Russia Tank Force: Present and Future (Numbers)

a better idea would be to look data on all russian army brigades and look photos...

cracker wrote:a better idea would be to look data on all russian army brigades and look photos...

I do check units and photos to confirm. It is a difficult job as a lot of planned or announced or reported changes don't occur. The other thing that I do is round the totals up per unit to allow spares. In the old Soviet army there was always an extra company (10 tanks) assigned per battalion for training and spares. I round up to 35 or 45 depending on the unit. A Tank brigade or regiment has a 3-company battalion or 31 tanks in total while a Motor Rifle brigade or regiment has a 4-company or 41 tanks in total. When the last 6 battalions switched to T-90A's, a total of 261 tanks were assigned initially or 43.5 tanks per battalion. I also attempt to determine how many were actually produced or are still in service to do a backwards count to confirm, ie 315 T-90A's reported delivered and I'm showing 7 battalions using = Bingo!
Another example is the T-80 tank. Back in 1992 there were 440 T-80U's split between the Russian and Kazakh's. Would assume that most went to the Russian army and it looks like the Kazakh's don't use them anymore. So it looks like there would be about 400 in Russian service. For the T-80BV's, I have seen figures both of 115 and 155 as being upgraded, so is that a total of 270 BV's or 115. I use a total of 150 as a safe compromise until I get better data. And of course there is still the factor of attrition.

franco wrote:
A good example of this would be the Armata MBT and how many are planned for by the end of 2020. Just on this site alone that is all over the place.

crossposting this to try to reduce confucius.

franco wrote:
- some expect to see 2300 modern Armata MBT.

https://www.russiadefence.net/t3691p30-official-armata-discussion-thread-2

Armata is expected to be given to the army in 2017. Per presidents orders the Armata MBT's production will roughly number in 2300 units, with productions running into year 2020. This is just the MBT numbers, not counting all the other new armor fighting vehicles and etc.

franco wrote:
- some look and say that would not be possible production wise, so they must mean a total 2300 of the Armata modular weapons platform.

pops up from time to time in searches, tho some use the term armata to refer to only the T-14. slightly more doable since more factories are working on different mission specific equipment in parallel, with the caveat that only two models are in the metal, and therefore can be tested which
can eat a year.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/armata.htm

About 2,300 Armatas were expected to be delivered to the military by 2020. But too many problems exist in the defense sector and in tank building specifically. There is little confidence, therefore, that plans for the new tank and its mass production will be translated into reality, at least not in the timeline announced. "Armata" is a project for development of a universal platform for the various armored vehicles, including tank support combat vehicle, and self-propelled artillery.

franco wrote:
- I read it and believe it means 2300 modern MBT's, which would be T-72B3, T-90A and Armata.

reading franco's earlier posts i kinda now believe this is more plausible. not to mention they just recently decided to modernize the T-72B3 and T-90A so that should fudge the rest.

GarryB wrote:

- I read it and believe it means 2300 modern MBT's, which would be T-72B3, T-90A and Armata.

How many actual MBTs in a tank or motor rifle division?

Say about 30 in a motor rifle division and 90 in a tank division?

The more important question is... how many other types of vehicles in each division?

Because in an Armata tank division... 90 are MBTs... ie T-14s, but there will also be T-15s and other armata based vehicles... that is a lot of vehicles to produce... just to make each armata div.

A Tank Battalion in a Tank Brigade or Regiment has 31 tanks. Or 3 companies of 10 tanks plus the CO's tank. A Tank Battalion in a Motor Rifle Brigade or Regiment has 41 tanks. Or 4 companies of 10 plus the CO's tank. Round them up to 35 and 45 to allow spares (old Red Army carried 10 per unit as spares)
There are 5 Tank Regiments or Brigades (94 each) and about 40 Motor Rifle / Coastal Defense / Machine Gun Brigades and Regiments (41 each). Plus another 10 or so Tank Battalions in the Training Units.
A MT-LBV based brigade would have almost 300 armored vehicles including APC's, tanks, artillery, air defense, reconnaissance, engineer, C3 and support.

George1 wrote:On the border with Ukraine will be restored 10th Guards Tank Division

Curious as to where all the bodies are coming from for all these new units but imagine we will soon find out.

franco wrote:

George1 wrote:On the border with Ukraine will be restored 10th Guards Tank Division

Curious as to where all the bodies are coming from for all these new units but imagine we will soon find out.

Conscripts should be higher now that Russia managed to make half of its army contract based rather than mostly conscript like it was years ago.

sepheronx wrote:

franco wrote:

George1 wrote:On the border with Ukraine will be restored 10th Guards Tank Division

Curious as to where all the bodies are coming from for all these new units but imagine we will soon find out.

Conscripts should be higher now that Russia managed to make half of its army contract based rather than mostly conscript like it was years ago.

The demographic crisis that Russia was experiencing peaks as in regards to lack of 18 year old's to conscript in 2016-2018. It isn't until after then, that there starts to be more 18 year old's each year.

franco wrote:

sepheronx wrote:

franco wrote:

George1 wrote:On the border with Ukraine will be restored 10th Guards Tank Division

Curious as to where all the bodies are coming from for all these new units but imagine we will soon find out.

Conscripts should be higher now that Russia managed to make half of its army contract based rather than mostly conscript like it was years ago.

The demographic crisis that Russia was experiencing peaks as in regards to lack of 18 year old's to conscript in 2016-2018. It isn't until after then, that there starts to be more 18 year old's each year.

That is true, it will take a couple of years for them to have the amount of 18 year olds eligible for military service. But while previously, almost all 800,000 people were conscripts, it is now effectively almost half a million for both conscripts and contractors, as they were able to offshoot a lot of the tasks/positions to contractors. But if they were able to increase number of contractors as greatly as they have, I don't doubt they could easily muster up a couple more hundred thousand conscripts. Afterall, Russia is 146+ Million population, now added in Crimea as well.

The 10th Gds Tank Division is suppose to be staffed with contractors

Another analysis of the Russian Tank force and projections;
https://russiamil.wordpress.com/

Talks about the current state of the Russian economy and its effect on the future prospects of Armata, T-90AM & T-72B3.

BKP wrote:Talks about the current state of the Russian economy and its effect on the future prospects of Armata, T-90AM & T-72B3.

Well Uralvagonzavod with German accent and statements that  T-90 is  worse then ukropskie tanki., I guess no more laugh this morning needed

BTW authors might maybe can check facts how many "oplots"  were delivered to Thailand for for years? 10! then is real danger for Russia export!

and yesss till 2025 400 max. Damn next undisputed expertize?

^ You think that's a German accent? I thought more like an ESL person who learned English in South England. Anyhow, her accent is weird, and difficult for me to understand sometimes.

Regarding what was said in the video, I'm not no expert, but some of this seemed questionable. She says something like "T-90 is becoming rapidly outdated," and is basically being outclassed by Uke Oplot and Chinese Type 96A. Then it's claimed that this is the reason why Thailand chose Oplot over the T-90. I didn't personally follow the details of that deal, and am not familiar with the details and what factors played into Thailand's decision.

Anyhow, I've generally thought South Front is a pretty good alternative news source, but I'm quite dubious about some of what is said in this video.

BKP wrote: Regarding what was said in the video, I'm not no expert, but some of this seemed questionable. She says something like "T-90 is becoming rapidly outdated," and is basically being outclassed by Uke Oplot and Chinese Type 96A. Then it's claimed that this is the reason why Thailand chose Oplot over the T-90. I didn't personally follow the details of that deal, and am not familiar with the details and what factors played into Thailand's decision.

Anyhow, I've generally thought South Front is a pretty good alternative news source, but I'm quite dubious about some of what is said in this video.

Pls do not take this personally I was pointing their way of presenting data.  BTW Thai delegation afte evident failure of Ukraine contract visited Moscow to negotiate possible contract what was not mentioned in this news.


BTW 400 Armatas in 2015 is base don what exactly - no info/source provided so I cannot treat this kind of news otherwise as anti-Russian info war.

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

BKP wrote: Regarding what was said in the video, I'm not no expert, but some of this seemed questionable. She says something like "T-90 is becoming rapidly outdated," and is basically being outclassed by Uke Oplot and Chinese Type 96A. Then it's claimed that this is the reason why Thailand chose Oplot over the T-90. I didn't personally follow the details of that deal, and am not familiar with the details and what factors played into Thailand's decision.

Anyhow, I've generally thought South Front is a pretty good alternative news source, but I'm quite dubious about some of what is said in this video.

Pls do not take this personally I was pointing their way of presenting data.  BTW Thai delegation afte evident failure of Ukraine contract visited Moscow to negotiate possible contract what was not mentioned in this news.


BTW 400 Armatas in 2015 is base don what exactly - no info/source provided so I cannot treat this kind of news otherwise as anti-Russian info war.

Right, I have read they the Thais are possibly negotiating a deal with Russia now that the original one with Ukraine has soured. Of course, there's the question of why the Thais first picked Oplot over T-90. It's quite possible that other factors played into their decision other than simply which is the better machine. Cost and outside pressure come to mind. As I said though, I don't really know.

South Front is certainly not typically anti-Russia. I'm not at all sure that this video was intended to be either. Could just be that they didn't have their facts straight on this.

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

BKP wrote: Regarding what was said in the video, I'm not no expert, but some of this seemed questionable. She says something like "T-90 is becoming rapidly outdated," and is basically being outclassed by Uke Oplot and Chinese Type 96A. Then it's claimed that this is the reason why Thailand chose Oplot over the T-90. I didn't personally follow the details of that deal, and am not familiar with the details and what factors played into Thailand's decision.

Anyhow, I've generally thought South Front is a pretty good alternative news source, but I'm quite dubious about some of what is said in this video.

Pls do not take this personally I was pointing their way of presenting data.  BTW Thai delegation afte evident failure of Ukraine contract visited Moscow to negotiate possible contract what was not mentioned in this news.


BTW 400 Armatas in 2015 is base don what exactly - no info/source provided so I cannot treat this kind of news otherwise as anti-Russian info war.

400 T-14 not Armata's. Armata is the modular hull which can be produced in high numbers and before the tank was even unveiled they had produced more than 7 tanks not to mention how many testplattforms they might have. 2300 Armata's does not mean T-14 but all the various plattforms and 400 T-14 is already 400 more tanks which no other nation has of that level.

Guys, the plan is for 2,000 T-14's.

Their numbers are off;
A) There are almost already 1,000 B3's today, in fact they should be all replaced by T-14's at that point.
B) 400 T-14's is probably made up. Even with economic insecurity that figure is way too low.
C) More like 300 T-90M's from what we are hearing.

400 is what Russia can produce each year currently. Anyone with doubts that 2000 will be built in 10 years needs to
put the crack pipe down. The Russian budget deficit is 2.6% of GDP in the middle of this global recession. Brazil's
budget deficit is 10% of GDP. It is rather easy for the Russian government to prioritize military spending. The 5th
column has no traction with the Russian people in using this to generate discontent. Russians know that their military
is their only safeguard. They have too many dead in their families from historically recent genocidal foreign invasions
not to know this.

It actually makes sense to make more T-14s rather than less. There are economies of scale associated with mass production.

The Russian deficit is no worse GDP-% wise than the "official" US deficit (which of course is BS - debt shoots up and the deficit falls down).

400 annually is optimistic. 200-300 shouldn't be an issue given the amount of funding given to the Armata program.

Also since Uralvagonzavod is Russian, supporting them by buying their product will save them the money in the future in supporting them by handing them money so they don't make over 10,000 employees unemployed and have one of the few if not only armored system companies go into dust and have to then get the same goods from abroad. People are retarded when they cannot seem to even put this information together. Once you think about it, then it sounds dumb to make ridiculous cutbacks.

Anyway, I think that the T-90AM upgrade is needed. If they can provide similar upgrade to T-72B's in service, then it would be even more ideal. Let us face it, things are getting sketchy in the world and as well, Russia would benefit from actually procuring such weapons and it would drastically increase the chances of other countries buying it as well for new purchases or upgrades to current T-90 tanks.

That as well. The Gov's support for UVZ was proven (again) when they gave additional funding this last December.

Kind of unrelated, but apparent ChTZ has paid off debts & plans to increase production by 2.5 times in the not too far future.

T-90M is not need IF T-14 can be put into service at the promised rates. If it can't, then the M would be a good substitute.

T-72B's won't be getting any upgrades past the new one we just heard about, at least for Russia. There'd be no point.

T-90AM would be more viable if the T-90A existed in greater stocks, with numbers closer to the T-72... But they don't so it isn't.

I hate to sound whiny but it is the T-90M not the AM. That's the way it was shown at Army-2015 so it's most likely official.

The lower numbers are exactly why it is viable. Asking Russia to build 2,000 T-14's and some 1,000 M's (not to mention other vehicles and exports) is simply unrealistic.

Don't forget the T-72B2, it was thrown out because it was too much.