T-90 Main Battle Tank #2

Regarding the tank production, Mercouris quotes the number 20 pear month at UVZ. I don't buy this number. It is some sort of
rehash of the production numbers over the last 20 years. Even Mercouris himself has pointed out that Russian military production
capacity is idled instead of shut down. So the production capacity for much higher production is there and it is obviously being
used today.

I don't see where there would be a bottleneck for tank production. It is not like car production but it is still an assembly line that
has sufficient depth to have on the order of 10 starts per day. Not 0.67 per day.

20-25 monthly (annual 240-300) would have been the production rate for the past few years. Going to 3 shifts should allow it to raise to 50-60 per month once all is up and running properly.

The 10 plants that I mentioned prior should be capable of production rates of 300-375 new and rebuilt per month when going full.

60 per month means 2 starts per day. That is unreasonably small.

It is an assembly line, aka pipeline, so the time per assembly stage is not relevant. There is no parts bottleneck that would
limit tank starts to 2 per day.

Compare to

https://www.motortrend.com/news/the-15-top-producing-american-car-plants-151801/

Before anyone starts going off on the comparison, the point is that the UVZ plant is not 1/1000 the capacity of these
automobile plants. A simple inspection of the the plant itself proves this. It does not depend on the time to produce
a single vehicle but the number of starts per day. The numbers being thrown around for Russian tank production sound
as if Russians are hand making their tanks in every component. Do they have some workers hammering out the sheet metal?

The peace time production number is not a valid reference point. WWII T-34 production is more relevant. The USSR
had the production capacity deployed and Russia has not lost 99.99% of it.

Post kvs Today at 7:10 pm
60 per month means 2 starts per day. That is unreasonably small.

You don't analyze the number.
That would be 720 a year, in this one sole factory.
Number unimaginable for the western MIC, all combined.
Nobody produces tanks in NATO anymore.
I guess that the last NATO made tanks were Polish PT-91M delivered to Malesia in 2010, with an overall atmosphere of scandal.
Everything after the date is a continuous loop of refurbishing, at a ridiculously slow rate.

Nobody produces tanks in NATO anymore.

The Leopard 2 factory in Greece is still operating

Not at all.
KMW was in talks with METKA about "co-producing", but the whole story is to make some localization of Greece modernization program.
But the thing is not a deal yet.
We do the same in Poland.

"In response to WELT's question, KMW essentially confirmed the talks with METKA, but did not provide further details," the report added.

A terse statement from the Munich-based armaments group said only that "discussions concern the Leopard 1A5 and Leopard 2 while plans to produce the tanks steel hull are under discussion."

"However, there are no plans to create new Leopard production units or even to relocate production units from Germany to Greece," the statement said.

The only whole new tanks made in US aligned countries are the South Korean K2 and the Japanese Type 10.
The K2 is produced at a rate of like 50 tanks a year. The Japanese Type 10 is produced in homeopathic quantities. In almost 10 years of production they produced a little over 100 tanks. The Japanese produce like a dozen tanks a year.

Japan doesn't need tanks. They need ships and they make them way faster than Russia which doesn't really need ships but needs tank and they make tanks way faster than Japan.

It's all about priorities and where you put your money on.

lancelot wrote:The only whole new tanks made in US aligned countries are the South Korean K2 and the Japanese Type 10.
The K2 is produced at a rate of like 50 tanks a year. The Japanese Type 10 is produced in homeopathic quantities. In almost 10 years of production they produced a little over 100 tanks. The Japanese produce like a dozen tanks a year.

Not to mention that those tanks are massively under armoured and lack any real protection arc.

Isos wrote:Japan doesn't need tanks. They need ships and they make them way faster than Russia which doesn't really need ships but needs tank and they make tanks way faster than Japan.

It's all about priorities and where you put your money on.

Those ships can be put on the bottom in short order by the Russian or Chinese airforces or submarines and would be of little to no value against either nation. If Japan needs anything it is an IADS and their air defence is poor even by nato standards.

Plus the T-80BVM's out of Omsk and the T-62M's from Atamanovka then you are pushing 1,000 tanks a year.

Yup.
And there are much more factories where they can not only produce new tanks if needed but refurbish the existing warehouse stocks at comfort rate.
Let's be serious, the UVZ lines are far from doing 120%. I would say it looks like a lazy Sunday.
All of that is being supplied by the reborn heavy industry powered by natural resources they have unlimited numbers for cheap.
Each day increases the Russian output.
Donbas rises from the ashes.
With its coal, steel and chemical industries big enough to outmatch half of Europe, combined.
With its people, hungry for revenge.

Who is going to supply the steel of the required parameters to KMV?
They are in the process of cooling down the smelters due to gas prices.
Yeah, sure, it is politics that can force them to ignite them again, yet ... for what cost?
There is a shortage of gas, worldwide.
Go electric? Sure. Requires billions invested in changing the whole technology.
And where is the electricity to heat them? In switched off nuclear NPPs?

This whole thing is getting more and more interesting to observe, as there is not a single chance that it happens accidentally.
One of the things? OK.
Two? Coincidence.
Three? Conspiracy.


It is like reversing the cold war arms race effects.
The collective west is in a position, where if they are supposed to match the Russkie output, they need to pay an enormous price for that.
A price that will simply force them to reshape all the budget, everything.
How is that supposed to happen, when they run at deficit spending for decades?
Who will absorb the newly emitted debts?
So far, there were the Chinese, Saudis, Russkie who invested heavily in debt papers of the west.
Now it is a joke, everybody who can sell it  as fast as it is possible.
Even if a  miracle will happen, and they will cover the deficit somehow, the prices will be ten times higher than in Russia.
All that spending will blow the inflation balloon.

Edit : literally as we speak :

Eisenwerk Verlag GmbH claimed banqrupcy.

It is the oldest business in Sachsen, running since 1380 (!!!!) in metallurgy. Cause: gas prices.

Most of the documented engagements prove the old truth the western wankers could not understand like forever.
European war theatre has nothing in common with the desert storm-like war.
Tank fights are carried head-on, with several hundred-meter distances, and the terrain and infrastructure make long-range engagements sporadic. You can aim with a more considerable precision if you only have enough time to do so.
Another part of a story is that those lessons are provided to AT crews who operate individual squad level weapon, that will be used with few dozens of meters distance, and sure it can be aimed fire.

I remember in the 80s and 90s the west boasting about the performance of their tank guns and their sophisticated optics and that the Soviets developed tank gun launched missiles because their inferior tank gun technology and their poor ammo etc etc.

The thing is that those tank gun fired missiles mostly went to their T-55s and T-62s in their upgraded versions to extend their effective range to 5km or so.

With a HEAT round most of the time they leave the barrel of even the most powerful tank gun at just under 1km per second which means when fired at targets 5km away it takes a bare minimum of about 7 seconds for them to reach their target at 5km range, which means a fast moving target would require quite a lead and if that vehicle happened to change direction or speed or both at the moment you fire there is a good chance you will miss completely no matter how accurate your gun and ammo is.

The purpose of the missiles was to allow manouvering targets to be engaged at 5km range, which even the most accurate western tank guns cannot do with conventional shells... the lead anticipates where the target will be but an eratically manouvering target that changes direction and speed cannot be hit with such a predictive system... the only chance of assuring a hit is to be able to change the trajectory of the round as it is on its way to the target... it does not need to loop the loop and dogfight the target... most of the time a turn of a degree or two is enough to stay on target and get the hit.

Ironically it was only a few decades before that the west found out the T-62 had a 115mm smoothbore gun and they claimed it would be inaccurate and useless... despite the two primary anti tank rounds of the time... APFSDS and HEAT-FS both using fin stabilisation and not engaging the rifling on western tanks that fired them... making them smoothbore made them lighter and cheaper and allowed higher velocities to be achieved and also made them easier to clean and easier to make.

World record direct tank engagement?

Holly Mary, just take a look at that beast