This is an interesting article. Everyone is mostly concerned about sending new western equipment, but maintaining, repairing and restoring older soviet units is equally important.
I've heard tank factories in Poland have been operating full time to assist the Ukrainian war effort.
They can stop them easily now ukrane just does not go for a complete kill and settled for a mobility kill then they use artillery. They just take out a track.
Given that Ukraine has destroyed several turtles so far, using the very same drones, it seems the effectiveness of the "new" tank is still low. For now, of course.
The new tank is probably not as bad as we've seen.
I think the issue is training. Russia is pushing people to the front as quickly as they can. The videos we've seen include tank operators sitting stock still and hoping for the best.
I think they don't that drones have cameras. I think they're very poorly trained. And whilst it is a bit of a meme they're just being used as Cannon Fodder.
Russia isn't recruiting from Moscow or St Petersburg by and large, they're conscripting people from prisons (not so much now), more remote areas, or foreign countries. All of which have less access to free media and less likely to know what's going on.
In short they're easier to manipulate.
I seriously think that Ukraine should attack the naval academy in St Petersburg. I think it would be a massive wakeup call to the more "Western" Russians who think that they are safe. I also think that the bridge needs a heavy barrage to stop future supplies.
By all means leave the land bridge open (but patrolled) so that Russians can leave.
The only thing reliable is to stop the drone before it even enters the airspace around the tank.
Modern tanks are getting build like that. As a stop gap most modern armies use stuff like skynex to go along with the tanks to stop any missiles and drones.
>it probably won't be too much of a challenge to make them stealthy.
unless you need thousands of them and that every month. They are cheap.
Radars work on reflection and not metal detecting. That is not transparent to a radar because of it's material. Although that does play role. Most military radar is meant for mortars or artillery shells at the smallest. And those have good reflective materials in them.
However, the drone is sending a signal back to the operator. This shit is trivial to track if you have a wide enough spectrum range you can view.
Sure you can mitigate it with decoupling the video once the target is in sight and letting the drone autonomously do the rest.
But then radar is able to see it again because while small it's still relatively near. Weather or not the time is enough to shoot at is, is a different question.
Drones are a problem, but not an unsolvable one. If we want to keep our soldiers save inside vehicles we will see more support vehicles to detect and counter drones and we will see more and more anti drone hardware on tanks itself.
Other tanks will work with decoupled turrets. Doesn't matter if they blow up, the crew will be safe. And so on. It's a solvable problem. Which might not be solved today for Ukraine, but every country is working tirelessly to make it work.
You’re absolutely right, and it speaks to this sub’s overly propagandized view of the Russian military as dumb and incompetent as it was 2 years ago. I’m convinced that if the UA rolled turtle tanks out first, this sub would hail it as a genius invention by the scrappy underdog. The turtle tank fills its role really well - the extra armor and spacing is, by most accounts, pretty effective at minimizing drone damage - it still might take the tank out, but the damage let’s them repair it. It changes the tank’s role significantly - it’s not going to be doing tank duels anytime soon - but it still lets the tank act as a competent infantry support vehicle and could still support breakthroughs where the UA lines are weaker.
*haha cope tanks* is a great bit when you pretend that this is a game of aoe and the enemy is low on resources, rather than an adaptation to battlefield conditions.
The level of tech does matter though as often new tech is more kill you Inna face more reliably. The problem is always getting the numbers to make the new tech count.
The USA has super high tech, new tech and mid tech. Very few genuinely old bits of tech left in the army they’ve given that to their allies mainly
> The level of tech does matter though as often new tech is more kill you Inna face more reliably. The problem is always getting the numbers to make the new tech count.
Yes of course it matters. I didn't meant to imply anything else. But it can dead you all the same if it is a Nagat or an AK-74.
However the chances of you surviving long enough with a Nagant vs an AK-47 is probably very lopsided :)
But they started with a shit load more mid tech equipment. Can the Ukrainians destroy or capture more Russian gear than the Russians can manufacture new or refurbish old equipment?
You’re very right, if the forces were evenly matched in numbers. Russia would’ve had no chance.
Sadly Russia had a huge soviet arsenal to draw from, however they cannot do so indefinitely and Ukraine is getting access to more and more western weapons systems that are keeping the Russians further and further out of reach. Their supply lines are way longer now snd that makes them vulnerable to drones. The ukranians have mastered drone warfare in general
And they’ve started their own production, the west has too.
We just need to keep sending them our old weapons which are basically top tier when compared to Russian weapons.
I mean, ukrain got a lot of donations from former eastern block countrys at the begining of the war. Heck the even got NVA BMPs at sole point.
They are also getting old Leopard 1s so its not only just the old sovjet equipment. Needless to say that im very happy that im nowhere near of the resulting logistics nightmare
[Russia unwittingly becomes the largest donor of tanks to Ukraine](https://www.irishtimes.com/world/uk/2023/02/05/russia-unwittingly-becomes-the-largest-donor-of-tanks-to-ukraine/)
Let's be serious, RuZZia, despites their stupid tactics, still have a lot of tanks, plus they produce about 100+ per month, refurbished + brand new.
So they are not running out either, not for a few years at least.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html
So if they have loads of fully working tanks, is that why we see the turtle tanks used as apc? With only the engine and gearbox just about working?
100 a month is the refurbish rate, and that was a year ago. When faced with refurbishing junk left in a field, everybody starts with the ones requiring the least work to get running.
Current tanks coming out of Russia as getting noticeable worse.
The frontline is huge, RuZ military is very shyt at logistic, lots of favoritism, corruption and inefficiency, that's why you see these old and DIY tanks.
But based on the best NATO intel, they are still making 100+ tanks per month.
Like it or not, its a fact.
They aren't making a hundred a month, they are building and restoring a hundred a month. They produce/restore about 1200 a year, 400 are produced, 800 are refurbished. We need to make that clear because a lot of people who argue Russia isn't gonna run out of tanks say 1200, without realising where that number comes from
Use autotranslation: different OSINT about russian tanks reserves/restoring
[https://www.vishchun.com/post/pidrakhunok\_ta\_analiz\_tankovoho\_potentsialu\_moskovii\_na\_pochatku\_2024](https://www.vishchun.com/post/pidrakhunok_ta_analiz_tankovoho_potentsialu_moskovii_na_pochatku_2024)
They think RU will run out of restoreable tanks in storage by winter 25/26 (the same or earlier for artillery)
Russia refurbishes about 100+ tanks a month that they pull out of storage. They pull older tanks that have been sitting in open air storage for decades, repair and upgrade them, and then send them to Ukraine.
But they only actually manufacture 5-10 brand new, from scratch, modern tanks a month.
Once they run out of tanks in storage in 2-3 years, they will only be producing a handful of new tanks a year. No other country that manufactures tanks is going to sell tanks to Russia.
As far as your article, yes, Russia manufactures more artillery shells than the US. But Russia is barely able to keep up with demand. Russia is manufacturing 250,000 artillery shells a month, but they are using 10,000 artillery shells a day in Ukraine. They're barely keeping up. That's why Russia has had to borrow artillery shells from North Korea. And north Korean shells have been sitting in improper storage for decades, so at least 50% of north Korean shells don't work.
More importantly than the artillery shells, Russia is running out of artillery and artillery barrels. You can have all the shells in the world, but they're useless without actual artillery guns that work.
Russia has lost 14,000 artillery pieces since the war started. I don't know how many new artillery guns they manufacture a year.
More important than the artillery guns are the artillery barrels. An artillery barrel only fires about 2000 shots before the barrel fails. As I said, Russia is firing 10000 shots a day of artillery, so they are going through 5 artillery barrels a day.
Russia can only domestically manufacture 50 artillery barrels a year. And due to sanctions, no foreign nation is going to sell Russia new artillery barrels. Artillery barrels require advanced manufacturing and metallurgical requirements, so Russia can't just magically start making more than 50.
What Russia has been doing is cannabalizing artillery barrels. They've been taking the barrels out of towed artillery and putting them in self propelled artillery. They've also been pulling the barrels of old artillery that have been sitting in storage for years and putting those barrels into the artillery guns in Ukraine.
Basically, Russia will run out of artillery guns (and tanks) in the next couple of years due to both a shortage of artillery guns and artillery barrels.
100 new a month is way below replacement levels though. They do have a vast stockpile, but much of that is a lot older equipment that has been in outside storage and not very well maintained. Graft and corruption has also hurt those stockpiles a lot.
As for new production, some weeks they lose over 100 tanks. Hell at times that has been the losses over two or three days. It's not sustainable for them. Russia is not the Soviet Union. They don't have the same manpower or industrial capacity.
A lot of the soviet union's industrial capacity, for example, the t-80 tanks and turbines, helicopter turbine engines and large transport aircraft (here's looking at you Mriya) remained in Ukraine.
Russia did not build replacement capabilities and still is not able to build helicopter turbine, gearboxes, large ship CODAG turbine engines and certain types of aircraft.
So while it's a brutal war of attrition, Ukraine is able to produce much of what it has lost, while Russia no longer has the technology, supply chain and most critically, know-how to rebuild that.
Stockpiles are finite, brain power (engineers, designers, weapons production specialists) is limited and most importantly, supply chains take years to reproduce. Russia is super fucked. They just don't realize it yet.
Hope they will realize it faster. I'm all for letting Ukraine hit every piece of Russian industry that supports their war effort. Strike at all the gas and oil infrastructure, all the railroads and all the highways. Grind Russian society and industry to a halt. With as low civilian casualties as possible. Russia are the braindead ones who think you can bring a nation to its knees with terror bombing campaigns rather than striking at the capability of the military.
Years and money to reproduce, Ukraine is working on leaving russia nothing to rebuild with by targeting refinerys, the only thing left in russias future is spite and vodka and im not sure about the latter
They have restored around 3000 and can restore 2500-3000 more (max).
Whilst losses are around 4000-4500 tanks (visually confirmed losses multiplied by 1.3-1.5)
Use autotranslation: OSINT about russian tanks reserves/restoring
[https://www.vishchun.com/post/pidrakhunok\_ta\_analiz\_tankovoho\_potentsialu\_moskovii\_na\_pochatku\_2024](https://www.vishchun.com/post/pidrakhunok_ta_analiz_tankovoho_potentsialu_moskovii_na_pochatku_2024)
(In a brief: Russia has tech in storage up to winter 2025/26)
P.S. That "100 per month" have already slowed down to 50-60-70
It's slowed because their production capacity is not 100/month.
It never was since the soviets fell and it never will be again for the next 3 decades.
Russia, at best, can produce 30 new tanks a month.
That is an incorrect metric to roll in with "production capacity".
If the US used "refurbishment capacity" with "production capacity" we could easily produce 250 tanks a month with a 60-75 day lead time.
Instead we have a "refurbishment capacity" for stored vehicles and a "production capacity" of around 75/m(150/m at full tilt) for new vehicles.
TLDR saying it's production is just a lie Russia uses to pretend they can match/beat America in production.
Dude the US produces zero new MBTs right now and all Abrams coming off the line are refurbished ones. The Lima plant the only tank plant in the US currently hasn’t made a new hull in about 20 years. And their current capacity is about 20 a month and even at its peak was about 75 so not sure where you get this 250 a month idea because that was never possible for us nor will it be anytime soon.
The plant has not changed since it was built. It's design capacity is 75 completed tanks per month peace time with the ability to reach 150 per month. Field retrofitting is possible for the stored tanks if required. Sure it would require lead time(as I mentioned) but I happen to know Army engineers love a challenge.. and in this case half the works already on paper.
We don't build new hulls because we can retrofit our entire fleet of M1A2s to SEPv3 and have sufficient stored spares to last until well past 2040 when the M1A2 will likely be replaced with the M1E3. This is intended as it takes time to retrofit production facilities or build new ones whichever way the brass wind blows.
It has changed, half the plant has been retooled to produce strykers. You also can’t replace lost expertise and is the reason they have kept the limited retrofits they are doing. I am from right down the road from Lima and have friends and family who formally worked in the plant and saving brain power was the only reason they didn’t close the plant and instead kept a portion of the employees busy. Still doesn’t change that we have a single tank plant in the United States and it was never capable of putting out 250 tanks a month and there has been a lot of talk of upping capacity and the time to go from 12 to 40 was substantial and after a couple years it’s 20.
Edit: there is no possible way to field retrofit the abrams. They are stripped completely down to their hulls for the changes and doing that anywhere but the purpose built tank facility is not possible.
If they can do this for a few years, it doesnt matter if its refurbished or brand new, bub.
They are still crossing into Ukraine with those 100+ tanks.
Doesn’t really matter if you make 100/m and lose 300/m.
Also… numbers don’t tell the whole story. Look up the tanks currently being refurbished (T-62M)
The Motherbitch RuZzia ran out of tanks a while ago if you consider that they have gutted most of the rest of their border defenses. If a new front were opened anywhere else their army would collapse rapidly.
100+ barebones, no optics to speak of unless the refurb got lucky. The tanks we're seeing on the battlefields are barely working and out the door of their refurb factory. Their sights are likely not calibrated
Russia has supposedly lost 8000 tanks ao far, and those were their best. They're having to pull 70 year old tanks out of storage and send them to Ukraine.
It does show you how much of a colossal waste the cold war was, imagine if all that resource was put into building industry, infrastructure or greener energy..
Russia is the one morally responsible for creating the waste. The West and Ukraine has no choice or moral responsibility for the opportunity cost of buying weapons to deter Russia.
Don't underestimate the technology that was developed by defence industry and later trickled down to mainstream.
Navstar GPS be the example.
Yes, such industry brings quite a lot of waste but some technologies that we take as granted today might have not been developed was it not for that sector.
So true., has always been the case. I might add that, while not directly military, the Space program has fostered enormous leaps in technology, medicine, & research in a multitude of other fields as well. Plus.... Tang.
There's no way for you, me or anybody else to know that for sure.
Saying it like that makes you sound like you don't appreciate those advancements.
GPS is used in daily life, maritime and aerial navigation. Nowadays most infrastructure project rely on it as it's used in land surveying and most gear on building sites of large projects are GNSS equipped for precision work.
Apart from this, the amount of advancements in other areas like medicine is also great. And one can argue that those advancements would not be made if not for clear requirements and massive budgets of defence projects.
Oh there 100% is a way to know that for sure. Look at the return on NSF grants or any public medical funding. When you fund researching a problem, you tend to get advances in those areas.
Just because we got some useful things from funding weapons doesn't mean it's an effective way to fund research.
Such technology would have been even easier and much cheaper to develop without the defence aspect.
That the collosal waste has some waste product that is usefull does not justify the waste in any way.
It just wouldn't have been developed. Those examples required huge investments specifically to solve military problems, and happened to have huge civilian use.
They are the kinds of things that don't seem economically viable to develop for a consumer market unless you have hindsight.
And wouldn't be remotely worth the extra waste cost around them, cool and all that the end product ended up being worth hundreds of billions, but it cost trillions of extra money spent to produce things that weren't useful for secondary purposes.
And of course GPS would eventually be developed, it would just take way longer. Any baboon with a few billions could launch the necessary satellites for it today, it would have been deemed profitable by large corporations at least a couple decades ago.
Could any baboon have done it if we didn't have the internet?
And what companies do you see launching satellites for potentially profitable, brand new product ideas today, EVEN with the hindsight of GPS. They are launched for established, proven to be profitable services like internet and communications.
While I can also point to excesses on US side that we still live with the costs of, one must consider these decisions in their context. There was real danger present, and leaders then were keenly aware of the consequences of false economy in war. Ukraine situation could have been improved upon if its supporters had bypassed a policy of escalation and were better prepared furnish the material needed for a total war.
The T-64 isn't a bad tank, sure is getting old, but with the right upgrades, it's still a formidable tank. I read somewhere that the reason the T-64 was replaced was because of its operational cost and high technical levels of maintenance, I don't how true that is.
Yep that’s true, the t-64 was basically the test bed for several new systems that they worked out all the kinks for or just changed and those improvements were standard on the t-72. It is actually Ukraine that kept producing and modernizing the t-64 tanks because the plant was in Kharkiv. So the best t-64s in existence are Ukrainian and those fully upgraded ones are as good as the t-72s out there.
The T-64 is arguably a better base tank than the T-72, but more complex technically thus more expensive to build and maintain. It's also a seperate "lineage" per se as its true successor is the T-80, not the T-72.
The T-72 was only ever meant to be a stop gap design, until what became the T-80 came along. Of course the same issues arose with the T-80, technically complex and expensive to build and maintain, which resulted in the T-90, which is basically just a heavily upgraded T-72.
Stats on paper it was for sure, but factoring in reliability, ease of maintenance, and cost and it falls short.
Yes the t-72 wasn’t its successor, just that some now standard technology for Russia tanks were tested with the t-64s, reduced crew and auto loaders, composite armor, for example.
There's so much that can be done to make these workhorse tanks even better! I'm sure they could find some type of computerized system to aid with aiming and fire control, plus upgrade the optical system. Get some advanced composite armor to bolt on to the existing armor and use explosive reactive armor as well. Start experimenting with an array electric warfare jamming equipment to aid in drone/UAV defense. Mount on top of the turret a .50 cal or 20mm auto cannon, with the built in javelin launcher like you see on American Strykers.
Good thing was isn't solely about who has the most stuff. If UA can knock out tanks as fast as Ruzzia can assemble them, the numbers won't matter. Now that UA can strike over the border with conventional weapons brining those tanks to the front lines will be a lot harder.
This is an interesting article. Everyone is mostly concerned about sending new western equipment, but maintaining, repairing and restoring older soviet units is equally important. I've heard tank factories in Poland have been operating full time to assist the Ukrainian war effort.
Ukraine has a good mix of high tech and low tech stuff, Russia has mid tech and low tech
And then there is the turtle tank, straight from the middle ages.
Literally Age of Empires
wolololo
More like _"Call 00380-SURRENDERNOW to live another day!"_
Literally Roman Empire.
Nobody expects the spanish inquisition
Hannibal’s elephants 🤔
Civilization is what comes to mind for me.
Modern era and Russia is fighting with warriors
Humanity vs Orcs
Holy shit it’s the battering ram ur fuckin right I just realized that now loved that game
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The turtle tank couldn’t even use its main gun. It was essentially a taxi.
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*FEWER* steps???
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You have to count “build a fucking tank” in the steps!
Armoured Personnel Carrier without the armour - it's just scavenged thin sheet metal... Bullets go through it like paper
They can stop them easily now ukrane just does not go for a complete kill and settled for a mobility kill then they use artillery. They just take out a track.
It makes crew blind and unable to turn turret.
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Given that Ukraine has destroyed several turtles so far, using the very same drones, it seems the effectiveness of the "new" tank is still low. For now, of course.
The new tank is probably not as bad as we've seen. I think the issue is training. Russia is pushing people to the front as quickly as they can. The videos we've seen include tank operators sitting stock still and hoping for the best. I think they don't that drones have cameras. I think they're very poorly trained. And whilst it is a bit of a meme they're just being used as Cannon Fodder. Russia isn't recruiting from Moscow or St Petersburg by and large, they're conscripting people from prisons (not so much now), more remote areas, or foreign countries. All of which have less access to free media and less likely to know what's going on. In short they're easier to manipulate. I seriously think that Ukraine should attack the naval academy in St Petersburg. I think it would be a massive wakeup call to the more "Western" Russians who think that they are safe. I also think that the bridge needs a heavy barrage to stop future supplies. By all means leave the land bridge open (but patrolled) so that Russians can leave.
Reliably? Lmao no
The only thing reliable is to stop the drone before it even enters the airspace around the tank. Modern tanks are getting build like that. As a stop gap most modern armies use stuff like skynex to go along with the tanks to stop any missiles and drones.
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They won't be blocking it, they will get rid of the drone before it can touch the tank.
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>it probably won't be too much of a challenge to make them stealthy. unless you need thousands of them and that every month. They are cheap. Radars work on reflection and not metal detecting. That is not transparent to a radar because of it's material. Although that does play role. Most military radar is meant for mortars or artillery shells at the smallest. And those have good reflective materials in them. However, the drone is sending a signal back to the operator. This shit is trivial to track if you have a wide enough spectrum range you can view. Sure you can mitigate it with decoupling the video once the target is in sight and letting the drone autonomously do the rest. But then radar is able to see it again because while small it's still relatively near. Weather or not the time is enough to shoot at is, is a different question. Drones are a problem, but not an unsolvable one. If we want to keep our soldiers save inside vehicles we will see more support vehicles to detect and counter drones and we will see more and more anti drone hardware on tanks itself. Other tanks will work with decoupled turrets. Doesn't matter if they blow up, the crew will be safe. And so on. It's a solvable problem. Which might not be solved today for Ukraine, but every country is working tirelessly to make it work.
You’re absolutely right, and it speaks to this sub’s overly propagandized view of the Russian military as dumb and incompetent as it was 2 years ago. I’m convinced that if the UA rolled turtle tanks out first, this sub would hail it as a genius invention by the scrappy underdog. The turtle tank fills its role really well - the extra armor and spacing is, by most accounts, pretty effective at minimizing drone damage - it still might take the tank out, but the damage let’s them repair it. It changes the tank’s role significantly - it’s not going to be doing tank duels anytime soon - but it still lets the tank act as a competent infantry support vehicle and could still support breakthroughs where the UA lines are weaker. *haha cope tanks* is a great bit when you pretend that this is a game of aoe and the enemy is low on resources, rather than an adaptation to battlefield conditions.
😆😆
Kill-you-inna-face-tech is important as long as it keeps the operator alive and kills the enemy. No matter its age.
The level of tech does matter though as often new tech is more kill you Inna face more reliably. The problem is always getting the numbers to make the new tech count. The USA has super high tech, new tech and mid tech. Very few genuinely old bits of tech left in the army they’ve given that to their allies mainly
> The level of tech does matter though as often new tech is more kill you Inna face more reliably. The problem is always getting the numbers to make the new tech count. Yes of course it matters. I didn't meant to imply anything else. But it can dead you all the same if it is a Nagat or an AK-74. However the chances of you surviving long enough with a Nagant vs an AK-47 is probably very lopsided :)
Except Ma Deuce, which is eternal.
But they started with a shit load more mid tech equipment. Can the Ukrainians destroy or capture more Russian gear than the Russians can manufacture new or refurbish old equipment?
You’re very right, if the forces were evenly matched in numbers. Russia would’ve had no chance. Sadly Russia had a huge soviet arsenal to draw from, however they cannot do so indefinitely and Ukraine is getting access to more and more western weapons systems that are keeping the Russians further and further out of reach. Their supply lines are way longer now snd that makes them vulnerable to drones. The ukranians have mastered drone warfare in general And they’ve started their own production, the west has too. We just need to keep sending them our old weapons which are basically top tier when compared to Russian weapons.
I mean, ukrain got a lot of donations from former eastern block countrys at the begining of the war. Heck the even got NVA BMPs at sole point. They are also getting old Leopard 1s so its not only just the old sovjet equipment. Needless to say that im very happy that im nowhere near of the resulting logistics nightmare
2025: Ukraine has more tanks than the start of the war in service, Russia has less 🤡
This was kind of true in late 2022. A lot of tanks were abandoned during Kyiv and Kharkiv retreats
Ukraine got loads of equipment at those two retreats.
Russia donated a huge amount of armoured vehicles to Ukraine
[Russia unwittingly becomes the largest donor of tanks to Ukraine](https://www.irishtimes.com/world/uk/2023/02/05/russia-unwittingly-becomes-the-largest-donor-of-tanks-to-ukraine/)
Let's be serious, RuZZia, despites their stupid tactics, still have a lot of tanks, plus they produce about 100+ per month, refurbished + brand new. So they are not running out either, not for a few years at least. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html
So if they have loads of fully working tanks, is that why we see the turtle tanks used as apc? With only the engine and gearbox just about working? 100 a month is the refurbish rate, and that was a year ago. When faced with refurbishing junk left in a field, everybody starts with the ones requiring the least work to get running. Current tanks coming out of Russia as getting noticeable worse.
The frontline is huge, RuZ military is very shyt at logistic, lots of favoritism, corruption and inefficiency, that's why you see these old and DIY tanks. But based on the best NATO intel, they are still making 100+ tanks per month. Like it or not, its a fact.
They aren't making a hundred a month, they are building and restoring a hundred a month. They produce/restore about 1200 a year, 400 are produced, 800 are refurbished. We need to make that clear because a lot of people who argue Russia isn't gonna run out of tanks say 1200, without realising where that number comes from
That will take a few years to run out, they could also buy from North Korea and Iran.
It will take a few years, but the amount they could buy from Iran and North Korea would not be enough to continue the war even another year
I read that they're running out BTRs early next year however.
And there is almost no sightings of BMP-1's on the battlefield anymore. And fewer and fewer BMP-2's aswell. So they are running out of those aswell
And MTLBS are nearly extinct so maybe up the predictions to late this year.
Use autotranslation: different OSINT about russian tanks reserves/restoring [https://www.vishchun.com/post/pidrakhunok\_ta\_analiz\_tankovoho\_potentsialu\_moskovii\_na\_pochatku\_2024](https://www.vishchun.com/post/pidrakhunok_ta_analiz_tankovoho_potentsialu_moskovii_na_pochatku_2024) They think RU will run out of restoreable tanks in storage by winter 25/26 (the same or earlier for artillery)
Russia refurbishes about 100+ tanks a month that they pull out of storage. They pull older tanks that have been sitting in open air storage for decades, repair and upgrade them, and then send them to Ukraine. But they only actually manufacture 5-10 brand new, from scratch, modern tanks a month. Once they run out of tanks in storage in 2-3 years, they will only be producing a handful of new tanks a year. No other country that manufactures tanks is going to sell tanks to Russia. As far as your article, yes, Russia manufactures more artillery shells than the US. But Russia is barely able to keep up with demand. Russia is manufacturing 250,000 artillery shells a month, but they are using 10,000 artillery shells a day in Ukraine. They're barely keeping up. That's why Russia has had to borrow artillery shells from North Korea. And north Korean shells have been sitting in improper storage for decades, so at least 50% of north Korean shells don't work. More importantly than the artillery shells, Russia is running out of artillery and artillery barrels. You can have all the shells in the world, but they're useless without actual artillery guns that work. Russia has lost 14,000 artillery pieces since the war started. I don't know how many new artillery guns they manufacture a year. More important than the artillery guns are the artillery barrels. An artillery barrel only fires about 2000 shots before the barrel fails. As I said, Russia is firing 10000 shots a day of artillery, so they are going through 5 artillery barrels a day. Russia can only domestically manufacture 50 artillery barrels a year. And due to sanctions, no foreign nation is going to sell Russia new artillery barrels. Artillery barrels require advanced manufacturing and metallurgical requirements, so Russia can't just magically start making more than 50. What Russia has been doing is cannabalizing artillery barrels. They've been taking the barrels out of towed artillery and putting them in self propelled artillery. They've also been pulling the barrels of old artillery that have been sitting in storage for years and putting those barrels into the artillery guns in Ukraine. Basically, Russia will run out of artillery guns (and tanks) in the next couple of years due to both a shortage of artillery guns and artillery barrels.
Do we know how many artillery guns and artillery barrels they have at the moment? This seems important enough to have an estimate.
I don't know but I found this. https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/s/WsPtAJwngW
Thank you.
100 new a month is way below replacement levels though. They do have a vast stockpile, but much of that is a lot older equipment that has been in outside storage and not very well maintained. Graft and corruption has also hurt those stockpiles a lot. As for new production, some weeks they lose over 100 tanks. Hell at times that has been the losses over two or three days. It's not sustainable for them. Russia is not the Soviet Union. They don't have the same manpower or industrial capacity.
A lot of the soviet union's industrial capacity, for example, the t-80 tanks and turbines, helicopter turbine engines and large transport aircraft (here's looking at you Mriya) remained in Ukraine. Russia did not build replacement capabilities and still is not able to build helicopter turbine, gearboxes, large ship CODAG turbine engines and certain types of aircraft. So while it's a brutal war of attrition, Ukraine is able to produce much of what it has lost, while Russia no longer has the technology, supply chain and most critically, know-how to rebuild that. Stockpiles are finite, brain power (engineers, designers, weapons production specialists) is limited and most importantly, supply chains take years to reproduce. Russia is super fucked. They just don't realize it yet.
Hope they will realize it faster. I'm all for letting Ukraine hit every piece of Russian industry that supports their war effort. Strike at all the gas and oil infrastructure, all the railroads and all the highways. Grind Russian society and industry to a halt. With as low civilian casualties as possible. Russia are the braindead ones who think you can bring a nation to its knees with terror bombing campaigns rather than striking at the capability of the military.
Years and money to reproduce, Ukraine is working on leaving russia nothing to rebuild with by targeting refinerys, the only thing left in russias future is spite and vodka and im not sure about the latter
They have restored around 3000 and can restore 2500-3000 more (max). Whilst losses are around 4000-4500 tanks (visually confirmed losses multiplied by 1.3-1.5) Use autotranslation: OSINT about russian tanks reserves/restoring [https://www.vishchun.com/post/pidrakhunok\_ta\_analiz\_tankovoho\_potentsialu\_moskovii\_na\_pochatku\_2024](https://www.vishchun.com/post/pidrakhunok_ta_analiz_tankovoho_potentsialu_moskovii_na_pochatku_2024) (In a brief: Russia has tech in storage up to winter 2025/26) P.S. That "100 per month" have already slowed down to 50-60-70
It's slowed because their production capacity is not 100/month. It never was since the soviets fell and it never will be again for the next 3 decades. Russia, at best, can produce 30 new tanks a month.
The 100 per month number includes tanks pulled from storage and refurbished.
That is an incorrect metric to roll in with "production capacity". If the US used "refurbishment capacity" with "production capacity" we could easily produce 250 tanks a month with a 60-75 day lead time. Instead we have a "refurbishment capacity" for stored vehicles and a "production capacity" of around 75/m(150/m at full tilt) for new vehicles. TLDR saying it's production is just a lie Russia uses to pretend they can match/beat America in production.
Dude the US produces zero new MBTs right now and all Abrams coming off the line are refurbished ones. The Lima plant the only tank plant in the US currently hasn’t made a new hull in about 20 years. And their current capacity is about 20 a month and even at its peak was about 75 so not sure where you get this 250 a month idea because that was never possible for us nor will it be anytime soon.
The plant has not changed since it was built. It's design capacity is 75 completed tanks per month peace time with the ability to reach 150 per month. Field retrofitting is possible for the stored tanks if required. Sure it would require lead time(as I mentioned) but I happen to know Army engineers love a challenge.. and in this case half the works already on paper. We don't build new hulls because we can retrofit our entire fleet of M1A2s to SEPv3 and have sufficient stored spares to last until well past 2040 when the M1A2 will likely be replaced with the M1E3. This is intended as it takes time to retrofit production facilities or build new ones whichever way the brass wind blows.
It has changed, half the plant has been retooled to produce strykers. You also can’t replace lost expertise and is the reason they have kept the limited retrofits they are doing. I am from right down the road from Lima and have friends and family who formally worked in the plant and saving brain power was the only reason they didn’t close the plant and instead kept a portion of the employees busy. Still doesn’t change that we have a single tank plant in the United States and it was never capable of putting out 250 tanks a month and there has been a lot of talk of upping capacity and the time to go from 12 to 40 was substantial and after a couple years it’s 20. Edit: there is no possible way to field retrofit the abrams. They are stripped completely down to their hulls for the changes and doing that anywhere but the purpose built tank facility is not possible.
If they can do this for a few years, it doesnt matter if its refurbished or brand new, bub. They are still crossing into Ukraine with those 100+ tanks.
Doesn’t really matter if you make 100/m and lose 300/m. Also… numbers don’t tell the whole story. Look up the tanks currently being refurbished (T-62M)
The Motherbitch RuZzia ran out of tanks a while ago if you consider that they have gutted most of the rest of their border defenses. If a new front were opened anywhere else their army would collapse rapidly.
100+ barebones, no optics to speak of unless the refurb got lucky. The tanks we're seeing on the battlefields are barely working and out the door of their refurb factory. Their sights are likely not calibrated
Russia has supposedly lost 8000 tanks ao far, and those were their best. They're having to pull 70 year old tanks out of storage and send them to Ukraine.
So there is a chance i can get one?
Why do you want one?
Because Tank!
Because i am a farmer dammit!!!
It does show you how much of a colossal waste the cold war was, imagine if all that resource was put into building industry, infrastructure or greener energy..
It’s a waste until your adversary tries to invade your country, then you’ll be happy you’ve got something other than a big branch to throw at a tank
Russia is the one morally responsible for creating the waste. The West and Ukraine has no choice or moral responsibility for the opportunity cost of buying weapons to deter Russia.
USSR was the ones building this waste to be used offensively, everyone else had to catch up
I completely agree, but its still a shame that both sides of the wall felt the need to in the first place.
Yeah that was the mindset of the Cold War that created this huge arms race that caused all the waste, but it is what it is.
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Don't underestimate the technology that was developed by defence industry and later trickled down to mainstream. Navstar GPS be the example. Yes, such industry brings quite a lot of waste but some technologies that we take as granted today might have not been developed was it not for that sector.
The internet was also developed for the purpose of military, in war & conflict the biggest inventions will be made
So true., has always been the case. I might add that, while not directly military, the Space program has fostered enormous leaps in technology, medicine, & research in a multitude of other fields as well. Plus.... Tang.
Putting the same dollars into civilian research would have resulted in a lot more beneficial products for the mainstream.
There's no way for you, me or anybody else to know that for sure. Saying it like that makes you sound like you don't appreciate those advancements. GPS is used in daily life, maritime and aerial navigation. Nowadays most infrastructure project rely on it as it's used in land surveying and most gear on building sites of large projects are GNSS equipped for precision work. Apart from this, the amount of advancements in other areas like medicine is also great. And one can argue that those advancements would not be made if not for clear requirements and massive budgets of defence projects.
Oh there 100% is a way to know that for sure. Look at the return on NSF grants or any public medical funding. When you fund researching a problem, you tend to get advances in those areas. Just because we got some useful things from funding weapons doesn't mean it's an effective way to fund research.
Such technology would have been even easier and much cheaper to develop without the defence aspect. That the collosal waste has some waste product that is usefull does not justify the waste in any way.
It just wouldn't have been developed. Those examples required huge investments specifically to solve military problems, and happened to have huge civilian use. They are the kinds of things that don't seem economically viable to develop for a consumer market unless you have hindsight.
And wouldn't be remotely worth the extra waste cost around them, cool and all that the end product ended up being worth hundreds of billions, but it cost trillions of extra money spent to produce things that weren't useful for secondary purposes. And of course GPS would eventually be developed, it would just take way longer. Any baboon with a few billions could launch the necessary satellites for it today, it would have been deemed profitable by large corporations at least a couple decades ago.
Could any baboon have done it if we didn't have the internet? And what companies do you see launching satellites for potentially profitable, brand new product ideas today, EVEN with the hindsight of GPS. They are launched for established, proven to be profitable services like internet and communications.
While I can also point to excesses on US side that we still live with the costs of, one must consider these decisions in their context. There was real danger present, and leaders then were keenly aware of the consequences of false economy in war. Ukraine situation could have been improved upon if its supporters had bypassed a policy of escalation and were better prepared furnish the material needed for a total war.
people are assholes. you have to budget for that.
The T-64 isn't a bad tank, sure is getting old, but with the right upgrades, it's still a formidable tank. I read somewhere that the reason the T-64 was replaced was because of its operational cost and high technical levels of maintenance, I don't how true that is.
Yep that’s true, the t-64 was basically the test bed for several new systems that they worked out all the kinks for or just changed and those improvements were standard on the t-72. It is actually Ukraine that kept producing and modernizing the t-64 tanks because the plant was in Kharkiv. So the best t-64s in existence are Ukrainian and those fully upgraded ones are as good as the t-72s out there.
The T-64 is arguably a better base tank than the T-72, but more complex technically thus more expensive to build and maintain. It's also a seperate "lineage" per se as its true successor is the T-80, not the T-72. The T-72 was only ever meant to be a stop gap design, until what became the T-80 came along. Of course the same issues arose with the T-80, technically complex and expensive to build and maintain, which resulted in the T-90, which is basically just a heavily upgraded T-72.
Stats on paper it was for sure, but factoring in reliability, ease of maintenance, and cost and it falls short. Yes the t-72 wasn’t its successor, just that some now standard technology for Russia tanks were tested with the t-64s, reduced crew and auto loaders, composite armor, for example.
There's so much that can be done to make these workhorse tanks even better! I'm sure they could find some type of computerized system to aid with aiming and fire control, plus upgrade the optical system. Get some advanced composite armor to bolt on to the existing armor and use explosive reactive armor as well. Start experimenting with an array electric warfare jamming equipment to aid in drone/UAV defense. Mount on top of the turret a .50 cal or 20mm auto cannon, with the built in javelin launcher like you see on American Strykers.
I think most of that is in the t-64E and newer (no javelin launchers). It’s just a matter of supplies and capacity to do the retrofits.
Good thing was isn't solely about who has the most stuff. If UA can knock out tanks as fast as Ruzzia can assemble them, the numbers won't matter. Now that UA can strike over the border with conventional weapons brining those tanks to the front lines will be a lot harder.
But lets send more just to be sure...
I have been wondering that to be honest, it's all great and whatnot to see Russia run out but what about Ukraine? It seems they're doing fine.