could be achieved in three weeks of intensive transfer of reinforcements along the roads leading from Armenia (with technical; about an alternative to such transfer without technical - below).
5. Organizationally, the Armenian troops in the NKR were consolidated into two divisions and a separate air defense command. The first line division is the deployed 10th Mountain Rifle Division (GDM) in the front line, which included at least nine motorized rifle regiments (MRR), an artillery regiment, a tank brigade and other divisional subordination units. The second-line division, cropped, is the 18th Motorized Rifle Division (MSD), deployed as a second echelon, and at the end of the 2020 campaign had at least five mountain rifle regiments (GSP) in the south.
As a result, in fact, by the end of the war, the Armenians deployed a kind of mini-corps on the basis of each of the divisions, that is, the divisions, rather, had the character of administrative formations and operational commands. Given the fact that, taking into account the geography of the NKR, the Armenian side needed at least three such divisions: for operations in the north, in the center and in the south. It was also possible to form a fourth division in the rear, capable of acting as an operational reserve. That is, in organizational terms, the structure of the NKR Armed Forces was imperfect.
6. The Azerbaijani troops included five army corps, four of which were located on the territory of Azerbaijan proper (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th), and one, reinforced 5th corps, on the lands of Nakhichevan enclave. Of these, three corps and 15-16 motorized rifle brigades (MSBR), as well as other units, including tank and artillery brigades, Azerbaijan could throw into the attack on the NKR. That is, one corp per direction - north, central and south. This is a more perfect and appropriate organization in comparison with the Armenian one.
In fact, with the start of the war, Azerbaijan deployed six additional second-line MRBMs, transferred troops to the organizational and staffing schedules of wartime by calling in reservists and deployed reserves from the 4th reserve corps stationed in the Baku region. As a result, the Azerbaijani side launched over 20 MSBRs (peacetime brigades - about 3500 fighters, war time brigades - even more), two tank brigades, artillery, mountain and special units - up to 100 thousand people at the initial stage, which grew by the final war in an army of 150,000. Thus, Azerbaijan had a threefold advantage throughout the war.
The layout in the south
7. At the same time, the main strike was delivered in the south, where in the chain of the surrounding NKR along the perimeter of the mountains along the river Araks there was a narrow passage 10-12 kilometers wide, known as the Horadiz corridor. This passage led the bursting forces of Azerbaijanis into a wide funnel and a flat valley between the mountains, the Gayan steppe - a vast area for deployment and strike to the north, towards the main communication supplying the NKR from Armenia: the two-lane highway M-12 Goris - Lachin - Stepanakert. This is an opportunity to enter from the "back door", reach the supply lines and put the Armenian side in a difficult situation.
8. Strikes in the north and in the center had no prospect. The strike in the north is an action in a narrow, cramped and dead-end for large-scale deployment of the Tartar River gorge. In addition, the Armenians mined the Sarsang reservoir, and the forces advancing here would inevitably be trapped.
In the center were the main forces of the NKR Armed Forces and the 10th Guards Rifle Division, located by echelon. The main warehouses of the Armenian forces and a large part of the NKR population were also located here. The assault on the central position turned into a cross-fire attack, since the terrain here is a stepped climb up the valley in the shape of a horseshoe, with the enemy riding the slopes. In addition, the main road that feeds the NKR defenses, the mentioned M-12 highway, led here, to the center.
It turns out that the Azerbaijani offensive on the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic could look either as an outbreak with the help of flank attacks in the north and south, or as a major breakthrough in the south.
9. As a result, the strike was delivered in the south. In a narrow section of the Horadiz corridor, only 10-12 kilometers wide, the Armenians had only one 9th MRP against the main forces of the 2nd Azerbaijan Army Corps, that is, one regiment against three brigades of the first echelon only.
However, despite this and the technical advantage, the Azerbaijanis rather slowly gnawed through the defense of the Armenians on the so-called Ohanyan line, which encircles the NKR along the perimeter. By October 4, on the eighth day of the attack, they had advanced only seven to eight kilometers. However, soon the "Ohanian line" was broken through, and the attackers went out into the operational space.
10. Further, the Azerbaijanis deployed in the south on the basis of the 2nd corps a whole combined-arms army, including at least seven to eight MCBRs, a tank brigade on the T-90S, brought in from the 4th reserve corps, artillery and other units. Acting as a combined arms army, the 2nd corps deployed two corps groups, advancing on Hadrut-Fizuli and further on Martuni and Red Bazaar, as well as towards the Armenian border with a further turn to the north, to Lachin and Shusha, respectively. In total - up to 60–70 thousand officers and soldiers by the end of the conflict (40–50% of all forces). It was this group that “made” the entire conflict as a result of the maneuver “from the back door”.
11. Azerbaijan possessed noticeably better logistics, which consisted in a greater capacity of the routes that approached the line of contact. The Armenians had only highways, and only the M-12 provided the lion's share of the cargo traffic, and the rest of the routes through the passes had extremely low throughput.
In addition to highways on the plain, Azerbaijanis had two dead-end railway lines leading to the front. True, their throughput was also rated low. Nevertheless, Azerbaijan deployed at least ten times more troops to the front line per day compared to the Armenians. At the same time, “behind their backs,” a few tens of kilometers from the front, the Azerbaijanis had a general railway that served as a rocade.
12. Thus, Azerbaijan received the opportunity to quickly raise its troops on alarm, quickly move to the front line, not allowing the enemy to recover, concentrate its forces and undertake a general assault on positions. This was exactly what the Azerbaijanis practiced in the "experimental" campaign of April 2016. Only then the decisive assault did not follow.
13. The Armenians did not take into account or misjudge the situation in 2016, so they were not ready for the 2020 campaign. In the north, where Azerbaijan did not have railways, they concentrated three SMEs (6th, 7th and one more, with an unidentified number) against the 1st Azerbaijani army corps. And as if they did not take into account the possibility of a quick march-throw of Azerbaijanis in the south, the probability of a ramming strike "from the wheels" in the Horadiz corridor, taking into account the railway passing through the Azerbaijani territory along the Araks.
14. As a result, the Armenians lost primarily strategically and already at the initial stage of the war. Due to the better condition of the transport network, the Azerbaijanis simply outplayed them in deployment, gaining the necessary advantage in numbers and in initiative. Further measures by the Armenian side to counter the breakthrough here in the south resembled helpless attempts to extinguish a forest fire with buckets of water.
Reinforcement Movement Potential
15. Meanwhile, even taking into account the available resources, the Armenian side could outplay the Azerbaijanis and survive the war, creating a dense echeloned defense. This required literally within two or three days to transfer and put into operation several tens of thousands of people in the theater of operations. According to the standards of defense - 40-50 kilometers per division - the NKR needed only four to five divisions in the first line (40-50 thousand people). Despite the fact that three calculated divisions (30 thousand people) were already in a theater of operations by the beginning of the war. The transfer of additional 40-50 thousand people remained impeded by the weak transport links between the NKR and Armenia.
Here the option, actively used today by the same American Armed Forces, came into play: troops were transferred lightly to the storage sites of weapons and military equipment, which were already directly in the theater of operations, and received everything they needed right on the spot.
16. In the case of Karabakh, it would take about a thousand buses and covered trucks to transfer 40-50 thousand Armenian conscripts “lightly” in the NKR to their places of deployment - quite a feasible task, the solution of which would fit within two or three days of the threatened period. True, with the beginning of the war, had these reinforcements not had time to enter the troops, they would have become easy targets on the march, with a high level of losses. This deployment model required the appropriate organization, infrastructure and preparation, which the Armenian side did not have (apparently, they did not even prepare for it).
17. The Armenian side did not deploy the maximum possible forces in the NKR. After the signing of the armistice and the end of hostilities, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan noted that a group of 20-30 thousand Armenian soldiers could be surrounded to the east and southeast of Shushi. Together with the divisional grouping of the Armenian side in the north, as well as with the troops to the west of Shushi in the Lachin, Kubatly and possibly Zangelan directions, the Armenian side had a force of about 50 thousand people by the end of the war.
Meanwhile, two deployed corps in Armenia - the 1st and 2nd army corps in Goris and Khachakhbyur - came out to the aid of compatriots who fought in the NKR only partially. And this is up to 40-50 thousand soldiers. Apparently, this was the political decision of the Armenian leadership.
18. In addition, the direct entry of the 1st and 2nd army corps from Armenia after October 20, when the Azerbaijani side reached the border, was hampered by their presence in the zone of destruction of UAVs and Azerbaijani artillery. Despite the fact that the timing of the movement of 40-50 thousand Armenian military personnel - four deployed motorized rifle divisions (MSD) based on a cropped motorized rifle regiment each, two army corps of the Armenian armed forces - along the existing mountain roads through the passes left no much hope: about two weeks, taking into account the known the rate of movement along the indicated roads (three to four thousand people and several hundred units of equipment per day). During these two weeks, the Azerbaijanis could inflict serious damage on the incoming Armenian units, so they should have been introduced either in advance (before the Azerbaijanis reached the border in the south of the NKR), or along the safe routes of the M-12 (in the center) and M-11 (in the north ), or dosed, in compliance with many camouflage measures.
19. Even with the fall of Shushi and the cutting off of the main transport communication of the M-12 Goris - Lachin - Stepanakert motorway connecting the NKR with Armenia, the resources of NKR resistance were far from exhausted. With their dash across the mountains, bypassing the main roads to Shusha, the Azerbaijanis were at the stage of exhaustion and found themselves in a threatened position. The Armenians still controlled the road to the Red Bazaar and shot through the gorge of the headwaters of the Akery on the way to Lachin. In addition, if there were sufficient reserves on the territory of the NKR under the control of the Armenians, the latter could continue to wage the war in isolation, as in a vast fortified area besieged (for example, Port Arthur in 1904). Consequently, as already mentioned, the hasty winding down of the conflict became an exclusively political decision.
20. The situation was complemented by the incomprehensible position of Iran, which in forty days of conflict had transferred a hundred thousandth army to the Araks and had opposite Azerbaijan and Karabakh by the beginning of November 2020 at least four divisions, eight separate brigades, air defense units and a number of other formations (up to 120 –140 thousand fighters in two echelons). Most of these forces were concentrated on a narrow 100-kilometer section of the Iranian-NKR border - just in the rear and on the flank of the advancing strike group of the Azerbaijani 2nd corps. In the event that these forces entered into a conflict against Azerbaijani troops and given the presence of the potential of two Armenian army corps on the border of the NKR with Armenia, which could also try to cross the mountains, the situation for the Azerbaijani 2nd corps was disastrous on the southern face of the front. Strategically, 60-70 thousand Azerbaijani soldiers could be surrounded here from three sides, under concentric attacks from the north, west and south of the enemy forces, two and a half to three times superior to them.
21. However, in the end, success in the new Karabakh war was achieved not only thanks to the technical superiority and non-standard decisions of the Azerbaijani General Staff. As in the 1991 Gulf War (the example is given due to the similarity of a number of conditions), success was also acquired by numerical advantage. If the Armenians had at the end of the war in the NKR approximately up to 50 thousand fighters, then the Azerbaijanis by that time concentrated about 150 thousand troops against them - three times more. In the same way as against 300 thousand soldiers of Saddam Hussein in 1991 more than a million-strong coalition of countries led by the United States acted.
22. During the 44 days of the war, the Armenians transferred only 50 thousand people to the NKR (which were required for two or three days at the start of the campaign). Of these, 10-15 thousand were servicemen of the regular army of Armenia, the rest were volunteers and reservists. At the same time, the limiting possibilities of highways, minus the load on supply, made it possible to transfer 130-170 thousand people during this period (three to four thousand per day). Naturally, the NKR defense, which was not properly supported from Armenia, fell.
Lähde -
https://expert.ru/expert/2020/48/karabah-2020-voenno-analiticheskij-razbor/
www.verkkouutiset.fi
