1/ Time for the last thread on individual updates of Central Tank Reserve Bases: this time the 2544th🧵
2/ First, let's look at the evolution of stored equipment here over the last years:
3/ As you can see, this base has an interesting mix of equipment, from T-62s to BMD-2s.
4/ It has changed a lot over the years. As with almost every other base, the trend has been downwards, tho there was a sudden spike in summer 2022, probably as this base was on the way from Far Eastern bases to the frontline in Ukraine.
5/ Among the tanks, there are even some T-34s, as @HighMarsed discovered:
6/ Almost 50% of the prewar tank stockpile is gone from here, and most of the remaining stuff looks pretty rough. As usual everywhere by now, to be fair.
7/ And on top of that, the ones within the yellow circle are ARVs, probably BTS-4s. They've been at the 2544th since before the war, tho moved around the base since 2022.
8/ So it's mostly old T-62s and T-72As/Urals by now, and most of them probably cannibalized inside.
9/ Regarding other AFVs, it's most intereting to look at the BTR-70s. You can see that for the past year they suddenly started pulling them out en masse.
10/ Fits with everything we've seen so far. They'll probably be entirely gone in a year at most.
11/ And something similar happens with BMDs. The 2544th was the only major BMD storage base, and we've seen them steadily pull out BMD-1/2/3s and BTR-Ds either to make up losses or to refurbish them and then replenish losses.
12/ Once again, they'll probably be gone by 2025, and specially with the recent huge BMD-2 losses in Kursk after VDV formations were sent to assault Ukrainian positions there.
13/ There were also what I think are 10 BTR-50s here, of which just 6 are left by now. However, they might just be BMD-3s. Who knows.
14/ Finally, BMPs. As with tanks, a steady rate of removal with a temporal spike in stored equipment in summer 2022 due to the dynamics of replenishing frontline units.
15/ There's still more than half of the prewar inventory left, and I think that's because msot BMPs left here are thoroughly cannibalized on the inside. Like these, which haven't been moved for years past the initial examination when the war started.
16/ So I think next year we'll probably see this base depleted of T-62s, BTRs and BMDs, but the rest will probably remain here except the small quantities removed once in a while.
17/ Everything else looks in bad condition, even if the hulls are mostly intact. Total lack of movement and rusty paint are good indicators.
18/ A few more interesting points in line with every other base I have covered. First: the scrapyard. Again, picked up almost entirely clean.
19/ Even these old scrapped tank hulls were mostly removed by 2023, and completely by 2024.
20/ And the only remaining shed in the base is half ruined and let us see the inside. Possibly some tanks stored within, tho hard to tell.
21/ The rest of buildings are administrative offices and repair workshops, so no equipment should be expected to be stored inside those.
22/ Do check @CovertCabal's video on the total tank count. Also note that I'm not an expert on tank IDs, so his and @HighMarsed's numbers will be added to the sheet ASAP.
23/ And with this we have officially concluded the review of individual storage bases! Next big thread will be BTRZs, then another thread with summary, conclusions and predicitions for 2025 and finally one small thread reviewing the state of Russian active units bases.
24/ You probably noticed that I recounted equipment year by year for this base. I'm planning to do the same for absolutely every base so that we can have a year by year basis of how much stored equipment Russia demothballed for their war needs, tho that's a 2025 project.
25/ Finally, big thanks to Covert and HighMarsed and to everyone else like @waffentraeger, @Ath3neN0ctu4, @AS_22im, @hizzo_jay, @UAControlMap and many more!
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1/ Sort 🧵about the 6018th: while there's still no new decent footage of this major storage base, a closer look at a recent update on Copernicus (Sentinel-2) appears to show a lot of naked ground on the spot where there used to be a lot of the remaining (poorly conserved) armor.
2/ After mostly emptying out the 6018th earlier in the war, in recent times they've come back to pick up the remains.
3/ I previously speculated that these base probably has seen, at the vary least, most or all of their remaining rusty T-80s and better preserved BMP-1/2/3s taken in recent months. We'll just have to wait until better proof of it.
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.