Thread by @HighMarsed

1/ Russia has lost at least 102 of their ~186 active T-80U tanks operated by the 12th and 13th Guard Tank Regiments of the 4th Guards Tank Division. I have looked for T-80Us in storage, to answer if they might be able to replace the losses and rebuild their units⬇️

2/ First of all I looked at the 61st BTRZ in St. Petersburg, which had 211 T-80BV, 21 T-80U and 48 T-80UD tanks in the parking space in March of 2020. I have marked the T-80BVs in red, T-80U in yellow and the T-80UD in light blue (T-62 are marked in green).

3/ I was able to identify the exact type of the tanks because I found some very good ground images, posted by like_a_free on Instagram.

4/ As you can see in the images above many of the tanks were in bad condition and I dont know the reason why the they were brought ot the repair plant, but in 06.08.2022 180 of the tanks had been removed and many of them were likely scrapped.

5/ In 2023 Zvezda published a video of the plant which shows that 16 T-80U remain (some could be T-80UD) and roughly 80 T-80BV. The main part of the parking area is now full of damaged T-72 variants which were likely brought from the front.

https://twitter.com/MrFrantarelli/status/1721501377078177934

6/ Depending on how many of the pre-war active tanks remain, they might be able to re-equip one of their tank regiments with the T-80Us from the 61st, but since the 102 losses recorded on warspotting might not represent all T-80U losses these 16 tanks could be insufficient.

7/ There is only one other spot where I have found tanks of the T-80U or T-80UD type, which is the 22nd storage base. I think it is likely that all T-80U at that base are T-80UD, because all images that allow an exact identification seem to show the UD variant.

8/ There were at least 170 T-80UD at this base before the war started, but I have seen some old images that could imply more T-80UDs at that base, so the exact amount is unclear.

9/ The problem with the T-80UD is that it uses the 6TD engine built in Kharkiv, so Russia likely cant operate them without replacing the engine (or other modification). They seem to be working on a solution for that, since 20 T-80UDs had been removed in sat images from July 2023

10/ If Russia can find a sustainable solution to the engine problem they should be able to re-equip both tank regiments with converted T-80UD from this storage base, although I cant imagine this getting priority over f.x. refurbishing old T-72s.

11/ It is also possible that I have missed some tanks, since more than 400 T-80U were made, as shown with sources by @AntaresTuitero below, of which Russia only exported 76. For the T-80UD 550-715 seem to have been built in Kharkiv, of which Ukraine exported 320 to Pakistan.

I forgot to link the posts:

https://twitter.com/AntaresTuitero/status/1751313051108724977