Russia loses about 150 tanks a month, while war industry is ten times too slow to make up for those losses | War Ukraine and Russia

During World War II, German forces destroyed Soviet tanks at a phenomenal rate. But even though the Red Army lost 80,000 tanks, the Soviet Union was able to end the war with more tanks than at the start of the conflict.

The current tanks are much more advanced and more expensive, and are therefore deployed in much smaller numbers. Since the beginning of the invasion, the Russian army has already lost some 1,779 main battle tanks, according to the open source intelligence platform Oryx. That equates to a loss of 150 tanks per month.

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Russia will have to rebuild its own tank arsenal if it wants to keep occupied territory. But how quickly can it replace its lost tanks this time? Certainly not as fast as in Soviet times, it turns out.

During World War II, Soviet factories were able to produce more than 1,000 tanks per month. Factories that made engines had to build tanks instead. Nowadays it is much more difficult to increase production, know ‘The Economist‘. The electronics in modern tanks are very sophisticated. This slows down production and makes it more difficult for many factories that make other products to switch to main battle tank production. In addition, Russia is facing a major shortage of components such as semiconductors and computer chips.

Russia currently has only one tank factory: UralVagonZavod, a huge complex that was started in the 1930s. But financial mismanagement and massive debts have slowed the modernization of the world’s largest tank factory. Workers now joke that they have to assemble tanks by hand. According to the Russian newspaper ‘Novaya Gazeta’, the factory can only make 20 a month. A Western official has told The Economist that the Russian military’s total demand for tanks outstrips production by a factor of ten.

In addition, UralVagonZavod repairs about eight tanks a month, and three other armored vehicle repair plants each repair about 17, according to Russian media. Two more factories of similar size will be started up in the coming months.

This means that while Russia can only build 20 new tanks a month, it may soon be able to deploy some 90 a month from its old stockpiles. However, that wouldn’t make up for the estimated 150 the country loses each month, according to Oryx’s analysis.

But Ukraine and its Western allies are also facing problems and are unable to produce tanks quickly. Ukraine’s only tank factory, near Kharkiv, was destroyed early in the war.

The United States has promised to send 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, but the country has one factory, with the capacity to make 15 tanks per month. Production elsewhere in the West is also slow, so people are looking for old tanks to donate. But in general attacking troops use more tanks than defending troops. As the conflict continues, Russia is likely to see its “tank fleet” decline both quantitatively and qualitatively. And this time, production may not make it.

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