Russia made quite a song and dance recently about a shipment of new T-90M tanks to the front line – literally, with state television showing a cheering crowd of two thousand factory workers, performances by singer turned politician Denis Maydanov and rock group Zemlyane, plus a blessing for the hardware by an Orthodox priest.
It was a big celebration for a modest delivery of new hardware. A close look at what is being delivered suggests an attempt to gloss over the true state of Russia’s tank production.
Making ‘Breakthroughs’
The vast majority of ‘new’ Russian armor going forward to replace losses consists of decades-old old tanks hauled out of storage. These are reconditioned and, in theory, brought up to modern standards by BTRZ repair and refurbishment plants. The results are less than impressive and no match for current models like the Abrams and Challenger 2. There is one Russian factory capable of building new tanks though, and it is the proud boast of the UralVagonZavod (“Ural Railway Car Plant”) that they make the brand-new T-90M Proryv (“Breakthrough”) , Russia’s premier war machine.
“It can be said today that the T-90M Proryv is the world’s best tank,” President Putin stated in a recent speech quoted by TASS. “As soon as it approaches positions, no chance is left for anyone or anything. It fires to a longer range and more accurately. It also has better protection.”
The reality is different. A T-90M was famously shot to pieces in a close-range encounter with an M2 Bradley, the heavily outgunned Bradley pouring rapid and accurate fire on to the Russian tank and disabling it before the Russians could get in a shot. The T-90M was later destroyed by an FPV kamikaze drone.
Many other T-90Ms have fallen victim to small drones. Its protection, superior though it might be in Putin’s eyes, appears inadequate and the Russians have resorted to increasingly elaborate improvised roof protection, culminating in this one with add-on armor resembling a wedding cake which did not prevent it from being halted by a mine, then destroyed by an FPV.
Inadequate or not, the T-90M is the best Russia has, with better firepower, armor, communications and sensors than anything else. As the tank graveyards empty out, Russia will increasingly need new production to keep the war effort going.
And while there has been massive investment in the defense sector, which now takes up 7.5% of GDP it does not always deliver.
Putin’s Favorite Factory
Putin visited UVZ in February, and images of the event gave the impression of a busy factory floor crowded with vehicles. Looking closer though, these were mainly old T-72s being refurbished with no more than five T-90Ms in any one shot.
The latest video is a high profile way of showing that Russia really is producing new tanks. But how many? There may appear to be a lot of tanks, but when the tanks on flatbeds roll past Denis Maydanov, the camera cuts away when only three have passed. Camera angles are carefully chosen, but the maximum seen in one shot is eleven.
The last time UVZ announced a delivery of tanks was in December, when TASS claimed it delivered 15 new T-90Ms but there were no pictures to support this. Shipments appear to be made quarterly, each with 10-15 vehicles in each batch. The video accompanying the shipment last September showed just three T-90Ms. According to one OSINT tank counter, Russia delivered 44 new T-90Ms in 2023. With 11 delivered so far in 2024, that number does not seem set to rise.
This is still a rise on pre-war production. Analyst Sergio Miller, writing for the journal Wavell Room, notes that the first 2017 contract was only for 30 T-90Ms, of which just 10 were new builds, the rest being upgraded from earlier T-90As. He counts 56 confirmed deliveries up to August 2021 over four years.
44 new tanks a year is better than nothing, but there is also a real question about whether these are new tanks at all.
Is Russia Building Tanks. Or Just Rebuilding Them?
Russia previously fielded an earlier version of the T-90, known as the T-90A. In theory there are a few hundred T-90As in service, but the assiduous OSINT community which tracks Russian losses has noted an almost complete lack of T-90As in Ukraine after the early days of the invasion. Where did all the T-90As go?
One popular theory is that the T-90As have been mainly withdrawn to be upgraded to T-90Ms. The first batch of T-90Ms were made by upgrading T-90As. Since then UVZ says it has been building them from scratch, but there are reasons to doubt this. Sharp-eyed OSINT analysts spotted what looks to be a T-90M sporting an old 2A46M gun rather than the newer 2A46M-5, and missing other elements of equipment. Others have noticed T-90Ms appearing with no wind sensor, which again makes them look like partly-upgrades T-90As.
This tends to reinforce the view that the ‘new’ T-90Ms are not so new.
One obvious reason for this is the problem of Russia’s steel industry. During the rationalization process in the 2000s, Russia closed many stee-making facilities. In 2018 they shut down the last open-hearth furnace, a type needed to make high-grade specialty steel. Ukrainian sources claim Russia is no longer able to manufacture equipment requiring high-strength steel which includes crucial items like artillery receivers and barrels.
Russia may have something like 200 T-90As which can be remanufactured to T-90M standard. But with almost 2,800 tanks lost so far, there will not be nearly enough to make up losses. Russia will not ‘run out’ of tanks as long as UVZ is sending vehicles, but their numbers on the frontline are likely to dwindle steadily. And no amount of showbiz razzamatazz will hide that.
Read the full article here