Richard Vereker Profile picture
Oct 5, 2024 8 tweets 5 min read Read on X
1) Russia is visually confirmed to have lost 6,065 IFV and APCs (by @WarSpotting ) I have created (re-created) this graph of their losses, by type, each month as a % of the total. It's a bit confusing so here is a thread, braking it down a bit, to make more sense. Image
2) In the first graph, I have used each month, for the next few I use a 'mid-point 3-month rolling average' So that March 23, is the Feb, Mar, Apr, added together, and April is Mar, Apr, May, and so on. Except Feb 22, is just Feb and Sep 24, is Aug, Sep and the first days of Oct
3) First I groped then by 'family of vehicles' BMPs (Blue) are close to half of the total, they seem to be on a very slow decline, The simple MT-LBs family (Orange) has been slowly, as have the BTRs (Gray) The Air Mobile Vehicles (yellow) typically used by the VDV are interesting, large numbers were lost in the opening weeks, then declined, the bump in Sep-Nov 22, was mostly the discovery of old losses when Ukrian recaptured a lot of territory. Their numbers looked like they were attenuating towards zero, but in the last 2 months, they have ticked up a bit. There is also a handful of other types, groped as 'Others' (light Blue) at the very top. For simplicity, I have left the 128 'unknown IFV/APC' off this graph, but they are becoming slightly more common.Image
4) Now looking at The BMP family in more detail, we see this, the only BMP in production is the BMP-3 (blue) its share has increased from about 15% a year ago to about 20% now. Only small numbers of BMP-1s were lost at the very start of the war, probably because not many were used, but that rapidly changed as Russia brought more to the front line, some transferred from the border force and riot police, as well as storage, but it peeked about July 23, and has declined notably since. However Aug and Sep 24, seem flat, so It's not clear if that decline has now stopped, or is just random. the BMP-2 has remained the most numbers type throughout, but there are now very few BMP-2s left in storage, so logically this will be the first to go into terminal decline. Possibly that's the point we are at now, but it's too early to say.Image
5) Next up are the wheeled BTRs, BTR means APC in English, however, the most common BTR is the BTR-82 (yellow), which has a bigger gun, silly less room for infantry, which either makes it an IFV or perhaps more accurately a Crossover APC-IFV. It's still in production some were made from old BTR-80s but it's not clear to me if that's still happening. The BTR 80s (orange) have been on a gradual decline since Oct 22, it is however sporadic, and they don't seem to be disappearing. The BTR-70 (and 60)(blue) are very old APCs, not thought to have been used when the war started, the few lost in the early war might have been LPR DPR militia rather than the regular Russian army, however, there are over 1,000 in storage, of which about 200 have recently been taken out of storage and perhaps the miner increase in the last 4 months is indication that they are now starting to get to the front line. Only 1 of the very very old BTR-60s has been lost so I have added it to the BTR-70s for simplicity.Image
6) Now on to the Air-mobile IFV/APCs, largely used by the Russian VDV, as a reminder these are the thin yellow strip in the original family graph. Image
7) Russia uses 4 Air-mobile Vehacales, all tracked and lightweight compared to other IFV/APC that in simple terms are:

BMD-2 Old IFV (orange)
BTR-D Old APC (yellow)
BMD-4 New IFV (blue)
BTR-MDM New APC (green)

The BMD-4 is still in production, and depending on reports the BTR-MDM might also be (but at low numbers)

Since the opening days, these types have not recovered losing over 200 in the first 3 months of fighting, almost as many as the next 28 months combined.

The BMD-2 does appear to be on the ascendancy in the last year going from 30% to 80%. it's not clear why, considering it's not in production and not many are in storage. considering that we are only talking small numbers, it might just be random, and/or rotation of units. There were however several hundred BMD-1s in storage so perhaps Russia has been upgrading them to BMD-2s, The BMD-2 is based on the BMD-1 so this might be possible but I don't know.

The decline of BMD-4s (and BTR-MDMs) showing up suggests to me that production of these types is very low, (possibly the plant is now prioritizing updating BMD1s to 2s?) but it could be that they are going to a reformed VDV unit, that's not in the fighting, or could just be random as the sample set is too small to tell.Image
8) Here is the data table I created based on the loss data by @WarSpotting and when I have referred to storage numbers it's based on satellite counts of IFV/APCs led by
@Jonpy99
Thank you both for making your data available, and I recommend following both. I do intend to create more of these graphs of APC/IFVs looking in more detail at a few things, the subvarants of many types. However, I recently lost all my previous tables, so I am having to recreate from a much earlier version, sorry for the delays in publishing that this is creating.Image

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More from @verekerrichard1

Apr 12
1) The very old Russian BRM-1(K) are still rare, but becoming more common amongst Russian Losses.

So what does this mean? 🧵 Image
2) They are still less than 2% of all Russian IFV/APC losses, but they are now over 20% of BMP-1 Based vehicles losses.

Note: I have left of the first couple of months of the war, as these months had a lot of LNR/DNR losses and were untypical. Image
3) So what is the BRD-1(K)? it is a soviet design reconsases vheale, based on the BMP-1. Built between 1973 and 1988, it had extra surveillance and communication equipment compared to the BMP-1 but less ammunition for its main gun, and didn't carry infantry.
Read 9 tweets
Apr 8
1) Russian IFV/APC types that are still IN PRODUCTION are becoming rarer. After a peek in November 2024, they have dropped below 20% for some reason. a short 🧵 Image
2) If we look at losses for the first week of April, they are down to just 2.2% of the total IFV/APC losses. I've added this week to the graph and posted here, but posting it in the second tweet in🧵so I'm not being too sensational. Image
3) There are 3 types known to be in production, the BMP-3,BMD-4 and BTR-82, plotting these losses against each other looks like this, the BMP-3 are a shrinking proportion of a shrinking pie. Image
Read 10 tweets
Mar 8
1) Ukrainian keeps destroying Russian Tanks, so I'm going to keep on making graphs and 🧵 of destroyed Russian tanks.

Russian T-80s recorded the highest proportion ever 54%, and T-72 recorded the smallest ever 22%. Image
2) The T-80s are the most significant type, so I will start with them. T-80U losses have been minimal for two years now, but there seems to be a relatively consistent rate of change to the Orb 2022 variants. If this continues, then all the old ones will be gone around Jul/Aug. Image
3) T-90 losses remain bout 7% of the total. So fr this quarter they have all been the T-90M variant.

I think 'most', by which I mean almost all of the 'New T-90Ms', have been upgraded T-90a, not new builds, for the last two years, and now they're out of T-90a. Image
Read 5 tweets
Feb 27
1) The makeup of Russian lost IFVs has shown a strange pattern recently. I don't know why, but the types still in production made up 25-30% of losses for most of the war, then that rose rapidly to about 40% in November, nd have now dropped to just 20%🧵 Image
2) By types still in production, I mean the IFV BMP-3, the air mobile IFV BMP-3 and the wheeled IFV/PC crossover BTR-82.

I have not included the BTR-MDM, as there are conflicting counts regarding whether it's in production, but with only 42 losses total it won't change the graph.
3) Between November and February, the number of tracked vs. wheeled losses has increased each year, which could explain some of the change. However, it's more pronounced this year. This shows up in the first graph of new-build vs. old, which did not last a few years. Image
Read 9 tweets
Feb 1
1) For the first time in two and a half years, Russia has not lost (Visually Confirmed) a single T-90 Tank for a whole month. (and only the second month of the war, after July 2022)

I think they are now very low on their best Main Battle Tank, in working condition. 🧵 Image
2) Overall, Russia is only visually confirmed to have lost 151 T-90s, but a portion of the 333 'Unknown Tanks' will also be T-90s, and others will have been lost and not photographed. At any point in time, there will be some damaged tanks that will need repairs. Image
3) Russia claimed to have made 60 T-90Ms in 2021; this number might be accurate, but I suspect it includes many upgrades from T-90As.

They also claim to have increased production to 18 a month. To achieve anything close to this, All (or almost all) will have been upgraded. Image
Read 6 tweets
Dec 20, 2024
1) Russian Visuly confirmed IFV/APC losses by type over the war.

It looks like 8-wheel BTR losses are a much smaller proportion of the total than usual, Reversing the trend of the last 10 months.

But this is almost certainly the mud season, 'Rasputitsa' and not a new trend. Image
2) I left December off the graphs and predicted a little differently. This showed what I think is the trend.

The top three IFV/APCs are still being made: BMP-3 (Dark Blue), BTR-82 (Green), and BMD-4M (Light Blue). However, the BTR-82 is increasing the most rapidly, suggesting it is being built in the largest numbers.

Meanwhile, the old BMP-1 and 2s (grey) are declining fastest, and MT-LBs are also declining more gradually, suggesting that supplies from the storage bases have decreased.Image
3) It might be that BMP-2s are now declining faster than BMP-1s, which makes sense because Russia would logically take the BMP-2s first, but this has only been 2 months, so it's too early to call a trend. Image
Read 4 tweets

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