2024-07-09 05:05:10
To make up for this shortfall as best as possible, the Russians are pulling old Cold War-era tanks from long-term storage, refurbishing them, in some cases modernizing them, and sending them to the front alongside newly produced tanks. (Storage tanks are visible on commercial satellite images, so counting them is relatively easy).
Among the refurbished tanks are T-55s from the 1950s, T-62s from the 1960s, and various T-72s and T-80s from recent decades. Surprisingly, the oldest T-72s, the original T-72 Ural and T-72A models produced in the early 1970s, are mostly absent from them. Ones that have thinner armor and poorer fire control.
Twenty-eight months after the full-scale war with Ukraine, the occupiers’ inventory of T-55s has dropped by 31 percent, T-62s by 37 percent, and T-80Bs by as much as 79 percent. However, only nine percent of the T-72s were removed from the warehouses. The Russians “didn’t take a significant amount of T-72A/Ural tanks,” noted an analyst with the pseudonym Highmarsed.
To be clear, even a completely rusted out tank can be refurbished – as long as you remove and sand the body and replace almost every component that isn’t a solid piece of steel. “With enough money, time and spare parts, it’s probably possible to upgrade any tank,” says Highmarsed.
However, such a deep restoration requires a lot of time and money. If the old tank is truly dead — and the analyst estimates that the roughly 1,000 T-72 Urals and T-72As left in storage may be in “bad shape” — the money is probably better spent on brand new tanks.
Why should the Kremlin spend money on restoring 70-year-old T-55s and 60-year-old T-62s – but not 50-year-old T-72s? The answer is likely to be that the T-55 and T-62 have four-man crews with human loaders. The T-72 has an automatic loading system that represents a fourth crew member.
The automatic loading system is complex and can be difficult to maintain, which is why the US Army and many other NATO militaries have never used it in their tanks. in 1982 in the assessment The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) praised “T-72” automatic charge because of its speed, but drew attention to its complexity.
Sure, the T-55 is 20 years older than the T-72 Ural, but it’s a much less complex tank – and certainly easier to upgrade.
Thus, a strange abandoned “middle” exists in the stock of old Russian tanks. Newer complex tanks are worth restoring, but so are very old simple tanks. But the older, more sophisticated tanks, the T-72 Urals and T-72A, don’t seem to be worth the time and money it would take to restore them to working order.
According to analyst Richard Vereker, the oldest T-72s make up 10 percent. of all Russian T-72 losses. This is to be expected, given how few obsolete tanks are used at the front.
But that still means a few T-72 Urals and T-72As are being destroyed every month, out of the 100 the Russians have pulled from storage. At this rate, old tanks can be wiped out very quickly.
The remaining first-generation T-72s may never leave the vast fleets where they have been slowly rusting away for decades. Russians should be desperate to look at the 46-ton pile of rust that used to be a working T-72 Ural and see something worth spending time and money on, Forbes writes.
“I don’t think there will be any particular moment when Russia will run out of tanks,” writes Highmarsed. – but their tank fleet is likely to see a slow but steady decline over time, affecting their offensive capabilities.”
As the combat power of the occupiers slowly diminishes due to a lack of tanks, the Russians may eventually decide that old and complex tanks are worth restoring along with older, simpler tanks – and newer, more complex ones, concludes Forbes.
2024-07-09 05:05:10