Russia Might Be Running Out Of Tanks

Forbes ^ | Jan 10, 2024, 03:00pm EST | David Axe

[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.

[UMCRevMom@aol.com]

Enjoy this beautiful Sunday!

[Timber Rattler]

T-90Ms are so-called "monkey" models, stripped of all the latest technologies, usually for export to Third World client states.

Export variants of Soviet military equipment

[McGruff]

You people are delusional.

[UMCRevMom@aol.com]

Thank you for info.

I have little knowledge of military equipment. I think that is why I like to post &/or comment from experts discussin the issues.

[canuck_conservative]

Laz, you’re slipping

You used to be a fun guy, always joking about all the women you wanted

Now you’ve just turned mean and crotchety

What happened to you?

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

Depends.

[Lazamataz]

I got tired of the propagandists, most noteably, marxistmaximus.

[tballard56]

I’m starting to think this is a parody account.

[Timber Rattler]

Gonzalo Lira(RIP) said they are using their second their tanks in Ukraine and saving tier 1 in case they have to fight NATO.

Complete nonsense, uttered by a wishcasting moron.

Their Tier 1 armor got wiped out or captured in 2022.

Russia’s Only Prototype T-80UM2 Tank Was Destroyed In Ukraine

[forYourChildrenVote4Bush]

Good !!

Slow bleed 2 years and counting

[canuck_conservative]

Cartoon is wrong

If you don’t support Putin, you don’t get thrown in jail, you get thrown out a window

[alexander_busek]

Putin says the war might last 5 years. How could they last 5 years of they are almost out of tanks? Unless they aren’t.

There are several possible alternatives:

1. Putin is lying. (I know how ridiculous that sounds, given Putin's sterling record, but...)

2. Putin might simply be planning to switch to some other means of attacking and invading a peaceful, sovereign neighboring country when he runs out of tanks - e.g., frontal cavalry charges.

3. Putin gets a bullet to the back of the head in the next six months, and the entire question becomes irrelevant.

Regards,

[Timber Rattler]

Or worse, poisoned with radioactive Polonium or a nerve agent.

[alexander_busek]

According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, recent battles resulted in the elimination of 780 Russian troops, bringing the total casualties since February 24, 2022, to a staggering 362,280. These losses include 6,002 tanks, 8,574 artillery systems, and 630 air defense units.

Military assets that have thus vanished, and no longer threaten the hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops stationed in Western Europe.

I mourn the loss of Ukrainian fighting men (to say nothing of the civilian losses), but this is the cost of defending one's homeland against a barbaric invader.

Regards,

[alexander_busek]

Gonzalo Lira(RIP) said they are using their second their tanks in Ukraine and saving tier 1 in case they have to fight NATO.

At this rate, Putin's invaders will soon be reduced to using their third- and fourth-tier tanks.

Regards,

[UMCRevMom@aol.com]

ARTICLE The Russians Have Lost So Many Vehicles Around Krynky, They’ve Assigned A Tank Regiment To Fetch The Wrecks David Axe Forbes Jan 13, 2024,06:10pm EST https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/01/13/the-russians-have-lost-so-many-vehicles-around-krynky-theyve-assigned-a-tank-regiment-to-fetch-the-wrecks/?sh=5df5712d330c In mid-2023 the Kremlin organized a new field army around the 70th Mechanized Division by combining three mechanized regiments—the 24th, 26th and 28th—with an artillery brigade and the 17th Tank Regiment. A couple of months later in September, the new 18th Combined Arms Army deployed to the front line on the left bank of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast. It was just in time to meet the Ukrainian 35th Marine Brigade as it motored across the Dnipro and secured a bridgehead in Krynky on the Russian-controlled left bank. Now the 17th Regiment is responsible for retrieving the scores of vehicles the Russians have lost while trying, and failing, to dislodge the marines from Krynky. “The 17th Tank Regiment of the 70th Motorized Rifle Division has been trying for two weeks to evacuate damaged and inoperable armored vehicles from the active combat zone in the Krynky area,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies noted, adding that the regiment is focusing its efforts north of the T2206 road, which threads east to west two miles south of Krynky. That a whole tank battalion with potentially tens of T-90 tanks apparently is dedicated to the recovery task speaks to the intensity of Russian losses around Krynky. In three months of failed counterattacks through Ukrainian drone and artillery kill-zones, and across mines that the drones drop at night, the 18th CAA and other formations in Kherson have lost at least 163 tanks, fighting vehicles, howitzers, rocket-launchers and trucks. Ukrainian forces have lost just 33 vehicles, mostly on the Dnipro’s right bank.

[blitz128]

One might argue that moscova held back many of their t-90ms early in the war, perhaps they felt that they did not need them, perhaps they did not want to expose the tank as not the be all they said, nothing hinders export market then seeing your nest and brightest (t-14 is something lol) to destruction by 1000$ drones
Eventually as the T-72s, and 80s were being depleted the t-90 a and s models started to show up and were destroyed, the T-90Ms started showing up and they also were being destroyed sometimes in spectacular explosions. To be fair I have also seen T-90Ms take multiple hits before being destroyed or disabled so it is not a terrible tank, just not the end all be all as advertised.

The Bradly exchange recently with a t-90 shows that. First shot missed and. Bradly peppers it with 25mm till it is no longer operational

I am sure moscova is producing new ones, but at what rate and what value?

Their tanks have proven vulnerable, but so have all tanks to modern warfare, the difference is western tanks tend to be damaged and care survives, not so much for their tanks

To your original point, saving best for battle with NATO, if he did indeed write that it hasn’t aged well

[blitz128]

Perhaps it is you who cannot detect sarcasm lol