Thread by @Jonpy99

1/ A summary of the state of Russian storage bases and stored BMPs in mid-2024 with the help of @CovertCabal.

2/ First of all, here are the overall numbers of stored Russian APCs and IFVs, and also a comparison with the tally in early 2024. As you can see, over half of the prewar amount remains, and over a thousand have been pulled out from storage since this year began.

3/ And here are the current BMP numbers, base by base and specifying the variants and types:

4/ Before jumping straight into analyzing the current trends of the demothballing of BMPs, I first wanna show some bits about the actual storage facilities.

5/ You might remember one of my first big threads, the one mainly focused on scrapped equipment in storage bases.

6/ Well, things haven't changed in this regard. You can see that Russians have kept removing scrapped equipment from bases like the 6018th or 1295th for some reason, while the actual decent equipment is cannibalized. I'm not really sure what's the reason behind this.

8/ They've also started buildings sheds, tho this is mostly at artillery bases.

7/ Also, some bases keep getting depleted, specially minor ones, such as the 5349th/104th or the 187th. Possibly the equipment stored in this smaller facilities is relocated to major storage bases, but I think it's just simply sent to either BTRZs or to the frontline.

8/ Before showing the full effects of the rapid depletion of well-preserved stored BMPs, I'll nonetheless say that we have already seen Russian demothball or move around older pieces of equipment such as BTR-70s or BRDM-2s. More on this on future threads.

9/ And with that said, let's talk about BMPs!

10/ As you can see in the third tweet of this thread, more than 1100 BMPs have been removed from storage bases since this year started, and the cannibalization rate has kept going up like crazy.

11/ At big places like the 227th/769th, the 6018th or the 349th, most BMPs have been cannibalized in the last year or so.

12/ And they also keep removing scrapped hulls, who knows if to send them to BTRZs or just to sell them as scrap metal. Like these at the scrapyard of the 227th/769th:

13/ And that's no surprise, the number of lost BMPs has been steadily brutal through the war (kudos to @UAControlMap for the graphic).

14/ And despite there being barely any BMP-2s left in storage and most of the hulls left being BMP-1s, BMP-2s are still the most commonly lost BMP type by Russia.

15/ So all this cannibalization of BMP-1s is probably to get spare parts to keep the BMP-2 fleet operative. We've seen signs of this, like Grom guns from BMP-1s used as infantry support guns.

16/ But just like the 1311th is a mystery with tanks, so is the 349th with BMPs.

17/ The number of stored BMPs at this base had already increased over two hundred the past year.

18/ And this time it again increased by another hundred and half. But again, showing signs of cannibalization. In total, this base went from 316 BMPs before the war to 723 nowadays.

19/ Truly a mystery, specially with confirmation via @Vishun_military that at least some Central Asian states are NOT giving equipment to Russia:

20/ Maybe the 349th is used as some sort of BTRZ to centrlize BMP cannibalization efforts, or they are consolidating storage facilities, or who knows what else it could be.

21/ Other than that, another interesting thing is that Russia appears to also be demothballing and canniabalizing BMP-based suport vehicles, such as PRP-3s at the 94th Arsenal.

22/ At the 6018th for some reason there have been a bunch of working BMP-3s since 2023 that are constantly moved around. Maybe this base is being partially used for other things besied storage, as they also have started parking a lot of trucks at the spot where previously were MT-LBs.

23/ Finally, other bases like the 22nd and 1295th are almost out of tanks. Just 71 BMPs left at the 1295th, probably all broken...

24/ ...and 387 at the 22nd, of which almost half have been parked for a decade in thos spot, but now they have also started to pull these out.

25/ At the 2456th/103rd also many BMPs have been taken recently, and these were also BMP hulls mostly cannibalized and broken even before the war started.

26/ I could talk more about how each base is getting depleted or its stock stripped bare naked of useful parts, but then this would be endless, and the spreadsheet already shows the exact numbers for each depot. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

27/ So, pending some important data I probably forgot and will remember in a while, I want to tanks once again @CovertCabal and @kromark first. Check out Mark's article on this same topic! svoboda.org/a/medlennaya-k…

28/ Also many thanks to @HighMarsed for cross-checking data with me to verify everything as usual, and many other such as @waffentraeger, @bentanmy, @Ath3neN0ctu4, @AS_22im, @Rebel44CZ, @UAControlMap and many, many more! I'm just leaving a picture of destroyed BMPs here because why the hell not.

29/ Pd: wrt to the tipology used by Covert and HighMarsed for their tank count (decent/poor/worse) and mine (decent/cannibalized), I'd love to classify stored equipment like them. Unfortunately, reanalyzing over 10,000 pieces of equipment is no small task.

30/ Correction: over 1100 AFVs pulled from storage during the first half of 2024. 383 of those are BMPs.

31/ Alright, let's finish this.

32/ The 111th is another major base worth looking at. As usual, reminder that this base is mostly a huge scrapyard.

33/ However, they took also 54 BMPs from this base, mostly from the spot with working ones.

34/ The 2544th stayed exactly the same. Actually, nothing was moved but BTR-70s. More on that tomorrow.

35/ Finally, at the 103rd/2456th they took 59 BMPs.

36/ Also worth looking at the few BMP-2s left, mostly cannibalized and stored at the 227th/769th and 6018th.

37/ All in all, BMPs in storage by now are mostly just used as spare parts donors. This is likely because BTRZs are already overworked and have a huge backlog of equipment they can't refurbish in time because of bottlonecks.

38/ So far Russia had relied mostly on MT-LBs to compensate for the lack of armored vehicles, but with these almost extinct from storage, it's quite likely that Russia will now face even bigger mechanization problems.

39/ So we'll most likely see a increasung share of ATV and motorbikes assaults, not less because some times these also fit better the Russian assault tactics.

40/ This doesn't mean that Russia will run out of armored vehicles in general, or BMPs in particular. Just that their current shortages will become bigger as time goes on. But we also shouldn't forget that Russia has managed to increase their BMP-3 production rate since the war started.

41/ Also, we mustn't forget either that a lot of the equipment removed from storage in massive numbers earlier in the war wasn't only to replace losses, but also to equip new units as the Russian army expanded.

42/ Conclusion: 1) it's now more crucial to monitorize BTRZs than storage bases when it comes to BMPs, 2) the stockpile keeps getting smaller, 3) cannibalization efforts have now mostly left the ones still in storage useless unless they are thoroughly refurbished or even reconstructed, 4) Russia is still a long way away from depleting their armor inventory, and they'll rely on older types of equipment to partially compensate shortages.

43/ So while Russia did demothball almost 400 BMPs this year, most likely they were sent to BTRZs to be refurbished.

In turn, the units in Ukraine most likely got a bigger number straight from BTRZs after being refurbished from their backlog to partially replace their many more BMP losses + newly produced BMP-3s.

44/ Apologies for ending the thread, them almost doubling its length. This is what happens when you write it without a script.