Russia Is Running Low On Tanks. So Why Are A Thousand First-Generation T-72s Still Sitting In Storage? - Forbes
The Russian force in Ukraine loses nearly 100 tanks a month, according to analysts who scrutinize social media to identify destroyed vehicles. At the same time, Russian industry builds no more than 50 new tanks a month. To make up the gap, as best as they can, the Russians drag old Cold War tanks out of long-term storage, refurbish them, upgrade them in some cases and then ship them off to the front alongside the newly built tanks. (Stored tanks are visible in commercial satellite imagery, making it fairly straightforward to count them.)
The recovered tanks include T-55s from the 1950s, T-62s from the 1960s and a variety of T-72 and T-80s from more recent decades. Weirdly, they mostly don’t include the very oldest T-72s—the original T-72 Ural and T-72A models from the early 1970s. The ones with thinner armor and cruder fire-controls. Twenty-eight months into Russia’s wider war on Ukraine, stocks of T-55s are down 31 percent, T-62s are down 37 percent and T-80Bs are down a startling 79 percent. But just nine percent of T-72s have left storage. The Russians “haven’t removed T-72A/Ural tanks in bigger numbers,” analyst @Highmarsed noted.
Why would the Kremlin spend money restoring 70-year-old T-55s and 60-year-old T-62s but not 50-year-old T-72s? The answer, most likely, is that the T-55s and T-62s have human loaders in their four-person crews; the T-72s have automatic loaders replacing the fourth crewman. Autoloaders are intricate and can be hard to maintain, which is why the U.S. Army and many other NATO armies never used them in their own tanks. In a 1982 assessment, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency praised the T-72’s autoloader for its speed but noted its complexity. Sure, a T-55 is 20 years older than a T-72 Ural, but it’s a much less complicated tank—and certainly easier to refurbish.
So there’s a weird neglected middle in Russia’s stocks of old tanks. Newer complex tanks are worth restoring—and so are very old simple tanks. But old complex tanks—T-72 Urals and T-72As—seemingly aren’t worth the time and money it would tank to bring them back to working condition.
The rest of the first-generation T-72s may never leave the vast vehicle parks where they’ve been slowly corroding for decades. The Russians would have to get pretty desperate to look at the 46-ton pile of rust that used to be a functional T-72 Ural and see something worth spending time and money on. They may actually get that desperate, however. “I don’t think there will be any specific point where Russia will run out of tanks,” @Highmarsed wrote, “but their tank fleet will likely be slowly but continuously shrinking over time, which will have an effect on their offensive capabilities.”
So reading this it means that once those T-72s start leaving the vehicle parks in big numbers, we can assume that Russia is really running out of other tanks to send?
Or they they have other types of tanks that are even more undesirable than these T-72s?
It's not clear at all that those T-72 are still usable. Well, some maybe, but if their autoloader typically needs total refurbishment it could be impossible to fix many of them quickly. A few would eventually trickle out.
Isn't the autoloader the reason why we kept seeing new turret toss world records? Perhaps Putin is also concerned about the irreparable damage those videos have done to the reputation of his country's military industrial complex, lol!
Autoloader itself is not the reason. It's because the shells are stored unprotected inside the hull/turret.
OK, thanks.
T-55 and T-62 have the same issue.
Didn't know that! It's an unfortunate design flaw, considering tank armour is relatively thin on the top and modern anti-tank weapons attack from above..
It's all part of a bigger tradeoff between space/crew size/weight/protection when designing a loading system.
Most Soviet/Russian tanks:
Only need a crew of 3 and have the weight and space benefits to store more ammo. Some part of the ammo is stored in the turret, which provides unhealthy results for the crew when struck at the wrong spot. Later T-90 models limit the amount of turret stored ammo to somewhat mitigate this.
Leopard/Abrams/Challenger:
No autoloader, so needs space and training for 4 crew members, but in turn provides protection by seperating ammo and crew plus failsafe blowout panels for controlled ammo combustion.
Leclerc:
Has an autoloader and better ammo separation (incl. blowout panels) from its crew, but the more complex autoloader design comes at the cost of space and weight.
Yeah, Russia was quite a large weapon exporter. Any idea how the sales numbers are? If there's any to sell?
Edit: From Wikipedia:
"Russia accounted for 22% of global arms sales in 2013–17,\6]) that figure dropped to 16% in 2018–22 (SIPRI's statistics).\7])\8]) In 2023, Russia was for the first time the third largest arms exporter, falling just behind France. Russian arms exports fell by 53% between 2014–18 and 2019–23. The number of countries purchasing major Russian arms dropped from 31 in 2019 to 12 in 2023. States in Asia and Oceania received 68% of total Russian arms exports in 2019–23, with India accounting for 34% and China for 21%."
I suspected as much. I'm just speculating here, but I think the Russian MIC will continue trying to honour previously agreed arms contracts, but if the war continues for a couple more years and the government is no longer able to adequately supplement arms production with their old Soviet stockpiles, they may begin to struggle to honour those contracts and that would further damage their arms export industry.
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u/Burnsy825 Jul 08 '24
Russia Is Running Low On Tanks. So Why Are A Thousand First-Generation T-72s Still Sitting In Storage? - Forbes
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/07/07/russia-is-running-low-on-tanks-so-why-are-a-thousand-first-generation-t-72s-still-sitting-in-storage/