Posted on 01/14/2024 3:02:47 AM PST by UMCRevMom@aol.com
Russia could run out of infantry fighting vehicles in two or three years, if a recent assessment is accurate. It might run out of tanks around the same time.
According to one count, the Russian armed forces went to war in Ukraine in February 2022 with 2,987 tanks. After 23 months of hard fighting, the Russians have lost at least 2,619 tanks that independent analysts can confirm.
That’s 1,725 destroyed, 145 damaged, 205 abandoned and 544 captured T-55s, T-62s, T-72s, T-80s and T-90s.
If the Kremlin didn’t have options for replacing war losses, the Russian military would be down to just 368 tanks: far too few to defend against Ukraine’s own armor corps, which between pre-war tanks, restored tanks and donated tanks—minus losses—might number around a thousand vehicles.
But the Kremlin does have sources of replacement tanks: the Uralvagonzavod factory in southern Russia, which manufactures new T-90Ms, plus four other facilities that repair and modernize old tanks that have been moldering in storage. Some for decades.
The big question—one that no outside analyst definitively has answered—is how many tanks Uralvagonzavod can build, and how tanks the other plants can repair.
The Kremlin claims it received 1,500 new and modernized tanks following an intensive industrial effort that roughly tripled vehicle-generation in 2023. If that’s true—a big if—it would be reasonable to assume the Russian armed forces received around 500 new and modernized tanks in 2022.
Three thousand pre-war tanks minus 2,600 wartime losses plus 2,000 replacement tanks equals 2,400 tanks. As the Russian military added new formations in the 23 months since widening the war, so each field army, division, brigade and regiment would have fewer tanks than it would have had before 2022.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I saw that but still believe that as in prior conflicts, tanks tend to get disabled, recovered, repaired and put beck into service multiple times before being destroyed and written off.
I am uncertain about all reports from this conflict on either side, but based on photographs and videos, it is indisputable that Russia has lost a significant portion of their newest equipment in what has become a war of attrition. Russian sources have also confirmed this.
There has been no combined arms maneuver warfare on either side in the last year and it has stagnated into a trench warfare style slugfest with long-range artillery and drones. Tanks and IFV’s have not been very effective in the current style of warfare.
The Ukrainians have fought hard but I do not see how they can win a war of attrition and they have lost their best. Russia lost a lot of their best at the outset too, but in typical Russian fashion they have lots of conscripts now - far more than Ukraine and numbers and “sacrifice” has always been the Russian way, but it takes a decade or more to replace your “best”.
This war has been devastating on both sides and regardless of what happens there will be no winners. We have all lost and the world is far less safe today than it was two years ago.
I will concede that bleeding Russia has been a good thing if you are a neocon and that is who is in charge of our country (much to my disdain), but morally it is repulsive to me that we helped to destroy the Ukraine and geopolitically I think this was a very bad move for the coming decades.
Russia has a very long memory (kinda how we got here in the first place) so the chances of peace between Russia and the West are probably non-existent in my lifetime and we have pushed them towards our ideological foes with a probable price in blood to be paid by our children and grandchildren.
Show me someone who doesn’t have a bias and I will show you someone who is dead, show me someone who says they have biases but but them aside and I will show you an extraordinary and rare individual
Sorry for beating a dead horse but how does saying what I said and that I look at many sources and sites including Russian and RT prove my “bias”?
Bias does not equal blind, I have a bias to support military and law enforcement, but am not blind to their shortcomings or sometimes criminal behavior like the FIB
LOL I would vote democrat if I could find one I dont despise, grounded bias I would say
I find Russian/Putin action. Immorally wrong and criminal, doesn’t mean I don’t see shortcomings in Ukrainian actions. As bongino says there are bad and worse choices, I consider russia worse
Yes, that is addressed “1,725 destroyed, 145 damaged, 205 abandoned and 544 captured”
I don’t know what happened to the damaged and abandoned but the 205 abandoned were probably not recovered by Russia, the 544 captured ones weren’t recovered and the 1725 destroyed were probably truly destroyed, which leaves 145 damaged and some of those probably beyond repair and parted out.
From World’s post 8:
>The David Axe article does not fully reflect the Ukrainian website, Militarny - Defense industry of Ukraine
But then again, he is “a journalist, author and filmmaker based in Columbia, South Carolina.”
The title of the thread does not reflect the Forbes title, which is: “Russia Might Be Running Out Of Tanks.”<
Thanks for another insightful post, World.
Mommy said this in post 5: “I always post sold. It is the disrupters, detractors and Russian propagandists repeaters that overshadow a post.” (I think she meant “solid”.)
Your post is further proof that mommy is a propagandist who alters articles to favor the corrupt Ukrainian government to create an illusion of winning, thereby bolstering Zelensky’s chances of obtaining funding from other countries.
In post 92 ransomnote tells us: “Thank you for noting the change to the title. Those posting threads on FR are not allowed to rename it whatever they wish. It’s an accuracy objective to make FR searchable for articles of interest - and not come across the same stories alternatively named. I let admin know - hopefully they have time to correct the manipulation of the article title.”
I’m curious to see if and when the title is ever corrected. It seems that not all of us have to play by the rules.
4 of the 5 look repairable
It’s hard to know who to believe about anything these days.
I hear daily reports on Israel/Hamas from radio news “brought to you by townhall” but again it’s hard to know who to believe.
I simply stated "I don't find any of the prognostications of 'winning' or 'losing' credible, for any of the many sides participating in this geopolitical struggle. I didn't argue my waiting for the end to this event is 'correct.' It is merely waiting. Tick tock."
You claim everyone has bias, but something you wrote doesn't show yours. Can't have it both ways. What you deem credible is what you deem credible.
Time will tell. Interim prognostications tell very little. Are the Zelensky and Putin regimes thuggish. You bet. One worse than the other. Good. But both are 1) not NATO members, and 2) at war for the justifications they say. Who's winning? Not something that can be answered. Who will win? That is something that will -- future tense -- be answered. What's credible in the "in between?" A couple of hundred billion worth of "investment?" Some think so. I think our nation is in ever greater debt, and THAT is the not-dead horse I continue to "beat."
I agree. FR is not the best place to get news about what is happening in the Ukraine either. It has unfortunately been quite nasty.
I am heartbroken over what happened to the Ukrainian people. I am also bitter because I do NOT think it should have happened. It is easy to blame Russia and Putin, but in order to do that you have to ignore the corruption in the Ukraine and within Western governments and NGO’s who pushed things to this point. If I had to assign “blame” having read about the conflict on both sides the best I can do is 50/50, but it is those who deserve no blame on both sides that are paying in blood and heartbreak.
A pox on all their houses and prayers for ALL of those suffering because of this senseless war. My children are LESS safe because of this conflict and they will spend the rest of their lives paying for it as well. What a waste.
Putin saw an opportunity and went for it.
We've made mistakes in the past. Hitler in the '30s.
Now the West is weak again. The West is too focused on maintaining their generous welfare state so they've neglected to make weapons.
Fortunately, the Russians are too corrupt. So they've messed up. But by the time this is over, they may still take half of Ukraine. No reason for them to stop the war now. The West is having "Ukraine Fatigue"
Biden refuses to make deals with the Republicans to support Ukraine.
Biden would rather let Ukraine fall and blame it on the Republicans.
Nobody wins FRiend.
Nobody.
The world is less safe.
Putin made a poor calculation - period. However, he never lied about it. Western leaders lied and despite assurances given they kept pushing in the Ukraine.
However, people in the West seem incapable of seeing this from the Russian view, a nation defined in part by the bloody invasions of the past. It is ridiculous to you and I, but the Russian people always fear invasion from Europe. It’s a cultural thing - much like the Irish have a chip on their shoulder because of things that happened over 100 years ago or China has an ingrained hatred of Japan for offenses suffered generations ago.
Russia did not want NATO in the Ukraine. There is nothing about the Ukraine being in NATO that made the situation safer for anyone - nothing. Why it is okay for us to have a “Monroe Doctrine” but Russia, a nation actually invaded multiple times, cannot? Why did our state department climb in bed with Soros NGO’s in the Ukraine with people like Nuland in charge of “diplomacy”. Merkel admitted that Western leadership lied to Putin.
Furthermore, Ukraine had its own internal strife and corruption problems and they were not behaving well either.
I don’t like any of the “leaders” involved in this mess, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how/why any person in Ukraine, Russia, Europe, or the US is better off (or safer) because of this.
You might be right about Biden’s intent, but sadly we are all Americans and blood stains everything. The election of Biden had a price.
Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands are now dead. And the war isn't over yet. I didn't vote for Biden. So at least I do not have that on my conscience.
That is an apt statement. Kudos. Yet the war will find itself some sort of end, be it temporary as the geopolitical changes continue. And, I agree, all will have lost something.
The only thing more dangerous that being Putin’s enemy is being Putin’s friend.
It only took 5 hours but they finally fixed it.
If that is true then Mr. Lira's large pile of cash may have come straight from Rostov-on-Don.
Only someone privy to internal Russian MOD planning could know that.
You have Russian and Ukraine mixed up.
Russia just turned off the heat in their jails to get more "volunteers" to fight in Ukraine.
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