Just BeCause Profile picture
Oct 9, 2024 13 tweets 5 min read Read on X
A thread on a German storage base and facility for dismantling tanks and IFVs. Has anything changed since the beginning of the war in Ukraine? Let’s find out!

Disclaimer: this thread contains sensitive content for German vatniks.

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Let’s start with what this is all about. The Koch Battle Tank Dismantling firm is located in the village of Rockensußra. The company specializes in dismantling battle tanks and armored vehicles from the German armed forces and others.

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For years, tanks and infantry fighting vehicles came here to die... But no more! New satellite imagery shows that things have changed.

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The facility's infrastructure has expanded significantly since the Russian invasion. We can see several new buildings, which were definitely not built to kill Marder IFVs and Leopard 1 tanks faster than before.

4/12
Let’s take a closer look. The facility is working with Marder IFVs, Gepard SPAAGs, Leopard 1s, and other vehicles based on these tanks. You’ll find rows of old Gepards that have been here for years, alongside 'fresh' Marders and Gepards under blue tarps.

5/12
You can see some pictures of this section taken by locals—or possibly Russian assets… I think it's a mix of both.

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The central part of the facility is much busier than before, swamped with dismantled Leopard 1 tanks, Marder IFVs, engines, turrets, and other parts.

7/12
The main new building is around 4,600 square meters. By my estimate, a vehicle may need around 650 square meters for repair and maintenance. So, this facility could host about 8-10 vehicles at a time, with enough space for equipment and maneuvering.

8/12
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Maybe it’s just a large storage facility? Probably, but I think that’s highly unlikely. Plus, we have a few garages for storage and some outside shelters for vehicles.

9/12
Overall, I spotted:

- 100+ Gepard SPAAGs
- 130+ Marder IFVs
- 90+ Leopard 1 tanks (and some other vehicles based on the Leopard 1)

10/12
In conclusion, I want to address a special kind of people out there: everything I post here is open source, and no, I do not disclose anything secret. Moreover, swarms of Russian assets in Germany have a front-row view of everything going on there.

11/12
So yes, the German military-industrial complex is stepping up to meet the demand on the battlefield in Ukraine. Maybe European countries have finally played enough with the 'guns are bad' thing... Germans are among the greatest engineers in the world for f sake.

12/12
And one last irrelevant thing: if you have any questions, feel free to write me a direct message. I don’t reply to questions in the thread, not because I’m ignorant and ignore everyone, but because I just don’t have much time for rereading everything. Alla prossima!

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More from @a_from_s

Nov 21, 2024
1/ And I’m back with another thread! A lot of people have been asking: Could Europe arm Ukrainian units without U.S. support? To answer, I’ve analyzed the largest European storage bases—and here’s what I found. Image
2/ Important note: All the storage sites mentioned here are publicly known, widely discussed, and covered in media reports. Nothing in this thread reveals classified or sensitive information.
3/ Let’s start with Germany. You’ve probably heard about a company formerly known as an armored vehicles dismantling facility in Rockensußra.
Read 25 tweets
Nov 11, 2024
1/ And I’m back with another thread. If you’re following research on Russian losses and storage bases, this one is probably one of the most important, as I see a lot of misconceptions people have. So let’s roll. Image
2/ "Did Russia run out of things? Will they? When? Why hasn’t Russia run out yet?" — these are the most common questions, and I’ll try to answer them.
3/ First, a quick recap. The Russian invasion stalled in the North in 2022, followed by two successful Ukrainian counteroffensives and a failed Russian offensive by 2023, resulting in major Russian equipment losses. Image
Read 23 tweets
Nov 5, 2024
1/ As stated by the media, only 30% of the shells Russia is currently using are manufactured domestically. If this is accurate, Russian Soviet-era ammo arsenals should be empty by now. To prove or refute this claim, I’ve reviewed Russian arsenals, and here are my observations. Image
2/ Reported Russian shell usage ranged from 50,000 to 10,000 per day in Spring 2024. Given the numerous ammo dumps destroyed in 2022 following the deployment of HIMARS, the sheer number of shells used is enormous, which should have strained the Soviet-era ammunition supply.
3/ According to The Insider, Russia has been refurbishing and producing 1.7 million shells annually since 2014, totaling at least 13.6 million shells, along with an unknown quantity of older shells that needed refurbishing due to their age by 2022. theins.ru/politika/254514
Read 25 tweets
Oct 30, 2024
1/ Russian BMP refurbishment rate has peaked and is now slowing down. In today’s thread, we’ll explore repair plants and major BMP storage bases to uncover some trends. Image
2/ First, let’s look at how many BMPs were taken from storage. Referring to Jompy’s spreadsheet on BMP-1/2/3: by mid-2024, 2,565 vehicles were taken from storage. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
3/ These 2.5K units include almost all BMP-2/3s that were in storage and the best of the BMP-1s. Around 3,744 remain, with approximately 400 being PRPs and around 3.3K BMP-1s.
Read 24 tweets
Oct 25, 2024
1/ From storage base to battlefield: Part 2. Back with another thread on T-80s tanks in Russian storage. This time, I’ll dig deeper into what’s been missed and what’s been scrapped. Grab a coffe before reading! :) Image
2/ The main question is: how many T-80s were actually in storage? You might’ve heard about 3,000 T-80s stored, but let’s dig deeper to find them. I recommend reading part one of the research before continuing here.
Image
3/ Tracking T-80s wasn’t easy due to changes between 2009-2015. Initially, they cut their military and essentially said, “Forget T-80s; we’re sticking with T-72s and T-90s.” But by 2013-2014, with Ukraine’s revolution, T-80s returned to service as new units formed for an invasion Image
Read 25 tweets
Oct 17, 2024
1/ From storage base to the battlefield - I’m back with a big research/investigation on Russian T-80 tanks. I’ve tracked the movement of these tanks and am going to uncover refurbishment rates and look closely at storage bases for more insights. Grab a coffee before we start :) Image
2/ I’ll start with refurbishment at the Omsktransmash plant in chronological order to understand what’s been going on there. So, in the summer of 2022, Russian cowboy moves in northern Ukraine didn’t go as planned, and it became clear that the sprint had turned into a marathon.
3/ So, they started preparing for mass refurbishment of old equipment. There are two repair plants specializing in T-80s - 61 BTRZ and Omsktransmash. The 61st was actually the main T-80 refurbishment facility and had a lot of T-80s in its own storage… Image
Read 44 tweets

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