1/ A look into the state of many of the remaining armored vehicles in storage and how useless they are, along with their storage facilities 🧵
2/ I'm well aware that many people look at the spreadsheet at feel demoralized by how much stuff Russia still has in reserve. Alas, that's not entirely the whole picture. Let's take the stored BTRs as an example.
3/ If you look at the sheet, it appears they still have a bit under two thirds of the prewar stock. Is it true tho? docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
4/ Actually, as I explained in many other previous threads, we take into consideration stuff classified as "worse" that, while not entire write offs, certainly doesn't look very promising for frontline service.
5/ @CovertCabal and @Rebel44CZ addressed this not so long ago, when Covert released his video on the 111th base and how almost all the BMPs there are junk (see the pic in the previous tweet).
6/ For a bit more complementary info on the subject of this thread, also check this one:
7/ But back to the subject at hand, it looks like Russia still has overall 2358 stored BTR-60/70/80s out of the 3673 it had in storage before the war. Let's take a closer look at them.
8/ In reality, most of the vehicles are older BTR-60s and -70s, and in poor condition. How poor? Well, take a look at 1063rd Logistics Center in Saigrajewo, at the vehicle storage at Kaliningrad or at the 372nd in Smolino:
9/ Many such places. But what's more important, how long has it been since they were last moved around at parked at their current spots?
It was 2010 for the BTRs in the 372nd (there's no previous public footage of the site):
10/ 2020 for Saigrajewo:
20/ 2018 for Kaliningrad:
21/ And there's a lot more places, like the 1690th NBC Storage Base near Rzhanitsa, where they have been unmoved since at least 2014:
22/ Or the 7007th near Jekaterimburg, with no changes since 2017 either:
23/ The point is, this happens across a lot of bases, and not just BTRs. They're just the perfect example for this thread, but it's mostly the same with other armor types such as MT-LBus, BTR-50s, BRDM-2s and even BMPs and tanks at certain bases like the 111th or the 2544th.
24/ So the real numbers surely are lower, but we can't write off scores of equipment just like that without very high confidence, so we just keep them in the "worse" condition because they probably only serve as spare part sources, in the best case scenario for Russians.
25/ And not just armor, obviously, but also every other type of stored equipment.
26/ A vehicle that doesn't move for so long is a dead vehicle, unless a very expensive and time-intensive repair process is applied to them. And if you don't believe me, you surely have seen what happens to abandoned civilian cars over just a few years in the open air.
27/ So I hope this clarifies some incertanties and fears regarding how much Russia still retains after almost 3 years of peer warfare. See you soon!
28/ Tho tbh just seeing this is enough proof that maybe they don't have as many armor as they like to claim lmao.
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