1/ Final thread on stored Russian engineering vehicles. This times we'll take a look at a miscellaneous mix of engineering vehicles, such as minelayers, mine clearing vehicles, trench diggers... and see whether they're being used or not.
2/ As with the other two engineering threads, this won't be an in-depth analysis, just a overall glance at their storage stocks. Re: ARV and pontoon threads:
3/
4/ So, first of all, as you can guess, engineering vehicles are meant for construction work or for the transportation of combat engineers on the battlefield. For example, breaching vehicles such as UR-77s are intended to overcome enemy defense lines.
5/ Based on the wprk of @Rebel44CZ, Russia las lost so far over 150-200 such vehicles. oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack…
6/ But are they really used? Those numbers look smaller considering the overall 18,250 pieces of equipment lost by Russia, specially in a positional war such as this one.
7/ So far it doesn't look like they're really used, as with the coming of new technologies such as remove mining, many of these sytems aren't needed anymore.
8/ So let's take a look at a bunch of storage bases (not all of them, by a long shot) to get a clearer picture. We'll start by the 7021th:
9/ Before the war there were 44 UR-77s here. They haven't been moved in all this time.
10/ Another site that stored UR-77s was a base called Alkino-2. Once again, not pulled out from storage:
11/ This place also holds other engineering vehicles:
12/ Including some GMZ-3 right next to the UR-77s. Some of these were taken:
13/ Another post, another base: the 230th in Sakhalin island.
14/ There were also many apparently GMZ-3s here, most of them removed by now from this base:
15/ I mentioned Novaya Stanitsa a while ago when it was updated with new public footage, and how barely any equipment remained there, but that the engineering equipment hadn't been moved, including 2 BAT-2s.
16/
17/ There's also the depot near Syzrandkaya. Once again nothing had been touched here, tho the last available footage is from winter 2022:
18/ Then the 96th at Mashkovo. Among other things, some IMR-2s, again not pulled out:
19/ The 2066th (like several other bases here, also mentioned in the pontoon thread), among other stuff, also had at least 10 GMZ-3s, of which only 1 was pulled out:
20/ Like I said, among other stuff:
21/ And finally, let's take a look at another base: a depot near Sosnovets. Updated for the last time in late 2022, the Russians had also not taken anything from here by then:
22/ This is just a quick glance at some bases. The conclusion is that, for the most part, they haven't really touched that equipment. They have mostly used civilian equipment to dig trenches.
23/ Yeah, sure, they do make use of these systems, but not as much as one would expect.
24/ Either because they're not as useful as one would expect, or because they were left rotting in storage for decades and most are broken now. Only small quantities are pulled out from storage here and there.
25/ I'm aware this thread feels lackluster, but that's because 1) these types of systems are stored in small quantities in who knows how many storage facilities (for example, there are cranes everywhere), 2) I'm a bit out of my depth here, I lack knowledge to ID many systems
26/ and 3) writing up these last two engineering equipment threads has been a drawl, I just didn't really enjoyed it (and this is probably part of my recent demotivation).
27/ So I really hope this thread has been useful anyway to some of you. Next week there should be some actual content worth posting... See you then!
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