So, how close is total tank death now?

Let's define TTD as all stockpiles of reasonably repairable tanks being gone.

>>64102329 (OP)
Total Tank Death should be on or just before the beginning of the 5th year of the war.

>>64102339
Is this based on the rate of stockpile decline?

>>64102329 (OP)
>>64102333
As far as we can tell "reasonably repairable" tanks ran out last winter. Whatever new production the Russians have is going into reserves rather than being used up piecemeal on the frontline

>>64102381
>Whatever new production the Russians have is going into reserves rather than being used up piecemeal on the frontline
I keep seeing this posited, but I can't really see that being the truth. All the Class-A formations are in Ukraine, fighting. I've seen no OSINT that Russia is forming new Class-A units.

they gonna cross the suwalki gap in T-55s

>>64102391
We know that new tank production hasn't completely ceased, but russian tank losses fell off a cliff and we don't see them in new footage at all.

It is pure conjecture, but the new hulls have to be going somewhere. If it's not a new unit, maybe they're trying to rebuild 1st Guards again, idfk

>>64102432
that's enough when the Lithuania and Latvia don't have shit

>>64102435
>the Lithuania
ESL garbage

>>64102435
>the Lithuania

>>64102329 (OP)
how many threads are you guys going to make about this today?

>>64102484
Two.

>>64102433
New Russian tanks can't get high tech parts. It's like in the Battletech universe after the First Succession War where newer mechs are worse than older ones due to Lostech.

>>64102333
I'm defining it as every unit is combat ineffective due to the number of remaining tanks, and they can't expect any replacements at all.

TTD is when all units are permanently understrength to do pretty much anything.

Just like how officially the Kuznetsov is still around, the Russian Navy has been in TCD (total carrier death) for years now.

>>64102329 (OP)
Why don't they put in effort into the last few remaining tanks that they have? They still don't put nets on them to protect against drones.

>>64102484
Why does people discussing one of the most relevant and timely topics for this board both you?

>>64102768
>Just like how officially the Kuznetsov is still around
Officially it's finally gone, it's going to get cut up to make more tanks.

>>64102870
>Letting the cursed hull touch land

>>64102901
>when you get in your brand new* T90M, and you can't shake the smell of sea water, rust and the odd sense of being haunted
*(does not contain anything new)

>>64102484
nigger

>>64102329 (OP)
Already happened

>>64102329 (OP)
How is that ten day exercise going?

>>64102343
d20

>>64102732

>>64102329 (OP)
>heavy tanks with upward facing armor becomes the norm now

>>64102433
I have a sneaky, probably wrong suspicion that more than a few are turning out to be "unrepairable" and are very quietly getting shuffled into stockpiles for private armies.

>>64102329 (OP)

It's really never happening.

They will just reduce the usage to be in line with what they can produce or refurbish.

And they can still buy Nork tanks if really desperate.

So at some point it will reach an equilibrium and we are close to it since they are already using tanks less and less to account tor the decreasing numbers.

Tanks will increasingly be replaced with technicals.

>>64102329 (OP)
further than ever, you'll see mass proliferation of APS systems and an increase of capabilities of thoe systems within the next few years

>>64102912
>Be Ukrainian
>Four long years of killing vatnig filth invading your land
>One day sight a tank among enemy lines, first you've seen in weeks
>Call in the drones
>They're ineffective, the tank is coated in something which deflects all explosions
>It's almost like... there's water pouring from every inch of the tank
>Hundreds of gallons... more than the tank could possibly hold
>Tank cannon turns to face the vatnig line, fires a great gout of steam and spray which obfuscates everything
>Catch a whiff of it carried on the wind... it smells like the sea
>Horrific metallic groans and the screams of dying men carry through the fog until nightfall
>Nobody ever confirmed what happened to the tank, or the vatnigs in the trench
>But one of the conscripts swears he saw something huge and metal moving in the darkness, walking upright like a man

>>64102391
I want to say there's satellite evidence of them filling armor depots near the Finnish/Baltic borders.

>>64106076
>Tanks will increasingly be replaced with technicals.
>technicals
If you mean by technicals, bikes and e-scooters, then yes.
If you mean BTR and BMP, please wake up and look at the calendar. it is not 2023

>>64106098
Anything built from the hulk of the kuznetsov will belch black smoke and coat everything within 10 miles in mazut

An interesting factor here that people aren't yet talking about is the geopolitical position Russia is finding itself in with its reduced military stocks.
All the former Soviet countries are now less afraid of Russia than they have been for a long time. Azerbaijan is perhaps the most visible example of this. Russia just doesn't have the capability to reasonably threaten it anymore and thus Azerbaijan can fully set its own policy. None of the former Soviet countries are grateful for what Russia did to them. Aliyev has already taken their mask off and is publicly giving the finger to Putin. This is humiliating for Moscow.
Next one like that slowly emerging is Kazakhstan. We'll start to see more independent-from-Russia rhetoric from Tokayev in the coming 1-2 years already.
Depending on how long the attrition from the Ukraine war will last and Russian economic situation, after Kazakhstan, the most impactful one to turn away from Moscow could be Belarus.
And thus the second Soviet collapse is happening right in front of our eyes with Russia having none of the former allies left.

>>64102433
>new hulls
Are they making any? Last I heard, it's all heavily refurbished T72 hulls.

>>64102381
This.
As far as I understand, they have ran out of reasonably repairable T-72's (they are still repairing T-72A's, but those are "been on siberian open field for the past 30 years" models so that's not coming along very well) and have started to move to repairing even T-62's.

https://x.com/Jonpy99/status/1953027619978363029

>>64102329 (OP)
>>64102333
>>64102339
A better question is whether it even matters at this point. Tanks are a rare luxury item nowadays, the russian army has completed its transformation from a heavy mechanized maneuver force into a light infantry attrition one.

>>64106130
Doesn't the T14 already do that?

>>64106137
Potatoman could probably take Moscow right now if he tried, honestly. Gotta do what it takes to secure that promotion.

>>64106137
Nah, while Aliyev has done a lot to piss off Z-media, a lot of his actions remain performative, since Azerbaijan can't afford to lose the lucrative sanctioned goods market with Russia. Same with Kazakhstan.

>>64106098
>that video of the Armata with the screaming engine
>ziggers actually psyopped everybody, it was made from Kuznetzov steel
>all Armatas are made of it
>the reason they're not deployed isn't because they aren't real, it's because the patriarchs can't control them

>>64106286
>>64106098
>>64102912
>>64102901
Kek

>>64102329 (OP)
Never because they're still producing a handful of brand new hulls, ie about thirty T90Ms a year

>>64102391
>I've seen no OSINT that Russia is forming new Class-A units
They are refilling their old units though, and expanding their class C (de facto) units. We aren't told the new unit numbers or names, classified, but that's what the AFU says.
Their class A units are basically class B now e.g. VDV are all foot infantry and virtually none are airborne assault capable, but nonetheless they are manned and equipped

>>64102732
Been that way for a while

>>64106182
T90Ms

>>64106200
>Tanks are a rare luxury item nowadays
They aren't
The RFAF has lost about 40% of its tank arsenal, per Oryx
They've developed tactics that waste infantry but conserve their tanks
the 60% mostly consists of older tanks, but they still have a lot of them

I'm saying all this just to highlight that Ukraine needs to
1) counter the infantry tactic problem
And
2) still guard against a reversion to tank-heavy assaults

>>64106202
From what I remember, the T-14 emits a cloud of magic bluish white smoke.

>>64106137
>All the former Soviet countries are now less afraid of Russia
you're forgetting the one non-soviet country that is getting majorly fucked by this

>Mongolia
they exist only as buffer zone between China and Russia
and the mutual threatening
>if one invades Mongolia, the other will as well and there will be war (kinda MAD lite)
but now that Russia is weak
China could (theoretically) just invade without repercussions

not that they have any big incentive to do so
but now they don't have any incentive to NOT do so

>>64106321
>about thirty T90Ms a year
are there actual new sources for this?

other than the 1/month or 10/year prewar sources
and the weird german propaganda of 300/y
there isn't really that much

theoretically they are building (have build?) a new factory with a capacity of 80-200/y
but no clue if it's finished or if the numbers are realistic

>>64106344
>actual new sources
None that are published*
Even the AFU's own publicly-shared* estimates use this method for estimation
Nobody's heard of any new-build factories
THEORETICALLY it takes 3 years to restart tank production, which is the figure given for USA to actually build new Abrams again, but this is Russia, yeah?

The German figure can just be summarily ignored

does this mean Ukraine can take crimea back now

>>64106344
>>64106321
IIRC axpart of that number was dependent on refurbished T72 hulls which might have become trickier to source. Back when T72s were first being reported missing from the front I was thinking they might have been reserved for T90 production.

>>64106321
>The RFAF has lost about 40% of its tank arsenal, per Oryx
What's with people pushing the whole
>real army is still waiting in russia
pidor talking point? 2022 calls
>This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here
40% is a bare minimum, and and that already implies that 100% existed to begin with. For example Even Perun (one of the first people to call pidor bullshit) in his early videos claimed that
russian arty advantage isn't going anywhere, because russian ammo storage is so vast, that it as well may be infinite, and guess what, not so infinite anymore.

>>64106432
>What's with
Because pidor talking points are exaggerated, but so are Ukrainian claims

This information comes as a result of more sober analysis from US, UK and yes Ukrainian sources than your NAFO cheerleading

>using a disclaimer to claim that all Russian tanks are destroyed
Just because Oryx obviously can't have photographs of every single destroyed Russian tank, that doesn't mean that you get to claim the Russians have lost literally THREE TIMES more tanks than Oryx recorded, with zero evidence

>>64106321
>about 40% of its tank arsenal, per Oryx
what number are you using as the 100% here, dumbass? let me guess, some one-off unsourced pre-war number

>>64106449
Nobody is claiming Ukraine has killed 12k tanks, what people are trying to get through your thick skull is that Russia never had 12k operational tanks to begin with.

>>64106454
globalfirepower.com will still claim Russia has 10k tanks next year, while in reality Poland alone will have more functional ones than Russia

>>64106451
>let me guess
You guessed wrong.

The IISS estimated the RFAF had about 3,500 tanks operational (unit paper strength) and 10,000 tanks in storage
Covertcabal looked at satellite photos of known active Russian storage depots and assessed that of the latter figure, about 3,000 appeared clearly unusable as they were turretless and immobile for long periods, settling on roughly 10,500 tanks as a total figure
(This is already assuming that Russian units have their full paper strength)
Oryx's website shows 4,089 photos of tanks destroyed or captured as of today

I trust you can do the math

>>64106465
>Covertcabal
released a video today basically saying that Russia doesn't have anything left in storage, what they've got in the field is what they've got left.

>>64106454
>Nobody is claiming Ukraine has killed 12k tanks
Really? Tell Zelensky that Ukraine claims to have killed 11,000 Russian tanks

>Russia never had 12k operational tanks to begin with
Oh, I quite agree, see >>64106465

>>64102329 (OP)
there're plenty of tanks left

>>64106137
>None of the former Soviet countries are grateful for what Russia did to them
them stealing, killing and shitting up the place under occupation? estonia alone was wealthier then finland pre cuck out and now after regaining their independence are still lagging behind to catch up to their cross pond brothers

vatnik are shit as they are made out of shit and everything they touch turn to shit

>>64106467
Oh yes I agree
(I've been subscribed to Covertcabal for years, by the way)
Did you watch the video, at around 2:19?
Applies very pertinently to you, pay careful attention

>>64106338
its been inevitable for a good while now. Vatnigs just lucked out that changs are so absolutely garbage in war but now the technological and quantitative difference is becoming too large to ignore especially as one side is a polluted, resource starved industrial wasteland. While the other is more or less uninhabited resource dump

>>64106373
>it takes 3 years to restart tank production for Abrams
and Rheinmetall needed less than 2y to build up a production line
the time frame is more dependent on the manufacturer and less on the country

UVZ isn't really known for their ingenuity
so I highly doubt they outperform their western counterparts

>>64106498
>Rheinmetall needed less than 2y to build up a production line
Where and when?
New build or refurb?

>>64106286
They lost their tech priest capabilities after the Soviet union fell and are unable to control the machine spirit anymore

>>64102329 (OP)
the west is unawares of the concept called 'production' it simply cannot be done there and must be impossible elsewhere too

>>64106701

>>64106701
Production slower than losses is a deficit. Once pre-existing stocks run out production cannot match causing a deficit making tanks exceedingly rare to the point that they might as well not be there. This point is what we're waiting on and calling TTD.

If you cannot massively ramp up production to outpace losses the only options are to drip feed them as they come off the line or send them in waves. The problem with cranking production to 11 is build quality suffers. This was shown in the T-34 where some tanks were rolling into combat with gaps in the welds big enough to stick fingers through.

To put it bluntly Russia is stuck between a cock and a hard place, meanwhile Ukraine is in a much better situation for their supply.

>>64102901
Is of okay, comrade, horrifying monstrosity from blackened depths - which is degenerate Yankee propaganda that does not exist - irrelevant in ground war. Remember please that tank is quite small inside and shadowy hallway that reminds you of home but also smells like dead animal is hallucination to be ignored.

>>64106477
there's a huge difference between
>russia will never be completely out of tanks because they will reduce expenditure and keep making new ones at a low rate
and
>russia still has 6-8000 deployable tanks remaining

>>64102329 (OP)
Is there a chance that China will sell Russia type 99A tanks?

>>64106824
0% chance, china subjegating russia is assured at this point, delaying it and giving them intel on their shit would be retarded

>>64106824
They'd get tariffs so gnarly it'd probably destroy pretty much all US outsourcing to China. Sending things like MBTs would be painfully stupid for them when Trump just whacked India with tariffs over Russian oil. How bad do you think they'd be over sending MBTs? I think the best they could probably do is small arms and ammunition with fake stampings to look like they were Russian. They probably could make better AKs than Comrade Conscriptovich gets from the armory but if found out it'd be really bad for them.

Military vehicles aside from maybe battlefield ambulances are undoubtedly a no go.

>>64106850
China is already selling drone parts to Russia.

>>64106824
>Is there a chance that China will sell Russia
whatever it is, the answer is no
China even stopped sending assembled drones
only parts now

they really want to cozy up to the EU

and have absolutely no reason to interfere in Ukraine
also undermines their claims to Taiwan and other parts,
internationally they never even acclaimed Crimea as Russian territory, only very ambiguous communication

>>64106878
>China is already selling drone parts to Russia
yeah
but they stopped selling assembled drones
and also stopped selling a bunch of electronics that can be used for missiles, tanks and other equipment

Russia still imports that stuff
but through 3rd parties, never directly, and China can't control this as effectively as the US, even if they wanted to

>>64102435
What the othes said HIVan. Also who needs tanks to counter t-55s when you have St. Javelin ???

>>64102329 (OP)
Was it worth it?

I wonder if that guy actually ate his hat.

>>64106286
>that video of the Armata with the screaming engine
The what now?

>>64107494
To the ones who haven't died yet, absolutely. So far.

>>64107546
Why wouldn't it be screaming?
If you were built, crewed and serviced by Russians, you'd be screaming too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bT2MUtzOQQ

>>64102329 (OP)
Cold War-era shit is over, yeah. Unless new anti-drone tech is employed, the only thing they can be used for is infantry support. Which Slavs in general don't seem to appreciate too much, considering they keep sending their tanks out like knights charging windmills. Also, nearly all the dumb shit we've seen in the Ukraine war is because neither side has air superiority. A lot of these drone bunker types would be getting ACKed in a hurry if two different countries (with functioning planes) were at war.

>AFU mechanics refurbishing a 2S19 Msta-S chassis with a T-72B turret
This seems really desperate, I hope they know that the Msta-S frontal hull is just steel plates with no composites.

Ukraine is fucked lol

>>64107594
didn't we spend the last like 2 years repeating that tanks are dead as af cause drones don't care about the armor?

>>64107594
Similar in protection to a Leopard 1, they'll add kontakt 1, probably

>>64107594
>the Msta-S frontal hull is just steel plates with no composites

Considering the almost total lack of tank on tank engagements in the war and virtually no drones ever targeting the frontal hull, that sounds almost completely irrelevant.

>>64107613
>/k/ in 1975
>"didn't we spend the last like 2 years repeating that tanks are dead as af cause ATGMs don't care about the armor?"

>>64107641
ATGMs and RPGs are still a thing.
Even ukies don't use Leo 1s as tanks because of the weak armor.
>"He said the Leopard 1 tank is being used as makeshift artillery due to its weak armour instead of its intended role as a main battle tank."
>https://www.forcesnews.com/ukraine/right-tanks-wrong-war-do-leopards-deserve-their-poor-reputation

>>64107683
>ATGMs
Even the un-nerfed composite T-72M glacis provides only ~500mm RHA equivalent protection from HEAT, modern ATGMs can easily deal with twice that value.

>RPGs
I don't think I've seen a single person suicidal enough to shoot an RPG at a tank frontally since things popped off in 2014 and the whole idea is ridiculous, no one is betting their life on the vibes that this particular tank is built on a Msta-S chassis where even a basic PG-7V can go through.

>>64107730
>I don't think I've seen a single person suicidal enough to shoot an RPG at a tank frontally since things popped off
There are a lot of videos, even on YT of ukies firing RPGs at Ruzzian tanks. Even basic 500mm RHA is better than only 60-90mm.

>>64107730
>>64107751
>Even basic 500mm RHA is better than only 60-90mm.
HEAT doesn't always hit at a perfect angle and those 500mm of RHA can be the line between life and death.

>>64107751
>frontally
Come on man.

>>64107757
Not when just about every ATGM does 1000+

>>64107763
>real combat is just like my heckin war thunderino where every round does damage to the last exact max specified mm of penetration.

>>64107790
>real life is Dungeons and Dragons where semi-modern ATGMs will somehow get stopped by soviet shitbox glacis that protects from less than half their RHA equivalent penetration because they rolled a 1 and landed a bit off

Zoomie is too young to have watched the seven gorillion videos from Syria and other ME shitholes of T-72s getting reamed out frontally by ATGMs and it shows.

>>64107817
>I've seen some videos of ATGMs destroying a tank, so this means that that every ATGM destroys every tank every time
You're a very clear example on how some nations came up with retarded desings like Leo 1 and AMX-30 after the great '73 ATGM scare.

>>64107884
>"Modern ATGMs can reliably destroy 70s Soviet shitboxes from the frontal arc."
>"Wow so every ATGM destroys every tank every time? You're so dumb bro LOL!"

>>64107494
>A-at least we're only 2 weeks away from taking poopishartovskyi (population 823)!
>>64102484
What's almost as hilarious as seeing how little the Russians' value the lives of their countrymen is seeing the gradual shift from "We're winning!" to "Please stop talking about it". I honestly think it's been weeks since I saw the last copium post about how Russia was going to somehow steamroll ukraine once this or that happened.

>>64107884
>>64107900
Javelin's have a pk above .9. You wont get a 100% kill rate with any weapon because there are always going to be failures, a dud, it hits a tree etc. But they are still pretty damn good.

>>64107884
>retarded desings like Leo 1 and AMX-30
Would have worked fine for their terrain and purpose.

Leo for everything west of the Carpathians and atrit ready army pushes into their prepared positions, and the AMX-10 for rapid deployment and minimal support in the wide expanses of the Sahel to maintain France's control on its psuedo-colonies by supporting whatever dictator they favor.

What I think would be the cat's meow for Ukraine is some t28 super-heavy monstrosity. No treads but many, many wheels. And a rifled barrel.

We can award the tank-production contract to KelTec. They will gleefully run with it.

>>64102339
That second clip was for sure a javelin or some other kind of anti tank missile

who needs tanks when you can just walk to dobropillia and claim the city for yourself?

>>64102433
Apparently they are building up a tank reserve in Mariopol for a big push.
So we'll probably end up with tank collumns blundering blindly into minefields again.
I for one can't wait.

>>64102768
>>64102901
>>64102912
>>64106098
>>64106286
This is a magical place.

>>64108817
>2023: There's a tank offensive centered around Mariupol.
>2025: There's a tank offensive centered around Mariupol.

>>64106793
Yes, and as Covertcabal said, the answer lies in the middle, anyone trying to sell you either extreme - 0 or 11,000 - is lying or an idiot
>6000 tanks
Is not unlikely, most of which are 55s, 64s, and 72As
Someone posted Jonpy's table upthread iirc, look at that

>>64108900
The thing that gets me is the ones that say this as if it's not still absolutely abysmal. Even 1/4 of Ukraine's claimed casualties is absolutely awful for a country that was supposed to have the number 2 military in the world. Russia should have steamrolled Ukraine but here we sit several years into a war that should've ended before the year it was launched in with so much gruesome combat footage we're nearly entirely desensitized to it.

>>64108956
Oh it is abysmal
I'll be honest, as a professional pessimist, I'd give Ukraine a GG GF WP if they collapsed entirely tomorrow. They've done a magnificent job so far.

What I can't abide is people saying that Russia has no tanks and artillery left, as if Ukraine can just walk in and retake everything. It's this kind of attitude that breeds complacency and overconfidence.* NO, that is NOT at all what is happening, the threat remains real. The takeaway is that we should continue to support Ukraine all the more with weapons, training and funding, and rearm ourselves to finish the job properly.

>*people wonder how it is that the Allies could have thought "Berlin by Christmas" and walked into the meat grinders of Arnhem and Huertgen, and then been blindsided by Wacht Am Rhein. Well, we're being shown a real time demonstration exactly how.

>>64107572
0:00-0:20
okay, this doesn't sound so bad
0:20-0:26
engine sounds underpowered
0:26-0:38
is it supposed to shreek like that? is this what it supposed to sound like? is something broken?
0:38-0:43
i dunno what changed but something turned on or off and it sounds like it is at its limit or overheating after 15 seconds of mild use

>>64109007
I think the issue is sloganeering doesn't come with nuance. For example the guy that thinks we don't understand they can make more when he sees TOTAL TANK DEATH. I think most of us know they won't truly run out, but that they'll either become a rare sight or come out in waves. Maybe they'll even buy those nifty but probably trash Nork tanks to supplement. I'd also expect new production Russian tanks to be monkey model tier in a lot of ways due to the effects of sanctions and have big QC issues on top of it. If you're sending what might as well be a handful of OG new production T-72s or older and whatever you can refurb from the ancient stockpiles each month against modern M1A1s, M1A2s, Leo 2s, Challenger IIs, or some other modern tank you're in a bad way. If you're down to even older models simply due to ease of manufacture you might as well not have them in a practical sense. They can't produce modern tanks at full functionality at anywhere near replacement rates. Probably can't produce even the old relatively simple stuff even close to fast enough.

At least with artillery we have pretty good supporting evidence that they were in deep shit with Russia having to buy a bunch of nork tubes, shells, and rockets. That shouldn't have happened period if the Russians were not legitimately on the brink. They did beg for tanks early in the war but I don't think that really amounted to much and if I'm remembering right they wanted back newer model stuff. I'd bet the still have a lot of tanks but the questions are how many are modern, how many actually function, and are they able to be sent to the fighting or are they protecting Moscow and the Putibunker just in case we get Priggy's Wild Ride 2: Comrade Conscriptovich Edition?

>>64109098
It's also important to note that just because tanks and artillery are in short supply doesn't mean you can just slam right through Russia's defensive fortifications. One of the few things they've done right in the war was building big ass minefields stopping Ukraine's previously successful thunder run offensives cold. If they hadn't done that I'd bet good money the Ukrainians would be halfway to Moscow at least. Artillery covered minefields are a real bastard to get across even if there's no or very few tanks defending the line. The FPV drones and lancets (as shit as they are) make it even worse and help compensate for any possible artillery shortages.

I think the Ukrainians have made the objectively right move in just slowly retreating while inflicting the heaviest casualties they can on the Russians for every inch instead of trying more offensives. Eventually it might actually get them in a position where they legitimately can just waltz in and take places casually. Attrition is a real bitch when used properly and zigs are dumb enough to be proud of taking 100 yards for the low low price of 10k men, some tanks, and a few ladas or electric scooters.

>>64106137
regardless of the outcome of this farce of a war, russia will invade belarus next, mark my words
they have been aligning the government and public works of belarus to accept this reality for years already

>>64109345
Other than a strategically forward position to base ground forces, what does Belarus offer the Russian federation?

>>64109396
the thing they care about the most, looking powerful

>>64109407
How many fucking map-painting games did Putin play during COVID?

>>64109416
he has been on that splatoon grind the whole time, got is account all the way from C+ rank all the way up to B

>>64107683
Neither side is using tanks as tanks because any appreciably sized armor formation gets spotted and destroyed before it can accomplish anything.

>>641061732/2
I'm the originator of that idea, here at least, or one of the originators.

There is no publicly available evidence to support the existence of new hull production, but everyone has always assumed that they were making them and telling the truth about making them. The war taught us early on that the Russians were lying to us and each other about the state of a lot of their materiel, industry and training, so I started applying a litmus test to all of their claims, even the ones we thought we had no reasons to doubt: Do we have any evidence at all that it's true? Do we have any evidence at all that it's not true? Could someone profit or gain somehow from it not being true?

So there's not a single shred of publicly available direct evidence for new hull production. First red flag.

There's evidence of the production lines for "new tanks" (ie tanks based on new hulls) not moving at all over many years, same units in the same positions on the line. Red flag two.

Red flag three? Aka why bother?

>>64109695
Was for >>64106173
2/2
Uralvagonzavod historically got an uneconomical premium for tanks with new hulls (vs refurbished), primarily because it was an investment in keeping the line open to maintain sovereign production capability - but any time you have an uneconomical price for similar goods you create an arbitrage opportunity, so an enterprising tank business could hypotheticslly zero hour refurbish stocks of T72 hulls to some T90 standard more cheaply than building new hulls and keeping the hull forge running but sell them at the price of new hulls and pocket the difference. Supposing they got away with it for a long enough time and only got found out when the war was going badly, the line would be very difficult or impossible to indigenously restart and then the government would have to continue the lie or lose face and possible negotiating power.

In most other cases where I've called out Russia for some shit like this, some Russian shill has helpfully appeared and provided the evidence I've asked for Warthunder style (eg some multiple number of SU57s in the same picture), but no matter how many times I've pointed this one out, no real evidence of a working hull manufacturing capability has emerged.

>>64109098
>artillery
on that subject, Covertcabal made a few uniquely interesting observations

Russia uses up artillery faster than tanks, in general. their barrels are used up faster. this means they've had to pull barrels from the visible storage depots, apparently sometimes discarding the breech and carriage which aren't necessary. notably also, Russia drew from its artillery depots faster than from its tanks depots.
hence, although they began the war with nearly 15,000 howitzers and heavy mortars (120mm+) in stock, the depots are virtually depleted.
this also means it's impossible to assess how many howitzers Russia has remaining, because it's impossible to assess how many barrels were simply worn out.

a 2nd reason is that the Oryx gang's artillery counts don't provide any good data at all because artillery is often destroyed by counterbattery fire, and it's hard to BDA that visually, unlike tanks which are on the front line, are usually attacked with drones, and are more high-profile targets, providing ample photo evidence.

what all this suggests is that Russia's artillery branch is in worse shape than its tank branch, although the Koreans are providing them with a certain number of replacements.

p.s. Ukraine claims to have destroyed over 31,000 howitzers and mortars. this is somewhat on track with their trend of overclaiming; it is 2x more than what Russia has taken from its depots. it makes sense given the difficulties of getting visual BDA, and the barrel problem.

>>64109695
>>64109702
> there's not a single shred of publicly available direct evidence for new hull production
firstly, before the war, a Russia defence thinktank revealed the number while calling for increased T-90M production

secondly, since then, independent AFU figures have corroborated this estimate, or at least publicly claimed it as the basis for their own estimate

thirdly, the given pre-war figure of about 10 new-build T90Ms a year is broadly in line with NATO tank production figures: Germany built about 6-7 Leo 2A7V hulls just before the war
this last point is also monetarily reasonable: although Germany had 2.4x the prewar GDP of Russia, Russia had 1/4th the GDP per capita of Germany, and spent about 20% more dollars on defence than Germany did. the math works out to Russia theoretically capable of affording as many as 12-14 tanks, if it wished.

>>64109987
>>64109987
>firstly, before the war, a Russia defence thinktank revealed the number while calling for increased T-90M production
Why would they know any better than the government? Hell, higher "new production" T90s just means more super profits for the producer under this scam, so they could even have been behind the lobbying anyway. This is very indirect evidence at best.
>secondly, since then, independent AFU figures have corroborated this estimate, or at least publicly claimed it as the basis for their own estimate
Also very indirect evidence, at best, especially since we know so little about their sources and methods that we might conclude, like you did, that it's sourced more or less entirely on the above.
>thirdly, the given pre-war figure of about 10 new-build T90Ms a year is broadly in line with NATO tank production figures: Germany built about 6-7 Leo 2A7V hulls just before the war
>this last point is also monetarily reasonable: although Germany had 2.4x the prewar GDP of Russia, Russia had 1/4th the GDP per capita of Germany, and spent about 20% more dollars on defence than Germany did. the math works out to Russia theoretically capable of affording as many as 12-14 tanks, if it wished.
The problem with this last point is that it isn't even evidence related to this specific claim at all. No one questions that Russia could afford new hulls, or even that they actually paid for them, and I'm not raising doubts about either of those things: I think they were paying for them and unknowingly getting refurbished hulls in return. A key difference between all those NATO countries and Russia is that all the NATO countries are culturally Western or Southern European, with low corruption and good transparency and oversight, while on a corruption index Russia was tied with the countries PNG, Liberia, Lebanon, Kenya, Uganda, Paraguay and the Dominican Republic from 2012-2019, was even worse than that before, and only got worse again after that.

>>64110091
>under this scam
The trouble with the scam hypothesis is that it's too easy. You can dismiss everything as lies because muh scam.

>Why would they know any better than the government?
they didn't. they were the equivalent of our own leakers bitching about the state of our armies

>Also very indirect evidence, at best
no evidence can be more direct than both of these other than an announcement by the RFAF themselves, and that is obviously suspect.

>No one questions that Russia could afford new hulls, or even that they actually paid for them
it's what we call a "reasonableness test", to examine if, prima facie, how plausible the claim is, before applying further conditions. it's to forestall obvious impossibilities, such as claims that Russia can build "300 tanks a year"

either way, this evidence is more substantial than trying to fit everything into a scam hypothesis simply on the basis that "Russia is corrupt ergo it must be false"
why not claim that the "T-90Ms" they paid for are actually T-55s while you're at it?

>>64110140
>why not claim that the "T-90Ms" they paid for are actually T-55s while you're at it?
Because the difference in final products couldn't be hidden, whereas new vs zero houred hulls would be very hard to detect, and it would be very easy to mitigate detection risks because they almost universally amount to single points of failure that could be inexpensively bribed. Conversely, there would be evidence in the supply chain, and obviously in the facilities, but I'm circumspect about how easy it would be to detect that evidence incidentally. I think you'd have to be deliberately collecting it, whether you're the Russian state or a foreign intelligence service, and I don't think anyone was. When you're only making 10 hulls a year, you'd probably only run the forge a day or two total, and those days would probably not coincide with inspections. If they did you could just confect a reason why you need to do it on another day or declare that they're in some state of preparing to run and it will happen later that day etc because it's a long process to start - all of which is basically true and apparently reasonable.
>the trouble with the scam hypothesis is that it's too easy. You can dismiss everything as lies because muh scam.
>no evidence can be more direct than both of these other than an announcement by the RFAF themselves, and that is obviously suspect.
You're saying it's unfalsifiable, but it's not and that isn't the most direct evidence possible for it. It would only take a few pictures of the actual hull forge/manufactury itself in operation to essentially disprove it. We see pictures from the tank lines and other materiel production facilities all the time, but never EVER any pictures of any part related to new tank hull (or turret, but that's a different kettle of fish) production. Ironically, these used to be mainstay propaganda set pieces for the USSR (because they look fucking cool in operation) but they're absent from Russian pics in the Putin era.

>>64108840
>2027: There's a tank offensive centered around mariupol

>a — used as a function word before a singular noun followed by a restrictive modifier. Example: a man who was here yesterday

>>64102433
Wrong.
What's their monthly tank production?
How many got destroyed last month?
Wow would you look at that, both estimates are in the same ballpark.

>>64108611

>>64109879
>trend of overclaiming; it is 2x more than what Russia has taken from its depots
It is overclaiming, though?
You're only counting the last ditch open sky depots.
Not units in active service, indoor storage or sourced from norks/elsewhere.

>>64110340
>>64110140
Just to finish this off, one of the other things we would expect to see if the basic gist of what I'm saying is true, would be evidence of the Russian state attempting to fix the problem and genuinely restart the line when they learned about it. This would look like tenders for manufacturing equipment, tooling and facilities they should already have had fit for use and capable of dozens of times more throughput than current demands (based on the original Cold War T72 hull throughputs), but timed after the start of the war.

And we see this:
https://rostender.info/region/sverdlovskaya-oblast/nijnij-tagil/75555933-tender-vypolnenie-rabot-po-usileniyu-metallicheskih-konstrukcij-zdanij-ceha-holodnoj-shtampovki-termicheskogo-ceha-3-i
https://rostender.info/region/sverdlovskaya-oblast/nijnij-tagil/67162246-tender-postavka-i-zapusk-v-ekspluataciyu-pozicii-dlya-svarki-korpusov-universalnoj
https://rostender.info/region/sverdlovskaya-oblast/nijnij-tagil/67001782-tender-postavka-i-zapusk-v-ekspluataciyu-stenda-dlya-mehobrabotki-korpusov
All throufg 2023 and 2024, tenders for hull machining and welding stations and gear, reinforcements to internal gantries etc in the hull workshop so that they can machine and weld the parts, and bear the loads they were always supposed to be able to and apparently had been doing basically uninterrupted since 1972. These have been assessed by analysts as upgrades to capacity, and I think that might be technically true, but they're upgrades intended to go from 0 capacity to >0 capacity, and I suspect they're only even able to do that now by piggy backing offIndian reverse engineering of their process to finally get their T90 production started (after Russia didn't tell them how to do some of it - interpreted at the time as wouldn't, in hindsight, maybe couldn't).