Armor Attrition in Nagorno-Karabakh

Over the last week fighting has erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh is an area of Azerbaijan that broke away from Azerbaijan with the help of Armenia when the Soviet Union was breaking up in 1991. They went to war over it in 1991-92 and Nagorno-Karabakh declared itself the independent Republic of Artsakh on 10 December 1991.

Not sure what caused this conflict in the Caucasus to flair back up, Both of these nations have a surplus of old Soviet tanks and armored personnel carriers and fighting vehicles. The predominantly Christian Armenia tends to be supported by Russia while the predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan tends to be supported by Turkey. This is not the first time in history that Russia and Turkey had an argument over this region.

There was an article published yesterday that I found interesting:

https://news.yahoo.com/armor-attrition-nagorno-karabakh-battle-225735581.html

A few highlights:

  1. 95 people have been killed (including 11 civilians).
    1. Wikipeida is reporting higher losses. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_conflict
      1. 152 Armenia servicemen killed
      2. 30+ Azerbaijan servicemen killed
      3. 28-30 Syrian fighters killed
      4. 19 Azerbaijani and 13 Armenian civilians killed.
  2. Armenia claims it has destroyed 137 tanks (doubtful).
  3. Azerbaijan claims it has destroyed 130 tanks and ACVs (doubtful).

Also, the video in the article of two tanks in a column being shot is pretty interesting.

 

Share this:
Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.
...
Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.
...
His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) , The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019), The Battle for Kyiv (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2023), Aces at Kursk (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024), Hunting Falcon: The Story of WWI German Ace Hans-Joachim Buddecke (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024) and The Siege of Mariupol (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2024).
...
Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

Articles: 1555

One comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *