How much casualties can the army of a small country bear? Armenia: surrender after more than 2,000 killed

From the end of September to the beginning of November 2020, a short and high-intensity war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the South Caucasus country. In fact, there are many details of this war that are worth studying and discussing, such as the military of a small country. Casualty tolerance.

Why emphasize that it is a small country? As we said before, big countries and small countries are not the same plane, and most wars in the world are big countries fighting small countries or small countries fighting each other. In any case, the ability of large countries to withstand casualties is stronger than that of small countries. Therefore, it is necessary for us to study the ability of small countries, especially small countries in a state of peace, to withstand casualties when they suddenly encounter war.

Armenia and Azerbaijan were both republics of the former Soviet Union before. Their armies were born out of the former Soviet army, and they have all seen the world. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the brand of the Soviet army existed in the armies of these countries. The armies of these countries are often more regular, and they inherit the characteristics of the Soviet army's heavy armor, and the level of mechanization in the ground forces is very high.

▲Armenian army

Before the outbreak of this war, although the two countries had frequent conflicts, they were still in a state of peace overall. When the war started, the two countries quickly transitioned from a peaceful state to a state of war, and this one-and-a-half month battle was very intense for the two small countries. In the end, Armenia was defeated. The result of the defeat was swallowed since the early 1990s. All the territory of Azerbaijan was spit out, and the extremely critical Naka core area has also become a very delicate existence.

So in this war that lasted more than a month, how many casualties could the Armenian army, as the defeated side, be unable to sustain it?

The Armenian side released a set of figures a few days ago, stating that the country’s army (including the so-called Naka army) had killed 2,317 in the month and a half of the war.

It is worth mentioning that this is a figure given by the health department, which has high credibility. The Armenian and Naka authorities announced that less than 1,400 people were killed on the battlefield. In fact, nearly 1,000 people have been killed. Naturally, there are the factors of lagging battlefield statistics, but there are also factors of wartime propaganda.

It is worth noting that the 2,317 people announced by the health department are the soldiers who found the bodies. According to the statement of Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan on November 16, hundreds of Armenian soldiers are still missing.

Although Pashnyan cited an example that was first listed as missing and then proved to be only injured, but in fact this is only an example. These missing soldiers are very likely to be unable to find their bodies after their deaths or were captured (note: many The runner-up was tortured after being captured), the chance of survival is very low.

▲Many Armenian parents hope that their missing son can return

But hope is really not great

Therefore, the current Armenian death data of 2,317 people is just a starting point. After the final identification of most of the missing persons, the actual death toll of the Armenian army may increase by at least hundreds (including those killed after being captured).

Friends who don't pay much attention to the military may think that Armenia can't hold it even after two or three thousand people have been killed.

Here we mention a common sense of military statistics: in the war, the loss of our own army is not only the death, but also the combat wounded and captured. Generally speaking, the summation of the killed, injured and captured is called attrition in battle, except for combat. In addition to downsizing, soldiers on the front line will also get sick, accident losses and some other attritions. These totals are non-combat attritions.

We use Armenia’s official statistics of more than 2,300 dead people to estimate that the country’s army still has at least twice this number of wounded, plus the captured and missing people, the actual combat loss of the country’s army may be 8,000. Between 9,000 people.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had previously obtained a set of data provided by the Russian military’s intelligence agency, that is, more than 4,000 deaths and more than 8,000 injured on both sides, including civilian figures.

Because civilian casualties in this war were not large, the vast majority of this statistic was military casualties. But this data may come from the internal statistics of the Asian and Arab armies, and there may be some omissions in reality.

If these omissions are offset by civilian casualties, then if the total casualties of both sides are 12,000, the second runner-up will lose 8,000 to 9,000, and the Afghan army will lose 3,000 to 4,000. Mercenary casualties in the Azerbaijani army are about 1,000, so the battle damage of pure Azerbaijanis is about 2,000 to 3,000, which is only about one-third of that of the runner-up.

This battle damage is generally in line with the actual situation of the two sides on the battlefield. What is particularly interesting is that before the actual armistice between the two sides, Armenia’s "results" statistics showed that the Afghan army had more than 7,500 casualties. This figure is most likely the runner-up’s own statistics at the time. Real data to own losses (in addition to some delayed statistics of casualties, plus the actual losses of the second runner-up are the 8000 to 9000 we mentioned above).

In terms of propaganda, the runner-up actually reduced his own battle damage by half, while doubling the opponent's actual battle damage, creating the illusion of successive victories for the domestic people.

Please also note that the 8,000 to 9,000 war losses of the Asian side we estimated above are due to its combat attrition. If non-combat attritions are included, the number of attritions in its combat troops must be 10,000 or even more.

How many troops does Armenia have?

Armenia’s native army has a total of 45,000 people, and the Naka army has about 20,000 people. The relationship between the two is rather special.

The proportion of local soldiers in the armed forces of the Naka region is very high. However, there are only 150,000 residents in the Naka region. Although three generations of old, middle and young people are in the battle, a large part of the army still needs to be supplemented from Armenia to gather the 20,000 troops. However, the 20,000 troops have a lot of technical equipment, and some are even more than the local army. This army is the essence of Armenia.

In other words, the so-called Naka area can be regarded as a militarized immigration zone. Let us give an improper example. The Naka army is equivalent to the border defense post of the Ming Dynasty, and the Armenian native army is equivalent to the Beijing army. . The defense of the Naka area is served by the local guard army and the first part of the Beijing army, and the main force of the Beijing army can support it after the war (generally, the actual combat power of the border army is stronger than the Beijing army, but the Beijing army is in the border army. That part of the combat power is not bad).

When the Naka War began, the nearly 20,000 troops in Naka naturally participated in the war. In addition, local and Armenian domestic mobilizations have been carried out (mainly mobilization in the Naka region, but of course not many people can be mobilized. After all, the local population is too small, which is why we see many elderly soldiers).

In addition, mobile units, long-range strike units, and air defense units were deployed from Armenia’s mainland to enter the Naka region to participate in the war.

After mobilization, the Armenian and Naqqa army is estimated to be about 80,000 people, of which about 40,000 have been put into combat in the Nakka theater, which is already a maximum. Because the proportion of pure combat troops in the modern army is not very high, and Armenia has to reserve the necessary military strength to defend against Turkey in the west. After these two parts, it is already the limit to invest 40,000 troops in the Naka area.

Of these 40,000 troops, nearly 20,000 are the previously active Naka army (including some local elites in Armenia), more than 10,000 reinforcements from the mainland, and thousands more are mobilized locally in Naka. .

As we said before, the Armenian army still chose the traditional style of play after the outbreak of the war. It did not notice that the Afghan army invested a large number of drones in the war zone (the intelligence department of the runner-up should be held accountable. The war against Syria at the beginning of the year has shown strong lethality against the unprotected regular army, and the relationship between Afghanistan and Turkey is well known), causing the first-line elite of the runner-up to lose a lot in the initial battle.

However, the runner-up was mostly elite in the troops initially invested (mainly the Naka Army). While its own casualties were high, it also inflicted greater damage on the ground forces of the Afghan Army, making the latter’s ground offensive progress little. The battle also fell into a stalemate.

The key to stalemate fighting is to put it bluntly to exhaustion, but no country provides substantial support to Armenia; while Azerbaijan has received strong support from Turkey, Israel and other countries, whether it is weapons or manpower.

In this case, Armenia can only be deadly, hoping to prevent Azerbaijan’s offensive through intervention by the great powers. However, the three ceasefire agreements failed to work, which caused great chaos in Armenia.

When the battle line finally advanced to the mountainous area, Armenia found that its experienced veterans had been exhausted, and the technical equipment and ammunition had been consumed in large quantities and could not be replenished in time.

This made it difficult to effectively organize close combat in the mountains that could weaken the opponent's advantage and give play to its own advantage. The Azerbaijani army even boldly interspersed along the valley road and pointed directly at Shusha Town, the gateway to the capital of Naka.

At this time, the Armenian army had lost more than 10,000 combat and non-combat personnel, and the elite suffered a lot of losses.

There were still a lot of Armenian troops in the theater at that time, but the newly mobilized native army was far less determined to defend the Naka than the Naka army, and the rest of the Naka army was lacking in technical equipment and ammunition after a large number of losses. The situation is already in a dangerous situation. Both the will to fight and the combat effectiveness have been greatly reduced.

On November 8, the Azerbaijani army did not exert much effort to occupy the town of Shusha, an important town supported by natural dangers, and the capital of Naka is within easy reach.

Armenia accused the army of not sticking to Shusha, but later it was said that the runner-up had left hundreds of bodies in Shusha. This shows that the runner-up is indeed a major drop in combat effectiveness, and it is impossible to fight it. Even during the battle, some troops refused to carry out orders. We all know that this is a dangerous signal.

If the Afghan army continues to attack again, not only will the capital of Naqqa be unable to keep it, the remaining tens of thousands of troops will also be very dangerous.

We didn't know this information at the time, but the highest level in Armenia understood it. This was also the key to Shusha Yidi, the Prime Minister of Armenia rushed to soften and rushed to reach a ceasefire agreement.

Later, the Prime Minister of Armenia explained that the signing of the Naka ceasefire agreement has extremely important factors. The confirmed fact is that Stepanakert, the capital of Naka, was completely powerless after the fall of the important town of Shusha. If the war is not stopped within a few hours, Stepanakert Pannakert will also be captured, followed by Askeran, Martakert, and more than 30,000 Armenian soldiers.

▲Note: In another speech, the Prime Minister of Armenia said that there may be more than 20,000 soldiers surrounded. This may be a factor of statistical caliber, such as the difference between temporary mobilization of troops or not, but there are still about 30,000 soldiers in the theater. Combatants should not have much access)

Once these 30,000 troops are eaten by the Azerbaijani army, the backbone of the country of Armenia will be disrupted-after all, its population is only 3 million.

So in the face of even more terrible results, the Prime Minister of Armenia swallowed the bitter fruit of defeating the lands (although those lands originally belonged to Azerbaijan).

No one buys Pashinyan's remarks in their country, but the author believes that at this point, the probability he said is the truth.

As we said earlier, the standing strength of the Armenian Native Army and the Naka Army is about 65,000. After mobilization, there may be 80,000 people, half of which are devoted to the Naka.

The army of about 40,000 people, most of the more than 10,000 people who were attenuated in combat and non-combat, are elite, and the loss of technical equipment is even more alarming. This makes the Armenian army in the theater lose its backbone, and at the same time, due to the loss of technical equipment and ammunition. Attrition, the remaining 30,000 troops are still in a dangerous situation where their strength is still a lot, but their combat power is precarious.

He knows whether he can continue to fight, and Armenia finally chose the current result in order to avoid a more unfavorable situation. To sum up, a force with a total mobilization of 80,000 troops and an actual participation of about 40,000 troops will no longer have the ability to continue fighting when the loss of its elite troops reaches one-fourth of the number of combatants and a large amount of technical equipment is damaged. strength.

This reminds me of the self-defense counterattack against India in 1962 (of course, India is not a small country, we are just an example of war damage). At that time, India had 600,000 troops, but due to various factors, it actually invested in the war zone. The regular army is at most 50,000. After the People’s Liberation Army defeated the Indian Army one after another, the statistical results were more than 8,700. Of course, the actual loss of the Indian Army was greater than this, because we did not have statistics on the wounded escape or the casualties during the escape. Roughly, the actual loss of the Indian Army was more than 10,000. people.

But these more than 10,000 people are basically the elite of the Indian army, and they are all combat troops. The number of combat troops in the more than 50,000 Indian army is about 30,000. After more than 10,000 of its elite combat troops have been eliminated, other troops will Can't fight anymore.

This ratio is similar to the situation in Armenia this time. When 25% to 30% of the participating troops and the most elite part of the combat troops are eliminated, then the rest of the troops will no longer have reliable and sustainable combat capabilities.

I think the fact that Armenia accepted the defeat caused by this casualty rate can give us a reference, especially the understanding of the casualty tolerance of some small countries may be deeper. Of course, some of the above data are estimates based on our current confirmation data and some common sense in the war. Although it will not be much different in general, it is still a family statement and is only for your reference.