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Mar 17 25 tweets 7 min read Read on X
1/ Last thread on Russian AFVs in storage. As you all can guess, the final thread is on BMPs. Image
2/ @HighMarsed and I found 5,766 BMPs of all kinds in storage before the war
3/ as well as another 864-869 BMPs in BTRZs.
4/ Worth noting that well over 1,000 BMPs were little more than broken hulls, clearly only useful as spare parts donors.
5/ We also found ~600-700 BMP-based support vehicles, such as BREM-2s or PRP-1s, which aren't actual combat vehicles but we included in the count.
6/ With all that said, numbers clearly dropped. There isn't that much on figures per se to say, as HighMarsed already did on his own a pretty good analysis on stored BMPs a few months ago and we barely found any new satellite footage this time around.
7/ Mostly, this thread is about caveats on Russian BMPs in storage. First, I counted BMPs per type in updated images: 539 BMP-2s, 5 BMP-3s, still close to 1,000 broken hulls, several BMP-based hundred supports vehicles and the many rest are BMP-1s.
9/ We can clearly see that BMP-2s are gonna be added to the list of Russian armored vehicles that are goind extinct in Ukraine, just like MT-LBs or BTR-50s.
10/ At the current rate of losses, I'd be thoroughly surprised if Russia still retain any BMP-2 in storage by this year's end. But we also have to account that not every hull will be worth restoring, some will inevitable be only good to cannibalize them.
11/ However, as with any equipment refurbished, there's a time delay between taking them fron storage yards and puting them in service, so time will pass between the moment the last BMP-2 is taken from storage and the moment is deployed in Ukraine.
12/ This will probably mean that Russia will devote more refurbishing capabilities to BMP-1s to compensate and keep their quantitative edge over Ukraine.
13/ The number of total BMPs in storage nowadays from HighMarsed's thread to this one obviously very slightly increased as we found some more bases and we counted support vehicles.
14/ Now, let's take a look at some bases to see actual drops in storage. First, the Sevastopol base, where there were only BMP-2s: prewar vs June 2022.
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15/ The 3018/6018th: prewar vs March 2023.
16/ The 769th: prewar vs September 2023.

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17/ The 22nd: prewar vs July 2023.
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18/ The only base were BMPs increased was at the 349th:
20/ But besides the 349th, every other base has seen a big drop in stored BMPs. It's true that they didn't remove as many BMPs as tanks for most of the year, which is weird when you think about it. I think that's because they had a lot stored indoors, and
21/ possibly they also requisitioned BMPs and BTRs from other security services. TMB2021 stated that the Border Guard and Rosgvardia had up tp 2,700 BTRs and BMPs in service. Now,a dn for the past year or more, they're down to their storage facilities.
22/ Overall, even if always of a decreasing quality, Russia still has BMP(-1s)s to carry on the war effort for another 1,5-2,5 years IMHO. There's a lot of variables to that, such as how many stored BMPs are actually reparable, how long will it take them...
22/ But we shouldn't underestimate them. Refurbishing armor is clearly something they have become quite adept at doing over the last 2 years.
23/ And we also have to account for external variables, such as Russia buying armor from third parties, and that applies to all kinds of equipment, not just BMPs and AFVs in general.
24/ I'll post in a short while another thread to explain some bits and make the overall number of stored AFVs feel slightly less threatening by showing that many thousands of vehicles will never seel the light, but with I'm done with stored Russian AFV threads for now.
for most of the first year*

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More from @Jonpy99

Mar 17
1/ As promised, here's a final thread on some cavets on stored AFVs. I mainly want to talk about specialized BTR and BMP vehicles and AFVs that will never see the frontline and shouldn't really be taken into account.
2/ So, first let's talk about BTRs and BMPs. When I wrote my thread on MT-LBus I said that most likely all of them are non-combat variants. One key thing to notice that is that they're all stored at artillery arsenals
3/ where besides artillery pieces only related artillery support is stored. But at many of these artillery storage depots there are also many BTR and BMP looking vehicles.
Read 22 tweets
Mar 16
1/ Now it's time for one of the two last major AFV threads: let's dicuss stored Russia BTR-60/70/80s. Image
2/ @HighMarsed and I counted 3,194* BTRs in storage
Read 16 tweets
Mar 10
1/ Therad on stored MT-LBus in Russia. Image
2/ We found 1,210* MT-LBus in storage before the war. Now, MT-LBus in storage seem to be all specialized vehicles, mostly artillery support ones, but also radar and communication stations, C&C mobile posts...
3/ MT-LBus losses have been pretty rare since the early months of the war, so one would expect that they didn't removed a lot from storage. However, we found several hundreds missing.
Read 10 tweets
Mar 5
1/ Prewar AFV and tank count of Russian BTRZs (BTRZ stands for Armor Repair Plant) in collaboration with @HighMarsed. Before diving into the count, BTRZs aren't actual storage facilities, but factories where equipment previously in storage is set to be refurbished for service. Image
2/ However, as seen by comparing satellite images from different years, several of the biggest BTRZs do in fact serve as storage bases, with dozens or even hundreds of armored vehicles not moved for years from their yards.
3/ There are a few more BTRZs, but none of these appeared to had any AFV in queue for refurbishment there before the war, so they aren't included in this list. HighMarsed and I disagreed on some numbers, mainly the 560th due to the atrocious footage.
Read 15 tweets

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