What US defense sources are saying about Russian combat power is most likely significantly underestimating Russian losses, unless they have developed a new way of defining combat power.
https://twitter.com/JackDetsch/status/1504894256816824324
Visually confirmed Russian losses of all Russian military vehicles are very high, 244 tanks, 464 different fighting vehicles, over 500 trucks and other support vehicles and a wide range of other types such as anti air, etc. oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack…
As these figures cover only those with visual confirmation, This represents only some of the Russian vehicles destroyed or out of action. After three weeks in the field any military, even with excellent logistics would be suffering breakdowns, etc.
It’s not possible to say exactly how many lost/non functional Russian vehicles there are which have not been photographed. Being cautious I would imagine that 25% of vehicles in Russian hands would be suffering breakdowns of some type.
And being very cautious, there should be around 25% of the total of confirmed losses that have not been photographed. Is they happened to vehicles in areas controlled by the Russians so have not been photographed and displayed by Ukrainian sources.
It would be a very cautious estimate to say that the Russians have lost 300 tanks so far, as opposed to the 244 visually confirmed losses. Tbh, I would not be surprised, considering Russian logistical problems; that the real number was closer to 400.
The Russian invasion force that went into Ukraine had its combat arm mostly in 120 Battalion Tactical Groups. A BTG has between 600-800 soldiers, 10 or so tanks and a large complement of support and other combat vehicles. forbes.com/sites/davidham…
Of course other units have access to Russian armour, but being sensible we can say that the Russian forces deployed into Ukraine would have had approximately 1500 tanks as part of its force. Estimates before the invasion put the figure close to 1200. forbes.com/sites/davidaxe…
So giving the Russians the higher number of tanks deployed (1500) and a low estimate of losses and damaged (300), it’s pretty safe to say that they have lost 20 percent of their invasion strength.
And it should be kept in mind that the Ukrainians actually seem to be targeting other vehicles (trucks and anti air) more than tanks anyway.
All in all, Russian combat power should be degraded by at least 15 percent now, and it would not be a surprise if it’s 20%. That matches the most reliable estimates of Russian killed and wounded as well.
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