Thread by @tom_bullock_

At this point I’d say it’s fairly clear that Russia’s leadership intends for the 3rd Army Corps (3AC) to be used offensively. Russia has held back a lot of high end kit including BMP-3, T-80BVM, T-90M, and even the latest AK-12 models (h/t @JakOSpades)

https://twitter.com/tom_bullock_/status/1560182580154142721

This is in pretty stark difference to other volunteer units (like this Ossetian one) which Russia flung into Ukraine with minimal training and very outdated kit (T-62, BMP-1, MT-LB etc.) This is probably an indicator of how bad Russia’s manpower situation was at the time.

It’s going to interesting to how/if the volunteers making up the 3AC can fulfil their offensive goals. For the most part the unit is manned by old, often out of shape, men. One of the units making up the 3AC is this volunteer battalion from Bashkortostan.

Aside from a pretty poor manpower pool the 3AC will also suffer as @RALee85 has pointed out from a lack of experienced officers and NCOs. Most of the current volunteer battalion commanders I’ve id’d are local officials and heads of veteran’s associations.

As a final point, there’s a lot we don’t know about the 3AC. They don’t from what I’ve seen have much in the way self-propelled artillery, we don’t know what their air defence looks like, or what % of the manpower requirement has been fulfilled.

Some more info from the ever brilliant @CITeam_ru. First look at 3AC air defence assets, further confirmation of the T-90M being fielded by the corps, and indicators forward elements are beginning to deploy.

https://twitter.com/citeam_ru/status/1563472721149042689

.@DefMon3’s ORBAT is pretty representative at f what the corps is intended to comprise. Worth noting “air defence division” == battalion in Russian parlance.

https://twitter.com/defmon3/status/1553452435007479809