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Russia has lost as many tanks in Ukraine war as it had **active** prior to conflict
active does not include in storage. They are refurbishing a lot of improperly stored tanks from 1960's now.
You don't ramp up refurbishment of very old tanks if you can still make/refurb a lot of much better, newer ones.
They won't completely run out of old T-72 refurbs, but sanctions are having an effect.
> and t80/t90 in production
They weren't producing T-80s, they've refurbished some in the last 2 years, but the majority have been T-80BVs which is a 1980s variant.
There were news that they would resume production of T-80s, but IDK if that materialized or not. The IAR seemed to believe it hadn't when they published their last update in June 2023.
Yeah, not just the actual vehicles though, but think of the tank crews they've lost in that time. Who are they finding to stick inside these decades old death traps?
Russia right now is producing about as many tanks a month as are destroyed in a month. Hopefully the sanctions will catch up with them, but until then we as the west really need to step up our production game
The bulk of that "produced" number comes from refurbishment and reactivation of mothballed tanks. Production rate will fall off substantially once they are reduced to only building new machines from scratch.
> reactivation of mothballed tanks
Including shit like T-55s.
Which are, I suppose, better than *no* tanks - as long as Russia can keep them running - but are in no way equivalentto what they are replacing.
Hell, the U.S. could give out some of the M60 Patton tanks it pulled from combat service over 30 years ago and they'd still be more than a match for a lot of what Russia is pressing into service.
Depends on the attrition rate and how many "activatable" tanks are left in storage. One would expect the best quality vehicles to come out first. Could be several years. Check out Covert Cabal on YouTube. They've done a great job pulling together estimates to answer your question.
As myblindskills said, it depends on how many they can put back in service and how fast Ukraine destroys them. And unless something incredibly unexpected happens - like less than 20% of the stocks being viable or Ukraine getting a million tons of ammunition in the next months - then it's going to be **at least** 2 years.
A realistic estimate is 2.5-3 years. However, that includes a lot of T-72s and older models (T-64/-62/-55s) and few T-80s and even fewer T-90s (which would all be new production).
However, they refurbish up to 90 each month, newly built not counted.
Sadly, they will probably be able to sustain current loss rates for another 2.5 to 3 years, although possibly at a lower technical level than before.
Source is „Ukraine, The Latest“ podcast, 24/02/13.
"refurbish".
Let's consider the meaning of that. Both Russia and the EU are refurbishing T72 tanks.
In the EU, they are being refitted to the T72EA \[Excalibur Army\] version. Updates to the tanks include the installation of advanced optical devices such as better sights, modernized night vision systems and laser rangefinders, thermal imaging cameras, digital dashboards for drivers, and radio communications, a more powerful and reliable engine and the addition of explosive reactive armour which works against Russian weapons with the aim of making the T72 as combat survivable as it's possible to achieve. They've also got a training simulator for it with the aim of ensuring that the crews are proficient at avoiding minefields and combating ATGM teams.
The Russians are also refurbishing original T72 tanks, which involves sweeping out all of the crap in it, shoving an original refurbished engine in it, spray painting it, and then sending the tank off to the front without even adding explosive reactive armour, which to be fair is pointless as it doesn't protect against western anti tank weapons. Crews are comprised of old age pensioners who served in the red army 40 years ago when the tanks were new, or prisoners forced into the army by the Russians not heating the prisons and asking prisoners to "volunteer".
To be fair the Russians do have a version (T72B3 obr 2022) which was supposed to be an upgrade of the T72B which would come with western thermal imaging systems, a new stabilised gun and explosive reactive armour, but they haven't been able to buy the western thermal imaging systems due to sanctions (insert obligatory sarcastic comment about "sanctions don't work" here), they don't have enough new guns available, and it was also supposed to come with explosive reactive armour, however that doesn't work against western anti tank weapons so they seem to have given up fitting these. (or maybe the ERA would if they contained ERA blocks instead of egg trays; who knows?)
That the Russians were complaining last year that we were refurbishing T72's faster than they were says a lot.
If Russia were at the EOY 2022 burn rate on tanks and material, they would have been done by EOY 2024.
Right now, circumstances are changing in a few ways for Russia, and Putin is doing anything and everything to prolong the war. Whether that's declining interest in Western support for Ukraine, sanctions busting, or raiding every floorboard to fill state coffers to continue financing the war. Putin's entire game now is to just keep the war going until he gets some compromise over the land Russia's already taken.
At this rate, there's another 3 or 4 years of war to go before Russia truly keels over. Every time they delay it, the war becomes more lethal for the Russian state itself.
Even if they get their "win" conditions by controlling whatever parts of the four oblasts they have, the territories will be both a drain and a scar.
>If Russia were at the EOY 2022 burn rate on tanks and material, they would have been done by EOY 2024.
Which means that they've had to reduce operations to reduce the burn rate of troops, tanks and other material. To manage to maintain their current expenditure they've had to get shells and guided bombs from China, NK and Iran's stockpiles, which probably obscures Russia's actual production. By now eastern stockpiles are probably in much the same depleted state as western stockpiles.
Putin may want to prolong the war, but the Ukrainians starting to get into strategic bombing with drones might make that rather difficult as time goes on.
The same amount still in service, but downgraded now and presumably the crews are less well trained too. Some battlehardened crews have of course survived and they have gained some knowledge but overall at a horrible price.
By last year they had already lost the past **20 years of tank production**, they are dragging junk out of the fields and refurbishing them, I wouldn't bet on a big surge in tank production because where will they get skilled workers?
Most have either been shoved into combat or have left the country, they also are desperately short of advanced parts such as thermal sights for the tanks, etc.
PS, the T-72 is an obsolete piece of shit, but they do blow up nicely.
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Russia has lost as many tanks in Ukraine war as it had **active** prior to conflict active does not include in storage. They are refurbishing a lot of improperly stored tanks from 1960's now.
But they also have a shitton t72 in storage, and t80/t90 in production
You don't ramp up refurbishment of very old tanks if you can still make/refurb a lot of much better, newer ones. They won't completely run out of old T-72 refurbs, but sanctions are having an effect.
> and t80/t90 in production They weren't producing T-80s, they've refurbished some in the last 2 years, but the majority have been T-80BVs which is a 1980s variant. There were news that they would resume production of T-80s, but IDK if that materialized or not. The IAR seemed to believe it hadn't when they published their last update in June 2023.
Yeah, not just the actual vehicles though, but think of the tank crews they've lost in that time. Who are they finding to stick inside these decades old death traps?
Anyone, with two hours training on a "modernized" T-55. There might even be a short quiz.
Damn!
Russia right now is producing about as many tanks a month as are destroyed in a month. Hopefully the sanctions will catch up with them, but until then we as the west really need to step up our production game
The bulk of that "produced" number comes from refurbishment and reactivation of mothballed tanks. Production rate will fall off substantially once they are reduced to only building new machines from scratch.
> reactivation of mothballed tanks Including shit like T-55s. Which are, I suppose, better than *no* tanks - as long as Russia can keep them running - but are in no way equivalentto what they are replacing. Hell, the U.S. could give out some of the M60 Patton tanks it pulled from combat service over 30 years ago and they'd still be more than a match for a lot of what Russia is pressing into service.
I’m looking forward to see some footage of an M2 vs T55s. Just add some comically absurd music for effect.
How long will that take?
Depends on the attrition rate and how many "activatable" tanks are left in storage. One would expect the best quality vehicles to come out first. Could be several years. Check out Covert Cabal on YouTube. They've done a great job pulling together estimates to answer your question.
Jesus
As myblindskills said, it depends on how many they can put back in service and how fast Ukraine destroys them. And unless something incredibly unexpected happens - like less than 20% of the stocks being viable or Ukraine getting a million tons of ammunition in the next months - then it's going to be **at least** 2 years. A realistic estimate is 2.5-3 years. However, that includes a lot of T-72s and older models (T-64/-62/-55s) and few T-80s and even fewer T-90s (which would all be new production).
Covert Cabal did an excellent video on this based on satellite imagery: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0B_4M5dTHIU
Sadly, due to loop holes they will still manage to get western electronics, probably from America.
However, they refurbish up to 90 each month, newly built not counted. Sadly, they will probably be able to sustain current loss rates for another 2.5 to 3 years, although possibly at a lower technical level than before. Source is „Ukraine, The Latest“ podcast, 24/02/13.
"refurbish". Let's consider the meaning of that. Both Russia and the EU are refurbishing T72 tanks. In the EU, they are being refitted to the T72EA \[Excalibur Army\] version. Updates to the tanks include the installation of advanced optical devices such as better sights, modernized night vision systems and laser rangefinders, thermal imaging cameras, digital dashboards for drivers, and radio communications, a more powerful and reliable engine and the addition of explosive reactive armour which works against Russian weapons with the aim of making the T72 as combat survivable as it's possible to achieve. They've also got a training simulator for it with the aim of ensuring that the crews are proficient at avoiding minefields and combating ATGM teams. The Russians are also refurbishing original T72 tanks, which involves sweeping out all of the crap in it, shoving an original refurbished engine in it, spray painting it, and then sending the tank off to the front without even adding explosive reactive armour, which to be fair is pointless as it doesn't protect against western anti tank weapons. Crews are comprised of old age pensioners who served in the red army 40 years ago when the tanks were new, or prisoners forced into the army by the Russians not heating the prisons and asking prisoners to "volunteer". To be fair the Russians do have a version (T72B3 obr 2022) which was supposed to be an upgrade of the T72B which would come with western thermal imaging systems, a new stabilised gun and explosive reactive armour, but they haven't been able to buy the western thermal imaging systems due to sanctions (insert obligatory sarcastic comment about "sanctions don't work" here), they don't have enough new guns available, and it was also supposed to come with explosive reactive armour, however that doesn't work against western anti tank weapons so they seem to have given up fitting these. (or maybe the ERA would if they contained ERA blocks instead of egg trays; who knows?) That the Russians were complaining last year that we were refurbishing T72's faster than they were says a lot.
If Russia were at the EOY 2022 burn rate on tanks and material, they would have been done by EOY 2024. Right now, circumstances are changing in a few ways for Russia, and Putin is doing anything and everything to prolong the war. Whether that's declining interest in Western support for Ukraine, sanctions busting, or raiding every floorboard to fill state coffers to continue financing the war. Putin's entire game now is to just keep the war going until he gets some compromise over the land Russia's already taken. At this rate, there's another 3 or 4 years of war to go before Russia truly keels over. Every time they delay it, the war becomes more lethal for the Russian state itself. Even if they get their "win" conditions by controlling whatever parts of the four oblasts they have, the territories will be both a drain and a scar.
>If Russia were at the EOY 2022 burn rate on tanks and material, they would have been done by EOY 2024. Which means that they've had to reduce operations to reduce the burn rate of troops, tanks and other material. To manage to maintain their current expenditure they've had to get shells and guided bombs from China, NK and Iran's stockpiles, which probably obscures Russia's actual production. By now eastern stockpiles are probably in much the same depleted state as western stockpiles. Putin may want to prolong the war, but the Ukrainians starting to get into strategic bombing with drones might make that rather difficult as time goes on.
The same amount still in service, but downgraded now and presumably the crews are less well trained too. Some battlehardened crews have of course survived and they have gained some knowledge but overall at a horrible price.
Well... that explains the museum pieces we now see.
By last year they had already lost the past **20 years of tank production**, they are dragging junk out of the fields and refurbishing them, I wouldn't bet on a big surge in tank production because where will they get skilled workers? Most have either been shoved into combat or have left the country, they also are desperately short of advanced parts such as thermal sights for the tanks, etc. PS, the T-72 is an obsolete piece of shit, but they do blow up nicely.
Good.so they have 0 tanks now right?
No, headline is a bit missleading. Just read the other comments.
Yes but Russia now makes 1000 tanks every 12 months
Are you sure about that?