OT: Putin's War in Ukraine

[Vespers War]

The most recent Perun has an interesting look at Russian tank losses by family, grouped into three-month time periods since the start of the Ukrainian invasion.

Feb-Apr 2022
T-90: 3%
T-80: 23%
T-72: 71%
Older: 3%

May-Jul 2022
T-90: 1%
T-80: 22%
T-72: 68%
Older: 9%

Aug-Oct 2022
T-90: 3%
T-80: 33%
T-72: 53%
Older: 11%

Nov-Jan 2023
T-90: 5%
T-80: 34%
T-72: 49%
Older: 13%

Feb-Apr 2023
T-90: 8%
T-80: 40%
T-72: 46%
Older: 7%

May-Aug 2023:
T-90: 5%
T-80: 53%
T-72: 36%
Older: 6%

There are a few interesting things here.

The older tanks (T-55, T-62, T-64) had a spike after the first three months of the war and have slowly declined since, probably because ones that could be refurbished quickly were thrown into combat while better tanks in deeper storage made their way to the factories for rebuilds. As the refurbishment system has worked out its early kinks, those tanks are less numerous at the front.

The T-72 and T-80 have flipped in importance. T-72 losses as a proportion of total losses have basically halved, from 71% to 36%, while T-80 losses have gone from 23% to 53%.

T-80 losses also aren't particularly new T-80s. Russia has three-ish main models, the T-80B/BV (1978/1985), T-80U (1985) and T-80BVM (2017). The BV is a B with Kontakt-1 ERA. The U has a more powerful engine, revised turret armor, Kontakt-5 ERA, and an upgraded gun and fire control. BVM has Relikt ERA and upgraded gun, fire control, and optics.

Early on (in the first three-month period) T-80 losses were 23% B/BV, 59% U, and 18% BVM. For the most recent four-month period, they were 82% B/BV, 2% U, and 17% BVM (equals 101% due to rounding). The BVM has remained pretty constant as a percent of T-80s lost even as the T-80 losses have grown, but the U has been steadily replaced by the less capable B/BV. Basically, they're upgrading as many as they can to BVM standard and then shoveling the rest of the B/BV to the front without upgrades to maintain numbers.

[Heffe]

Thanks for sharing, Vespers. Really interesting data and analysis in that video - I thoroughly enjoyed watching it.

If I had a single critique, I wish he had included the overall numbers of losses of certain categories of vehicles on top of just the ratios. For example, understanding if T-80Bs were becoming much more prevalent as a part of the makeup of Russian tank forces, but also that the overall trend in MBT losses over time was shifting downward, or upward, or oscillating, that would have provided a lot more insight into exactly what's happening. It would also give us a better idea of the delta between what Oryx has reported as visually confirmed losses vs. what Ukraine typically reports on their daily losses stat roundup.

[Vespers War]

Back in March I had used the Wayback Machine to pull the last Oryx report for each month and track losses, although there are a few caveats:
1. Some losses ascribed to a particular month could be older Unidentified Losses that became Identified during that month.
2. I grouped tanks by relative age, so the T-80B, T-80BV, and T-80U were all grouped as "old T-80" and the T-80BVM as "new T-80." In general, a Soviet upgrade is "old" and a post-Soviet upgrade is "new."
3. In September 2022 Oryx changed from just listing tanks as Unidentified to listing them as an Unidentified type if possible (e.g. Unidentified T-80). This makes the numbers for Unidentified tanks in that quarter weird.

Using the same time groupings that Perun used:
Feb-Apr 2022
595 total losses
0 T-62, 16 T-64, 175 Old T-72, 187 New T-72, 94 Old T-80, 19 New T-80, 19 Old T-90, 0 New T-90, 85 Unidentified

May-Jul 2022
325 total losses
1 T-62, 19 T-64, 73 Old T-72, 62 New T-72, 47 Old T-80, 10 New T-80, 1 Old T-90, 2 New T-90, 110 Unidentified

Aug-Oct 2022
507 total losses
39 T-62, 8 T-64, 87 Old T-72, 157 New T-72, 72 Unknown T-72, 118 Old T-80, 25 New T-80, 6 Unknown T-80, 5 Old T-90, 3 New T-90, -33 Unidentified

Nov-Jan 2023
240 total losses
24 T-62, 7 T-64, 34 Old T-72, 64 New T-72, 10 Unknown T-72, 50 Old T-80, 14 New T-80, -2 Unknown T-80, 11 Old T-90, 5 New T-90, 23 Unidentified

At some point I need to go through and scrape the rest of 2023.

Even in this shorter period, the T-62 losses show a huge change, with 1 positively identified as lost out of the first 920 tank losses, and then a full 10% of losses in the last time period being identified as T-62.

T-72 losses are cyclical, being 60-67% of total losses in the first and third quarters and 42-45% in the second and fourth quarters. They may have been used to spearhead assaults during the good weather months and hoarded away for unit reconstruction during the bad weather months.

[Heffe]

Thanks again for the data. I went ahead and graphed it out to get a more visual representation of the tank losses over time. Not sure if this is helpful/useful or not, but I thought it was interesting to see how the assortment changed over time. I find it interesting to note how much the tank losses slowed during the second quarter, only to increase again with the Russian summer offensive before petering out during winter. I'm definitely super curious to see how it's further changed during the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Q2 and Q3 of '23.

*disclaimer - this is only based on the data Vespers provided, meaning that it's Oryx's visually confirmed tank losses.

[kato13]

https://apnews.com/article/atacms-uk...b82d57d6ccab22

ATACMS which will always be “Assault Breaker” in my heart, have arrived and made a splash. 5 units taking out at least 9 helicopters.

What would be an estimate of what the US could provide in terms models available? The cluster versions seem like a given given that the US would not want the bad press of being a major power using them. Ukraine gets a pass as the plucky underdog.

[kcdusk]

The boards been as quite as i can ever remember for a number of weeks now.

If not Ukraine as a plucky underdog, i'll take Israel as the flavour of the month re cluster munitions.

Just devastating news re wars around the world (Ukraine and Israel). This may/may not be why its been quite here.

My own T2K work has progressed a bit in the last few weeks, having been made redundant again. Mixed feelings. Being out of work is never good. No longer working at my last place of work has been such a relief. There are great job prospects on the horizon so i am positive i will be employed again soon. In the mean time, my own solo T2K campaign is progressing using the FL rules, which i am enjoying.

[Vespers War]

Originally Posted by kato13

https://apnews.com/article/atacms-uk...b82d57d6ccab22

ATACMS which will always be “Assault Breaker” in my heart, have arrived and made a splash. 5 units taking out at least 9 helicopters.

What would be an estimate of what the US could provide in terms models available? The cluster versions seem like a given given that the US would not want the bad press of being a major power using them. Ukraine gets a pass as the plucky underdog.

The best numbers I've seen:

M39 - 1,650 built for US, 411 expended
M39A1 - 610 built for US, 74 expended
M48 - 176 built for US, 58 expended
M57 - 513 built for US, 57 expended
M57A1 - 220 converted from M39/M39A1, 7 expended

There are another 900 M57A1 that have been purchased by international customers that would be converted, so out of 2,260 M39/M39A1 produced for the United States, 485 have been expended and 1,120 (at least) are scheduled to be converted, so at most 655 of those two models would be available for transfer to Ukraine.

With PrSM having entered LRIP, I would hope all the ATACMS could be considered available for transfer if needed.

[Raellus]

It's hard not to conclude that the Ukraine's summer 2023 counter-offensive might have been much more successful to date if ATACMS had been provided to the UAF prior to its commencement.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...u-k-intel-says

Russian rotary combat airpower was often cited as a key factor behind heavy early UAF AFV losses during said counter-offensive. Russian attack helos were able to engage successfully engage UAF AFVs from beyond the range of most available AAA and MANPADs. In most sources, the impact of Russian attack helos was assessed as second only to that of massive Russian AT mine belts. Heavy AFV losses resulted in a slower, more methodical scale, scope, and pace of UAF offensive operations.

ATACMS could have largely degraded the effectiveness of Russian attack helicopters, both by destroying them on the ground where they were based, and by pushing those rotary aviation bases further from the front lines, thereby reducing the combat range of their helos.

I'm peeved that the US didn't provide Ukraine with ATACMS much earlier.

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