Before starting a newer count I decided to review the current one, because I was unsure about some BTR identifications. I decided to try Yandex. Alas, idk why I didn't use it before, there's so much newer footage there.
For example, the 4990th. Before the war there were over 600 MT-LBs, and we didn't get newer footage from that one in all these two years on Google Earth. But take a look at Yandex, just 91 MT-LBs remained there a while ago, three of them visibly broken hulls.
Another base we didn't got newer footage, the 230th. Here a lot of stuff is gone too.
All in all, of the total amount of MT-LBs we found during our updated count, these new Yandex images show that half of them are gone from storage already. Unfortunately, there's not much newer footage to significantly update our numbers of other AFV types.
Only a single base remains with a considerable amount of MT-LBs: the 7020th in the Far East, with 342 MT-LBs stored there as of May 2023. In every other base they're counted by the dozens, except at the 187th as of May 2022 where the number actually increased to 115.
I estimate the current number of MT-LBs in storage in 400-500, including 100 broken hulls. Consider that they started the war with 2,4k in storage and according to TMB2021 another 3k in active service.
Here are the prewar numbers in case someone didn't see this tweet.
It would appear whatever stock of T-72Bs held UVZ at their own facilities, is now exhausted, as the Russians have restarted to take T-72Bs stored at the 1311th base to be refurbished at that factory. The stock probably won't last long, I estimate they pull ~20 per month.
Also, unless I'm seriously mistaken with the count/IDs, there are no more T-80BVs at the 1311th. By now it's likely there are no stored T-80s left at all (possibly the ones remaining at the 22nd are all T-80UDs).
Would need a recent image of the 6018th to prove it, but unfortunately that base gets no coverage at all as of lately. This would also point to Omsktransmash being able to quickly work through its backlog of T-80s, similar to what I already analyzed in previous BTRZ threads.
3/ So, before taking a look into the facilities and their capabilities, we have to consider that for the last year Russia has decisively switched tactics to infantry and light vehicles intensive ones.
1/ Time to review Russian Armor Repair Plants (BTRZs)! Been a long time since the last time we checked them, and they’re crucial to the Russian war machine.
2/ Before starting, first I recommend watching @CovertCabal's video on BTRZs:
1/ Bit of a long-delayed update, but after all the recent footage I wanted to focus on showing the changes on the smaller storage bases for a change, not the major ones everyone has heard about.
2/ I talked about the different types of storage bases in depth on the attached thread, but I'll focus on the former MESRBs:
3/ These are brigade-sized storage facilities with equipment ready-to-go to refit movilized units or quickly replace material losses. As expected, they're long gone for the most part by now.
Talk about bad luck. The 349th was just updated a tiny bit on Google Earth:
And then there'e even more infuriating instances like the 2141st artillery storage base, without an update since late 2022 with pretty bad blurry footage and recently missed by a single kilometer:
Of course Google Earth had to update the 769th just one week after I buy my first ever satellite image, precisely of that base. @CovertCabal I feel you now.