To commemorate the second anniversary of the 3-day Special Military Operation I created an information dump about all of the Russian tanks we’ve seen in Ukraine so far. We will be discussing their history and how modern or old they really are by deciphering all of the nonsensincal letters and numbers next to tank names. In addition we will bring out statistics to figure out how likely it is for Russia to run out of certain models and variants. At the end we’ll also speculate if Russia can bring something even more cursed and ancient into this fight.
For the sake of brevity I’ll be sticking to one post per tank.
1/8
Let’s start with the T-90
The T-90 started off as a relatively modest upgrade for the T-72 (called T-72BU), but later was given its own higher number to trick Russian military and third world countries into thinking it was better. Unfortunately it entered production in early 90s, the worst time to produce anything in Russia. Due to Russia being even poorer than usual the T-90 soon became an export tank which is why India and Algeria have more T-90s than Russia.
In Ukraine the tank hadn’t performed any better than other Russian tanks, but the overall losses are smaller than other models simply because Russian had fewer T-90s to begin with. During the first months of the war the T-90s were barely present and later on they started emerging mostly in the T-90M variant. Turns out at some point the Russians realized their shiny new tank was actually a poorly disguised T-72 and decided to modernize it. Brand new turret, modern fire control, cameras, remotely controlled machine gun, hard kill system that never works etc. Even the ammo layout was changed and blowout panels were added to offer some emotional support to future cosmonauts crewing the vehicle. The quality of these upgrades is dubious at best (I suggest looking up the Ukrainian analysis of a captured T-90M), but Russia can actually continue its production which as we’ll learn shortly isn’t a given. The T-90 occupies a small, but consistent percentage of Russian tank losses even though for the last year the vast majority of destroyed T-90s were of the M variant.
One final point of note is the presence of the export variant, the T-90S. Where do they come from? Well, the only country currently waiting for its T-90S is India, which most likely means our scamming friends are on the receiving end for once.
2/8
T-80
The story of the T-80 is a story of an uphill battle. It was never a favorite of the Soviet, later Russian, military establishment. It was more complex fuel-hungry and expensive than the T-72 which made it quite unpopular among poorgay nations. Its combat debut in Chechnya was a disaster too. What’s worse a lot of the production was taking place in Ukraine and after the fall of the Soviet Union production came to a screeching halt. The only production line was fulfilling the few export requests that were actually placed at a sluggish rate until it was closed completely sometime in the early 2000s in favor of a more streamline T-72/T-90 production. That’s right, Russia hasn’t produced a single T-80 in 20 years.
The T-80 can be split into 2 types – B (1978) and U (1985). The U variant is the newer and more extensive of the two – it features new turret, a more powerful engine and more powerful gun barrel-launched ATGM. In general everyone considers the U family of variants to be better and it became the go-to model on the export market. If you wanted a T-80, you bought the U.
In Ukraine the T-80 was mostly used by the 4th Guards Tank Division. It had basically all of Russia’s T-80Us. The division was mauled around Kharkiv (a city that used to produce the T-80, funnily enough) and later routed during the Ukrainian counteroffensive. It more or less lost all of its tanks by the end of 2022 which is why the T-80U became a unicorn, Russia can’t make any more and instead relies on a steady supply of restored T-80BV and T-80BVM. The BVM is a relatively fresh project with improved electronics and upgrades to other parts, but the BV is a stock B (yes, the one from 1979) with slightly improved armor, gun and ERA which means the lion share of Russian T-80s in Ukraine are basically 45 years old. These are the same tanks that got dabbed on by Chechens in 1994 and you can use in WARNO.
3/8
T-72
Ah yes, the workhorse. You know it, you love it, you buy it if you’re poor or don’t have enough good boy points, you sell it if you’re Eastern Europe in the 90s. Russia has an enormous stock and tried to keep it relevant for years, mostly by slapping higher numbers and extra letters after 72.
As you can see by the picture, the T-72 family is a mess and makes little sense at first glance. Generally we can split T-72s into two categories – the old shitbuckets and the modernized old shitbuckets. Out of all of those tanks only the various variants of T-72B3 and T-72BA were modernized by the Russian Federation during the 2000s and 2010s. The rest are basically untouched models from early 70s (the Ural) to mid 80s (B). The B3 is an extensive upgrade package – it features a new gun, a new engine, new sensors, new electronics etc. at a big cost of more than 1.5 million dollars per unit. These brand new variants were later given to the 1st Guards Tank Army, heroes of the Kyiv Feint. More recently their elements were heavily involved in battles around Avdiivka.
Two things stand out. First, just like with their other tanks, Russia seems capable of modernizing them fast enough for them to maintain a steady loss percentage (we don’t really see the B3 drop too much). Second, the existence of various Obr. 2022 variants that sometimes actually include more than a cope cage. This shows a continuous effort to bring those tanks up to...some standard. Prior to the war the annual T-72 production didn’t progress past 200 units and even if that number went up Russia is still losing way more than they’re producing, but they’re not gonna run out at least not in the near future.
4/8
T-64
Daddy to the T-80, a replacement for the heavy IS tanks that was supposed to go toe-to-toe with Chieftains, also produced mostly in Kharkov which is why this tank has more of a presence on the Ukrainian side of things, but of course Russia inherited a huge fleet too. They weren’t producing any new ones, but did they do anything with them? No, of course not. Most were supposed to be scrapped and while we’ll soon learn that Russia enjoys lying about scrapping tanks, in this particular instance they probably mostly followed through with it.
I don’t have a fancy graphic, but basically all T-64s lost on the Russian side were T-64BVs. Just like the T-80 of the same variant it’s a B version with some ERA slapped on top. Now how old is T-64B? It was introduced in 1976 which actually makes it more modern than some of the T-72s we’ve seen. They’ve been in use from day one, probably by the tank units of the 1st Army Corps (formerly the 1st Donetsk Army Corps, yes the DPR had tank units). A few T-64A tanks were also confirmed lost, it’s unknown whether they were pulled from some Russian storage or captured from Ukraine in 2014.
In general T-64 became overshadowed by the next few entries. There’s no effort to restart production or modernize them on any industrial scale. It’s the most likely tank model in Russian service to become completely extinct.
5/8
T-62
A tank memed to hell and back when it first showed up in Ukraine, the T-62 is known for its unusual 115 mm caliber. The tank started as a pet project of a young Soviet engineer and eventually caught attention of Field Marshal Chuikov, hero of Stalingrad, who liked the fact the tank’s gun had a bigger caliber than the Anglo-Saxon 105 mm used by Centurions and Leopards. Production commenced soon after.
Once again, no fancy graphic but almost all T-62s lost in Ukraine were the M or MV models and you might be surprised to learn this, but these modernizations are from the 80s and are extensive. Those T-62s are uparmored, outfitted with modern (for 1980s Soviet Union at least) electronics and sights, stabilizer and ATGM capabilties. In this configuration they are probably more capable than older T-72 models. Some of those have been modernized even further to „Obr. 2022” standard, but that simply means outfitting them with a thermal sight from the 90s. Two of the lost T-62s were of the 1967 and 1972 variants respectively, but the differences between the two are inconsequential and both are functionally no different than the original 1960 version. You can laugh at those. Overall the T-62 represents a rather small number of Russian tank losses, save for the time of its introduction where it was sent to third-rate separatist troops holding Kherson and we all know how that went.
The T-62 offers Russia one unique advantage. Due to its unusual caliber it’s unlikely the Ukrainians would be able to put captured T-62s to extended use. This is probably why we’ve seen Ukrainians create a ghetto vehicle called BMPT-62 which combines the hull of T-62 with the turret of BMP-2 to create a fire support vehicle. However these are not mass conversions and that might be for the better.
6/8
T-54/T-55
Where the frick do we even begin with this one. It entered production back when Stalin was still alive and thoughout the years became the most produced tank in history and proved itself capable of being blown up by pretty much everything. Many third world countries still have it in active service so it makes sense Russia would do, but how did it end up in Ukraine?
The tank was obsolete even when Russia inherited it from the Soviet Union, the production ended in 1981. They were all immediately put into reserve or storage and didn’t participate in any of the Chechen Wars, but it became a valuable resource to either be sold or sent to various warzones in the old Soviet bloc, Assad’s Syria or other members of the bipolar world. The last known number of Russia’s T-55 count is 100 in reserve, 500 in storage from 2013, before Syrian intervention, before Ukraine.
Only a couple T-55s were destroyed so far, but we were lucky enough to get a good look at them. They’re both T-55A which is basically a stock T-55 with anti-radiation protection. What’s more they lack the anti-aircraft DsHK which became standard since 1970. That means these tanks were most likely produced sometime in the 1960s and were untouched since then. Multiple modernizations of the T-55 exist so it’s most likely that Russians found some forgotten T-55s, were amazed they actually work and shipped them off to Ukraine. They represent a tiny percentage of the overall losses, but it’s crazy they’re even here. We don’t know how many Russia has, but probably not many and no efforts will be made to do much with them. However, the real question is – can we go even deeper?
7/8
Potential newcomers
The question we’ve been obsessing with ever since we saw the huge Russian tank losses and the first T-62s. There’s a few vehicles that come mind, with varying levels of probability.
T-10 (Formerly Stalin)
The last of the IS line, a genetic dead end that was relatively quickly replaced by the T-64. Its last major upgrade was in late 50s so before the T-55s we made fun of were even built, they were withdrawn from frontline service in the 60s and Russia retired them completely in mid 90s which wasn’t the greatest time to be a retired tank. But if some of them survived without being scrapped they could offer be an asset. The 122 mm gun is perfectly capable of lobbing HE shells and the tank itself might even move. With some minor upgrades it could be a better indirect fire platform than an old T-55.
PT-76
Not only is this a light tank, but it’s also about as old as the T-55 so what gives? Well unlike the T-10, the humble PT-76 wasn’t immediately retired and Russian Federation (yes, Russian Federation) embarked on a modernization program of their remaining PT-76s. The resulting PT-76E has new engine and transmission (and by new I mean taken from the BMP-1), new electronics and a 57 mm autocannon instead of the 76 mm main gun. It was accepted by the naval infantry in mid 2000s and in general there were still more than a 100 vehicles in service by early 2010s. However we still haven’t seen any in service. Why?
My guess is that in Ukraine even a modernized PT-76 is just gonna perform like a worse BMP which Russia has thousands of. Russia doesn’t want to put any of the few remaining ones into action as long as it has all of those BMPs and MT-LBs to use. But if the war goes on for long enough there’s a chance that one day we see one of those with 10 vatniks on top being blown up by an exposed mine on some dirt road.
T-14
lol, lmao
T-34
I’m sure we’ll see one during the V-Day parade.
8/8
good thread
reminder the russians have been using BMP-50s on occasion too.
>Introduced 1954
>still serving as a troop soup carrier
Spongebob boat car lookin ass
Why not the T-14? It’s confirmed to have at least been in Ukraine as of last year.
Are there simply so few that they haven’t appeared in losses yet?
Iirc 1 was sent to ukraine, spend a couple months in the rear with it's engine screeching of eldritch nightmares and then was withdrawn again back to Russia.
Engine failure. If I were Russia I'd take that captured Leopard 2 of theirs' and reverse-engineer its engine to the best of their abilities, since whatever monstrosity born of trying to upgrade Kharkiv model V-2 the dozenth time has finally met its match to scaling weight limits.
That's what killed the Armata. They tried to create a new tank and base it entirely around a new engine, but they buggered the engine up, so the tank was doomed to failure before it left the production line.
Are they even trying to produce t-14s anymore?
What about T-44?
The T-44 has all of the same problems as the T-10, but amped up to 11. It was made obsolete almost instantly by the T-54/T-55 and by the 60s it started appearing in movies even as some efforts to modernize it using T-55 parts were underway. Between Russia and Belarus there are 20 surviving vehicles, all in museums or cinema depots
Uzbekistan uses at least one for their parades tho, that's cool
I'm sure there are more then that existent in revivable 'scrapped' hulls rusting in some forlorn corner of the Urals, but I'd sooner expect them to be used as more parade padding to fool parade goers too ignorant to tell the difference between the T-44 and T-34.
Speaking of old parade tanks, I'm curious if they'll be able to get the T-35 to attend this year.
No, that one is likely to be sent to Ukraine, they need tanks.
The BTS-4A recovery vehicle which has seen service on both sides in Ukraine uses a T-44 hull.
> PT-76 However we still haven’t seen any in service. Why?
Probably all on those landing ships that got sunk.
I heard they're using the PT-76 hulls for BMPs.
If they decide to bring out the T-10s, is there a chance that IS-3s will end up joining the fray?
not enough left
Neat effortposting OP, it's a nice read
>the production ended in 1981.
Well that's not that long ago
>1981 is 42 years ago
Wtf bros?
>>1981 is 42 years ago
43. Its 2024 now.
Ahhhhh
>What’s more they lack the anti-aircraft DsHK which became standard since 1970.
Lacked as in "may have had the gun/mounting removed" or lacked as in "we can be sure they never had the gun/mounting in the first place"? I assume there would be some trace of the gun having been present.
PS - based effortposting anon, keep up the good work
Do the russians still have (I)SU 152/122 in their arsenal? Could probably be a better shell lobber than t55s
Nope, but an ASU-85 has been spotted.
So they scrapped them. Sad.
No it's more Russia sent all of them to the Middle East and Africa, the Africa ones Rusted away and the Middle Eastern ones got blown up by Israel
Anniversary 4 of 3 day special military operation:
Russia asks African/Asian or middle eastern shitholes to give them back their old rusted out soviet ww2 equipment
Funny enough Romania has like 70 Su-100s in storage, really surprised Ukraine hasn't asked for them
>Su-100
Actually might be useful, it would be pretty easy to add on a crapload of NERA that would make it nearly immune to AC fire and the roof is kinda thick. Belgium and Israel make modern APFSDS for the gun.
Finland also has modern ammo.
Really it would double checking there's at least 47 left in storage according to Wikipedia it's not much but combine them with modern ammunition they at least could have something to use to deploy to counter a Russian tank Rush, or just deploy them along the Kherson front as harassment guns across the river.
Wasn't the guy who posted the numbers but yeah there is ammo.
There is also some company in CA with 150 refurbished T-55s and a bunch of 100mm HE ammo. They are offering it all plus extra barrels for $70 million so you could probably field a dollar store armored division if you took those plus all the SU-100s you could scrape up in Europe.
These guys, they also have a bunch of ZSUs and BTRs to fully equip your 1960s Soviet division:
https://www.generalequipment.info/MILITARY%20-%20SECURITY%20-%20POLICE%20&%20LAW%20ENFORCEMENT%20EQUIPMENT.htm
150 T-55s, 45 SU-100s a Few dozen BTRs and ZSUs....
That's enough firepower to wienerblock Belarus or even storm Transhitta
I'm pretty sure it's that Belgian company that had the Leopard 1s or someone like it.
'TOTAL PRICE IS 119 x 499.000 59,381.000 Euros
option 38 x D10T2S BRAND NEW :38 x 293.000 11,134.000 Euros
Grand Total with above option 70,515.000 Euros '
They come with a complimentary full ammo load.
They also have
>100 SA-8s with 1500 missiles,
>T-55 recovery and bridging vehicles
>25 x BTR-60
>Dozens of BTR-80
>25 BRBM2
>Dozens of MTBLUs
>12 ea x MAZ 543M
>50+ BMP-1 with Cummins engines
>NEW(!) ZPU-2s
So yeah, whoever this company is they have enough for an entire 1970s Soviet Armored division complete with engineering vehicles and mobile AD for about $120-150 million.
They also offer modernization including new everything including Cummins engines, FEC, spall liners, ect for all of it.
Don't even use it directly just set it up as a reserve force in being and shift it around all the time to annoy enemy planning. If your modern forces have a significant breakthrough you have them swarm the flanks and hold so the main force can continue penetrating.
Not sure Ukraine can coordinate a whole division though, everything seems to be smaller unit actions.
Combine that with the SU-100s and whatever other stuff that can be pulled out of storage and you have a pretty good force for around 200 million
Sure it's obsolete but frick Russia's down to T-62s so it's not like it's that unfair
All combined equipment wise (counting the SU-100s as tanks) it would make a large armored division with 3-4 additional mechanized Brigades.
That company also has some SP guns and apparently a nearly unlimited amount of random APCs, including 400 Pumas and 200 m113A1. They even have some of the 20mm Vulcan M113s fresh from convoy duty in South Vietnam. You could probably outfit the entire UA territorial guard just with the cars alone.
Sure most of it is junk by modern standards but having a huge swarm of it as a force in being to bulk out your forces is useful, not to mention your time travelling Soviet Armor division could be a useful follow on force for modern armored units.
>100 SA-8s with 1500 missiles
That seems like a huge amount of AD, are they good for anything beside helicopters and sneeds?
Are those the ones with the frick-off huge naval gun, or is that the SU-100Y?
Is this tank actually the one from the 1956 rebellion in Budapest? Are these type of numeral markings reused or changed usually over time? Visually looks kinda the same but you can’t make out some details
>Are these type of numeral markings reused or changed usually over time?
Yeah, they're unit numbers, company/platoon/tank, or similar.
That's not a serial number but a unit designation number and multiple tanks can have the same numbers but be in separate battalions. It's a coincidence realistically, though it would be incredibly funny if that were the case
T-54/55s are used as shitty artillery pieces with 3 man crews. They have 100mm cannons that fire ammo Iran has been selling to Russia. Until very recently some were seen being used in front line assaults.
>who liked the fact the tank’s gun had a bigger caliber than the Anglo-Saxon 105 mm used by Centurions and Leopards.
>Anglo-Saxon
What Russian telegram/quotemine did you get this from kek
The OP chart really should separate T-55s and T-62s, especially with "modern" Nork APDS ammo the M version is something of a vague threat to modern tanks while the T-55 really isn't.
T-55s are a fraction of a percent of total losses if they were separate you wouldn't be able to notice them at all
Fair enough.
Somewhat related, does anyone know if the UA is actively looking for Nork parts in the reactivated T-62s? I feel like at this point it would be really stupid for Russia not to be buying parts from them, anything they can buy instead of making they should.
For that matter has anyone noticed satellite images of suspiciously T-62 shaped cargos on trains going to the DPRK? Besides saving on Russia's own refurbishment capacity it is quite conceivable they would come back better than if Russia did the job.
Eeeeh hold on now. The T-62M's upgrades were extensive but they do not bring them above the capabilities of any T-72 variant. The BDD armor brings it at best in line with T-72 Urals. The commander's sight was, AFAIK, never changed and remains the TKN-3 sight, even if they had the M variant at that point they're just on part with T-72 Ural. The gun in inferior in every way and I have not seen any evidence for the presence of 115 mm GLATGMs in Ukraine. The only darts we've seen are 3BM6 as well, which are orders of magnitude inferior to the Mangos which are standard on 125 mm guns in the conflict. By the T-72A the T-72s had a laser rangefinder + FCS computer combo, inferior to the Volna AFAIK but that's about the only thing the T-62M beats older T-72s in. The T-62M also flat out has a worse power-to-weight ratio compared to T-72s in general, the T-62 already has a worse power-to-weight ratio and slapping the BDD armor on top doesn't help matters. It is still a tank, but replacement of T-72s of any variant but unupgraded Urals and As by this tank is detrimental to the overall combat effectiveness of the tank unit.
>In general T-64 became overshadowed by the next few entries. There’s no effort to restart production or modernize them on any industrial scale. It’s the most likely tank model in Russian service to become completely extinct.
Surely the T-80U is already extinct by now? The 4th Guards basically doesn't exist anymore.
This war will simplify a lot the naming scheme for exsoviet tanks:
>T-90/new
>T-Extinct
80 Years after WWII Ukraine still is the steel grinder
I just noticed, is there really no T-72M?
Quick glance at Wikipedia (lol) says the M is an export version, monkey model of the A. Unlikely they had any of those sitting around in storage. What didn't go to the Eastern Bloc has long since been sold, legally or not, to other nations. And it's out of date (as noted when anon talked about the T-72As), so it's unlikely any new ones were produced once the stocks were liquidated. Their export customers would want shinier new tonks.
One thing to note about the T-80U is that it was the rarest of the main soviet tank variants, wth less than 500 made in total during the 6 years of its production.
>hard kill system that never works etc
what the frick are you talking about
Presumably about its aps which never works
it doesn't have aps
>Well, the only country currently waiting for its T-90S is India, which most likely means our scamming friends are on the receiving end for once.
Sirs, do not send the T90s into Ukraine. DO NOT SEND THEM TO UKRAINE! MOTHERFRICKER WHY DID YOU SEND THEM TO UKRAINE! DO NOT REDEEM!
where is armata?
no armatas have ever been destroyed in combat, comrade
>no armatas have ever been destroyed in combat, comrade
Armatas have been damaged by running over a paved surface on a parade.
Parade duty =/= combat you dumb NAFO troony. If you can't handle T-14 at it's best, you don't want to see it at its worst.
Isekaied Prigo did a ritual to invoke her into his new world, where she was turned into a mecha girl, after a quest her introductory arc concluded with Armata becoming fully upgraded to properly fight major bosses.
Did he find a way to fix her autistic screeching? I imagine mecha musume Armata could be cute if you could fix that.
Extremely so, she now has a Nana Mizuki tier voice and sings songs of love and hope while fighting monke spawns.
new Symphogear spinoff is wild
Nobody is stupid enough to take Russia's propaganda darling anywhere near a hot combat zone
You will note the SU-57 is significantly more useful in this war despite also being a propaganda darling precisely because it can lob long-range munitions without ever endangering itself, which no tank can do by the very nature of what tanks and jet fighters are. The fact that other planes could do the same job equally well is besides the point, I guess.
Russia won't lose any T-14s in this war no matter how long it goes on for because they won't put one in a position where it will face any actual risk.
At best Ukraine might locate one in storage and hit it with a drone, which would be hilarious, but not a combat kill.
Safe and sound in our dreams.
Invincible, this chart only lists losses so it wouldn't show up, obviously.
Some extra post-scriptum facts and numbers for all of you nerds. Now that we know more about Russian tanks we can split them into two categories – those built or heavily modernized by the Russian Federation (T-90, T-80U and BVM, T-72B3 and BA) and legacy tanks mostly untouched since the days of the Soviet Union (the rest). Now let’s compare the loss statistics from the beginning of the war and today.
For the first few months of the war around 66% of the Russian losses were their modern tanks. By now that number had dwindled to around 35%. This is mostly due to T-80U going extinct and the introduction of older models like T-62 and T-55. The T-90 actually became slightly more common with time and the T-72 suffered a moderate decrease from 50-70% of all lost T-72s being modern at the start of the war to a steady 40-50% now. Save for an occasional deviation Russia has been able to maintain this ratio for the past year.
Good read, thank you for effortpost, OP.
Good read and thanks for your time OP
Great summary, OP. Thanks.
>blowout panels were added to offer some emotional support to future cosmonauts crewing the vehicle
Pfft.
You mention the brand new turret, but what of the barrels? Am I misremembering or weren't those actually spare T-72 tubes manufactured in the 90s according to the ukrainian analysis? Incompatible with modern lengthened ammo, even.
While we're here, can you do losses against speculated new-production?
Read the post-scriptum for starters.
Fraction of "new production" (aka modernized during Russian Federation's existence) went from 2/3rds to about 1/3rd in a year.
I'm referring to 2022-present. There are fairly good estimates of production since then.
Aside - What the frick is going on with the "good post" spam in here? Can you morons at least pretend to belong?
Well why don't you do it then.
I should have checked whether OP actually made these charts. I was lazy enough to hope idly that all of this was from him. https://twitter.com/verekerrichard1/status/1751615378998882706
I have all of those depot numbers. On this board we rebuff those who speak with airs of authority on subject matter about which they know nothing. I advise you not to speak further. Welcome to /k/
Board quality has dropped so low since the start of the war people feel the need to say these things now. Shit like this used to be normal.
There's a steady stream of autistic posts on russia/ukraine here.
? The Ukraine War made /k/ relevant.
Not really, effort posting has always been rare, that's why OPpenheimer stood out so much -- he was doing something other than the usual baiting with "such and such American/British/Russian/Chinese weapon is an embarrassing failure". This board has always been shit, but there's nowhere else to discuss stuff like this, so we just have to live with it.
>imagine whining about people thanking the OP for making a quality thread
It's more like: imagine allowing yourself to be flattered by those whose only interest in your work is its convenient alignment with their own rhetorical aims. People who like you when you are seen to be "giving them ammunition" for slapfights do not actually like you or value your effort. Treat them as parasites.
It's more like: imagine me bangin ur mum ooh ooh uh uh uh (that's the sounds she's makin)
Nah, I'll treat you as a parasite instead.
You have no agency that I need to worry about. Sit and stew in your tourist threads. I'll be posting about undocumented munitions in ukraine all week, with zero regard for whether people like it.
Dude. A bit less projecting perhaps? Your terminal contrarianism and vapid edginess are showing through, tourist.
>While we're here, can you do losses against speculated new-production?
There is no "new-production". Production of tank hulls ended with soviet union. Russia never produced one. Mainly because there was no need with depots full of old tanks. To make a T-90 you can just take an old T-72 hull from your boneyard.
This also means once depots run empty Russia can no longer replace lost tanks.
Explain in your own words what uralvagonzavod is
A company that used to produce tanks and now refits old tank hulls into "new" tanks.
Factory. The largest tank factory in the world and the only one in russia.
It manufactures new tanks. We know that for a fact from export tanks, even if we were to disregard every single russian claim about their domestic production as a lie.
Cool. How can the Ukies glass it?
I'm no expert but I don't see any reason why they couldn't potentially drone it. But it's likely easier to target civilian industry than military vehicle assembly plants.
Take out a tank factory and they can't make tanks.
Take out steel mills and they can't make anything.
Funny enough, the steel mill they needed to build these hulls from scratch was completely destroyed because it was Azovstal in Mariulpol.
>It manufactures new tanks.
"manufactured" from old soviet tanks and once depots run dry it's over
also it's really a manufacture in the original sense, not a modern factory.
it is artisanal not industrial
>Factory
Both, actually.
>It manufactures new tanks
LMAO, not since this war started. Sanctions are a b***h. And even before that they tended to "cheat" by deep-rebuilding older hulls.
Building new hulls isn't the problem. Russia's domestic steel industry continues to be a thing (for now, ukies have started fixing that issue) and the existing tooling at uralvagonzavod hasn't been swallowed by Boris Johnsons.
Outfitting them with modern amenities is the problem. Engine parts too. But this also applies to modernizing the soviet-era scrap from deep storage. Old or new, the tanks that come out don't have a uniform trim level. They're fitted with whatever.
This war has put the factory to overdrive and actually getting shit done instead of embezzling everything except export orders. It's probably operating close to intended capacity for the first time since the soviet union fell.
A stage play.
Looks frozen in time. It's not just that tank that's the same.
Do you mean to tell me you can’t see the many obvious differences between the two?
The rusted treads?
The Panzer Potemkin village.
Where are those depots and what would the implications be if someone was careless with a high explosive guided cigarette?
(a) Scattered across Russia, mostly west of the Urals; and (b) probably not that much, given that despite the Russians being a bit moronic sometimes, even they will have taken out the ammo, and emptied the fuel tanks and oil lines to stop them getting gummed up -- so it's basically a field of inert steel, which would be difficult to damage short of carpet bombing it.
The places east of the Urals were mostly used for older tanks, i recall reading that is where most of the T-62s ended up.
>The only darts we've seen are 3BM6
Really surprised they aren't buying new Nork darts, we know it exists and it is better that that garbage. They should use ATGMs like the BTR-T/BTR-62/Songun in any case, if they can't make them then just buy them from the Norks or Algeria. I'm sure Iran makes a version as well.
Regular 100mm, several European nations make modern ammo for it as mentioned here:
The Armata's hulls had to come from "somewhere", even if the factory they came from is now exclusively devoted to resuscitating decrepit T-72s.
>The Armata's hulls had to come from "somewhere"
this is for sure a total win for Russia, during all of it's existence, in more then three decades this manufacturing powerhouse was able to build a dozen prototypes and parade/propaganda vehicles, impressive. this will for sure help in a war where Ukraine can destroy more russian tanks in a singe day.
also not a single Armata seems to be functional
Given the scale of Russian corruption and incompetence it is reasonable to ask with a straight face whether the Armata, as shown to the rest of the world, is not simply a visual kit put atop some other vehicle.
I tried to dig a bit more into this and checked ISW's Military Balances for 2020, 2021 and 2022
Both the T-80BVM and the T-90M are very new, the former entered production in 2017 and the latter in 2020. Between 2017 and 2020 Russia produced/converted 120 T-80BVMs after which there was a contract for another 50 which seemed to be completed by 2022. This roughly means that pre-war production of T-80BVM stood at roughly 25-40 units per year. In 2 years Russia lost more than 120 visually confirmed T-80BVM. In order to offset these losses they would have to up the production by at least 200-250% per cent which might be within reach.
As for the T-90M, Russia had only 10 in 2021, but 67 in 2022 (yes, Ukraine has wiped out the entire pre-war stock of Russia's most advanced tank). That would mean an annual production rate of close to 60 tanks per year. What's worth discussing however is the fact that the original T-90M contract did not mention conversions, but rather new tanks. But when we look at the losses most the T-90A is almost nowhere to be seen despite there being 5 of them for every T-90M. My guess would be that in reality T-90M's production is only this high due to T-90A being converted despite Russian claims.
>ISW's
you mean IISS
MB is good for the older figures, but they have been annoyingly unresponsive to the conflict, republishing identical numbers that cannot be understood as correct in any useful sense (just leave shit as No Data, ffs).
>As for the T-90M, Russia had only 10 in 2021, but 67 in 2022 (yes, Ukraine has wiped out the entire pre-war stock of Russia's most advanced tank). That would mean an annual production rate of close to 60 tanks per year. What's worth discussing however is the fact that the original T-90M contract did not mention conversions, but rather new tanks. But when we look at the losses most the T-90A is almost nowhere to be seen despite there being 5 of them for every T-90M. My guess would be that in reality T-90M's production is only this high due to T-90A being converted despite Russian claims.
That jibes with estimates of circa 125 T90M built (totals for all years of serial production) as of midsummer last year, I guess.
GUR's latest public estimates are pretty weird and I haven't given them enough thought to know whether they could be realistic. They are
Feb '22 – Feb '24:
770 × total build/rebuild, of which
● 450 × T62 and T62MV modernized, including MT12
● 320 × T90M
They also give the current rate of T90M deliveries as 15 per month.
interdasting stuff, thankyou anon
has anyone seen a simple # of tanks lost per month graph anywhere? could be interesting to see the ebb and flow
Bless your mudda OP, finally a good thread.
Thx good Post read them all
good thread op. also is there an archive for effort posts?
Good thread. It reads like a Battletech wiki entry about mech variants going extinct in the succession wars.
I was thinking the same, it's funny how this whole war sounds a lot more like Battletech than 40k (for now) when you actually want a more serious read.
It's basically like Russia is a Succesor State (Capellans?) fighting against a separatist Periphery state supported by hands me down Clan technology.
*Verification not required.
one of those efforposts so good you dont know what to say. any chance we could get a similar lesson in ukranian tanks?
Care to do one for the various BayEmPay types?
>there are as many or more T62s and T55s in service as T90s
uhh
lol
Also, just a heads-up: to date, T90S appear to be pulled from factory seconds which might not be included in the original India/client totals. See
.
Thank you for the thread. Reminds me a bit of how the board used to be ten years ago
Posen has fallen, give up:) or else there'll be consequences>:(
for something as awful as the t-72 is it really is absurd how it has such a long tail of new letter versions and derivatives like t-90
at least with the t-55 it seems to have been a relatively competent tank when it was fresh
T-90 is.. understandable. It was the best post-apocalyptic soviet russia could scrape together in the 90s.
And the absolute state of the Armata program proves they are still unable to upgrade to a new hull.
For me the bigger question is why did T-80 go so wrong? Soviet Union was not yet falling apart from the seams when it was designed.
The Soviet Union was in slow decline and had multiple tank types in service. Turns economic and technological stagnation and producing thousands of vehicles that become obsolete >20 years puts a damper on things.
from what little I know the turbine engine was a huge gamble in those days and very experimental tech. High maintenance, high spare part cost. if they could not get dedicated jet engine turbines to last more then 300-500 hours, like the then new mig-29, then the standard was even more awful for the t-80. Metallurgy and material science was never their strongest suite, just like electronics. For the steppe hordes love to hit with quantity and are allergic to quality (which requires precision like exact quality control)
>inb4 vatnik union metallurgy was not bad
reminds me of the story how the F1 teams post collapse tried to take advantage of the chaos. Ordered titanium frames for their cars. Things ended up developing cracks along the hull in no time. this was from a so called unique nation with near monopoly on titanium and its related experience techniques like titanium welding. Even attempted to make submarines out of the exotic stuff
The US was able to purchase titanium from the Soviet Union using shadow companies and third party purchasers located in other countries to build A-12 and SR-71 jets. The US, with limited access to titanium, was able to build the worlds fastest production jets.
I wonder if they teach any of this in Russian schools?
yeah the sr-71 story is pretty famous. The lopsided disadvantage in electronics particular was even more apparent with the late cold war avionics. Where the western vs easter birds match up ended up so badly one sided I think the F-15 has never even been defeated. All from leaps and bounds in radar and missile electronics +combined datalinks. Even looking at pure mechanically the western birds mog them as while mig-29 had in its hey day about 300-400 hours before engine overhauls a F-16 alone could go for thousands of hours before the mechanics have to overhaul the engine
>Metallurgy and material science was never their strongest suite
That's a bit strange considering that they did build entire submarine hulls out of titanium and had reasonably good steels for the rest of their boats. I recall Polmar saying their submarine metallurgy was fairly good, but I could be wrong. Will check his Cold War sub book to see if there was something about it there. They had issues with tolerances in manufacturing that made their boats loud, especially early on, and their electronics were always inferior.
They used titanium because they couldn't figure out how to make good enough steel hulls for the depths they wanted to reach. And when they wanted specialized deep sea submersibles, they didn't even bother trying, they went to the finns and had the fricking things built by actual professionals.
I'm using Polmar's numbers here, but the Soviets reached similar test depth with the steel-hulled Victors compared to the US Sturgeons, both had test depths of 400m. Their titanium hulls actually didn't operate much deeper, if at all. Titanium allowed them to build their hulls lighter, making the subs faster and more agile, not necessarily deeper-diving.
Found it. "In some respects superior", but it's vague enough that it doesn't really say much. P. 328 from Polmar & Moore's Cold War Submarines.
Yeah, and I see a lot of real estate devoted to talking about difficulties with quality control through the whole manufacturing process, starting with the very ore the metals come from.
Exactly. What they were capable of and what their factories were pushing out on average were pretty far apart from each other. I suppose the point I'm trying to make here that yes, they did have metallurgical knowledge and capability, but the actual quality fell off whenever it stopped being a priority for the state.
Okay. Glad we're on the same page. I'm with you all the way, and it's part of why I hesitate to join the crowd who insist we'd body the Chinese if the war over Taiwan kicked off tomorrow because muh Liveleak videos.
In truth this is something which haunts me, as a species if we truly were to put our minds into something we would have been sending by now automated colony ships to create new paradise worlds and we would have ended mortality and despair, alas, we remain extremely flawed, look at all the pics shared on this site, human capital, the greatest resource in the entirety of existence, downtrodden, deformed, mutilated and annihilated.
On the Brightside, we're going to give the peaceniks of Betelgeuse IV a damn good thrashing when we eventually get there in a few centuries time.
The Soviets seemed to me to always struggle with advanced tanks. The main impetus behind the T-72 were the lengthy teething problems with the T-64. Perhaps, given more time, the T-80 could have been made into a better tank. But the Soviets were on their last legs and the gangsters that succeeded them had none of the ideological motivation to ensure their posturing wasn't empty.
As a communist nation they gave strong emphasis towards heavy industry, the problem is the next step, electronics and digital industry require not juat cooperative effort but that sort of autism only free and extremely well educated societies can provide, you know, being "a parasite interested in bourgeoisie fake sciences", there was also a docus in production rather than quality was a massive economic trap, this is well documented, what is more I got a reality check when we were discussing about this some months ago and grandma suddenly commented that that was indeed the case because she reminded a cousin living in a soviet republic, in order to get decent boots she had to go to the black market, so if they were failing to do decent boots it's easy to imagine how hard electronics would be for soviets.
control theory and cybernetics had mean things to say about the communist command model so they were not treated nicely until it was too late
Dear diary,
Today OP was not a gay
A lot of T-72s left from storage
Some T-80s left
Less than half of T-62s and T-55s
Not many T-90s in the first place
Something like 3000+ left from storage
Nice thread. I'd like to also share this handy soviet tank identification guide I found the other day
https://offbeatresearch.com/2024/01/an-offbeat-research-guide-to-tank-spotting-soviet-origin-tanks/
Nice. I use this one periodically.
https://tankrecognition.blogspot.com/2022/03/ukrainian-conflict-tank-recognition.html
what fricking moron made this pointless graph. It would be better to show absolute numbers wtf
percentage is easier if you're judging change in composition over time.
I think the consensus was one was a T54 and one a T55, but I do not have the relevant thread numbers to hand
Excellent. I was gonna do this myself if I got to the bottom of the thread without seeing a cap. This will be useful reference material in the future.
The T-90M is a new production tank. The T-73B3 are old T-72s undergoing a refurbishment and upgrade. There’s a bizarre meme going around /k/ that the T-90M is also a refurbished T-72.
not true, T-90M is refurbished and upgraded T90A
The turret is different, sure. But I don't think there is any difference in the hull from a T-72 and a T-90.
>any difference in the hull from a T-72 and a T-90
There should be. T-90 uses a wider autoloader that won't fit in a T-72 hull. Although it is possible to cut holes in side armor and widen it in the relevant point that way (done on T-72B3)
Effort posts are the true sign of redditor u tourist. 4chons is for funny maymays and making the same shitpost every day u filthly vatnikl hohol lover
Bump so other anons can laff at ur moronation
It looks like they shouuld use less T80s/T72s, and more T-64s and T-90s
How can the Russians produce more tanks than the entire west combined?
Because the USSR was autistically making tanks and other military equipment to the point their economy collapsed.
Russia produces a lot of steel and they need to focus on tanks
>Russia produces a lot of steel
They used to, until very recently.
Wishful thinking
>until very recently
What with this moronic turd-level cheerleading? First of all, steel mill was not the only one in Russia, they have many more, second we don't know how crucial is damage, is it stopped or just reduced output
>First of all, steel mill was not the only one in Russia
do you believe Ukraine will now suddenly stop to disrupt russias military industry? Or that russia tomorrow magically finds a way to protect it?
>just the only one producing defense and transformer steel
Re T-14. It was pretty obvious that the Russian army didn’t want it. There were probably too many things wrong with it. The government simply pretended to order them in order to bait international orders, money the producers could use to fix / upgrade it to a standard the Russian army would accept (while pretending they were always buying them just that the upgraded T-14M2 ended up being the variant they switched all their extant orders to). Meanwhile it would be the suckers in India, Malaysia, whoever etc who would get to pay for finalizing it’s development.
You don't understand the purpose of a program like the T-14 in Russia if you didn't realize the money to fix it was used for embezzlement.
Does the T-14 have an engine yet?
I guess not, given the sanctions, but I have to wonder if it had gotten anywhere near a full new tank on someone's drawing table before the SMO.
first it's spelled Pussian not with R, second ... and who tie your hands to post Ukrainian one?
Let's ask lostarmor to post Russian losses :^)
>Russians lose so many vehicles each day that manual counters can't keep up
>Ukrainians lose significantly fewer
>prioritise the immense backlog
>this is clearly Ukro-piggie propaganda
russia just can not pull enough rusty hulls from storage to fill demand
Ukraine mostly uses Russian equipment, so any failures there are still Russian equipment failures. Any western systems they have been using have almost 100% positive feedback, outside of issues like maintenance because they are outside their usual logistic chains.
t64 bros... not like this
There's plenty of lost T-64 on the other side.
This info is extremely out of date at this point, as far as the situation on the ground is concerned, but it's the last I have.
Just for clarity,I am still curious in how American arms factored into Russian Tank losses.
We don't know and won't have any context to know for some time. Biden has what amounts to a stipend that Congress gave him to spend $4billion however he wants after funding ended and it's not like we can tell what he is spending/has all spent it on, whatever the case is.
>Nice thread about Russian tank losses ruined by thread sliders trying to get the thread moved to /misc/ by starting a politics shitfight
Unironically thank you for your service
the middle part is Ukrainian losses
Blue is Abrams and yellow is Leopards right?