How Long Does Russia Have Left? Number of Tanks, Each Type, and Their Decline This Year 

Thanks to HelloFresh for sponsoring today's video. Go to strms.net/hellofresh_covertcabal, use my code POGCOVERTOCT16 and get 16 free meals plus free shipping! Offer is for new subscriptions only. Varies by plan across 9 boxes.

I still can't get over the fact that youtubers are renting spy satellites to analyze military losses. What a time to be alive. Great video as always.

A grocery delivery service is funding intelligence that could be considered top secret some ~40 years ago. What a time to be alive.

It's not the loss of tanks that is hurting Russia. It's the loss of experienced tank crews. Japan didn't have a shortage of fighter aircraft in the last year of WW2, but they had a severe shortage of pilots that had more training than just how to take off.

T-55 repair checklist: Pipe wrench - check; 2kg sledge hammer - check; large roll duc tape -check; accordian+operator -check

One very important fact that wasn't mentioned is that the tanks which haven't decreased significantly all use 125mm ammunition. However, the T-62 has a 115mm gun and the T-55 a 100mm gun. If 125mm ammunition is in short supply, that could explain why the T-62s and T-55s are being used.

It's unbelievable how many tanks they built during the cold war

I worked in a scrapyard parting out bulldozers and you can say half are so past it they haven’t even got good parts to take off. The sheds I would expect to be used for boxed parts. So, a crate with an engine, a crate with radios, crate with a breach block and so on.

I recently read that the US has about 8000 Abrams, but inly 980 of them are currently in service, so the rest of them are in storage. Ive been to one of the storage sites in Barstow California, I suspect many of our storage sites are similar. I noticed that we tend to store our equipment outside as well as the russians, but in the desert where it rarely rains. I saw vehicles in various states of readiness, but many of them looked okay, and sensitive parts were covered with white plastic to prevent sun damage. These russian storage sites appear to be in green areas, places where it rains a lot. So I imagine these russian tanks are rusting pretty badly, especially if they're stored there for years and decades, the ground pictures also seem to suggest they do little if anything to preserve the tanks in storage. I suspect the US, despite having far fewer tanks in service, would be able to get those remaining 7000 abrams fielded quicker and more effectively because of our desert storage sites and it seems we take better care of them as well. I wonder why the russians don't use drier climates for their storage sites. They lost Kazakhstan when the USSR fell, but the southern third of the country east of the caspian sea is relatively arid so i would assume these would be more appropriate storage sites.

"I had a sattelite tasked to take a picture, but it couldn't get one in time" The times we live in man. Absolutely wild.

It's amazing the work you do with commercial satellites; it's just wild to think that the U.S. military has someone doing this with spy satellites on a regular basis. Just imagine how much info the U.S. has on this topic alone. I'd imagine they can count tanks, they know which models are left and their condition, plus they probably know exactly how many are being produced either via human intelligence or satellite images of rail cars leaving the factory.

Could you please show a small map in a screen corner so you can mark where in Russia is the base you are analyzing? I think it would be a great additional information, thanks!

Perun has a good video on this. He also looked at percentages of visually confirmed losses as the types of losses change dramatically. T-80's are more popular as unlike the t72/t90 it can go reverse fast enough to get out of trouble - its a big deal for surviving drones and counter fire of various types.

We need a 2024 update on Russia's tank losses. Avdiivka has been catastrophic for Russian armor.

3500 good tanks, thats still a freaking lot despite losing 2000 since Feb 2022.

Thank you covert for another great and informative video. I really appreciate that you go through all this and spend so much money to keep us informed with a unique sort of video. I salute you sir.

Absolutely love your Channel Sir. It's one of two I have notifications turned on for. Please keep the graphs up and provide more data from your research. Cutting the data up in as many ways as you can

The good news is that this video series will become easier and easier to make each time.

I’ve been quite happy all day at the thought of watching a Perun video tonight. I’m now ecstatic to find a new CC upload 😊

Covert Cabal be like watching 3 pixels and determining engine characteristics, armour layout, bore evacuator for the gun, width of the tracks and if it has the legendary wood in the back, to determine type and state

I love these updates and thanks for paying for satellite imagery and respect to Hello Fresh for sponsoring this content.

I think a potential reason for heightened consumption of older vehicles is being missed: different ammunition supply chains. If you are often using your tanks as SPGs (as Russia is), and you are somewhat ammo constrained (they are), older tanks with different caliber guns allow you to tap into other stockpiles of ammunition for less important fire support missions. Save the good stuff for where it’s needed. Russia is sitting on piles of old Soviet ammo (or was at the beginning of the war). Reactivating these tanks may well give them the ability to tap into even older stocks of tank rounds, or production pipelines from countries still using T55s/62s

Man, how much time have you and your team dedicated to counting thousands upon thousands of vehicles in satellite photos for this video format? I feel like it’d take a mental toll after a while.

Your dedication to counting all these tanks from satelite images is amazing. Great content!

YESSS! Love to watch these, and so glad this came out so soon after the IFV video. Thanks for the incredible work and journalism you do!

I want to live in a world where Covert Cabal collaborate more often. You both do excellent work, and id be curious to know how much the satellite imagery costs

Dude at 12.06 is whips out the ol' accordion to work on the tank. Some peak russian engineering right there

If the Russians are getting ammo from Iran and North Korea this might explain the preference for older tanks as those nations use domestic variants of T55 and T62 tanks. It's going to be easier to arm the older tanks as opposed to the newer models.

Russia is using the old T-55 & T-62 tanks as defensive artillery, in their trench lines and fortifications. It's actually a smart repurposing of older equipment. You might as well use it if not it's just going to sit there and rust away. But we all know that the Russian government does not care about how many dead soldiers they have but if they're fixed artillery (the tanks) we only need at least one or two tankers to use the tanks as "cannons" basically. I may be wrong but I think I've read an article on this. In my opinion, that's what I would use the T-55 & T-62 for.

There are two facts about Russian tanks numbers which are fairly reliable. Oryx numbers of tank losses by type. The numbers of tanks counted in this video. One thing which is strange is the fact that T55 and T62’s have been seen being moved by rail and some of these tanks have been lost in fighting but not recently and there have been few videos of them being used on the front lines. We do know that a lot of these old tanks have been removed from storage. I think (speculate) that these old tanks are being used for training, given to the Russian national guard following the Wagner March on Moscow or swopped for newer tanks held by units not committed in this war. Sadly given the fact that Russia has a lot of tanks and is producing more I cannot see them getting short of tanks for many years. The long term problem for Russia is that they have spent their Soviet military inheritance on this war. It took the USSR 40 years to build this up in military vehicles and ammunition and in doing so bankrupted the country leading to its collapse. Russia is a much smaller and poorer country than the USSR and it cannot replace what is being lost. Whilst Russia will not run out of tanks for this war strategically they cannot continue losing this number of tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery and ammunition. This war is now significantly adversely affecting the already poor demographic outlook for Russia. I am not arguing that Russia can’t maintain this war but if they do the country’s strategic outlook is very grim.

Great job as usual... Many have been waiting and you have the skill and technology.. With oryx numbers on t80s , the losses are more than double than original starting numbers. I was at least glad to see t80 t72 storage down, but not as much as I hoped. It is incredible to guess good/bad, kudos.

Keep working ! Wonderful perspective. Will be happy to follow you wherever you evolve. Thank you SciManDan.

I ALWAYS go out of my way to watch your content, PLEASE POST MORE, love what you do bro!!!!!

It is also worth noting that on average only every third or fourth tank can be restored. The rest is either too exposed to the elements, dismantled for parts, or simply looted.

Remeber when “experts” said russia run out of missiles last year lol

Imagine quoting Oryx unironically.

Thank you for all the work you do

Great content as always. Keep up the good work

So? What is the vetdict? When will they have 0 tanks?

Love to see an update on this - when it makes sense to do one. It's been 3 months, and for the past couple months, Russian losses have skyrocketed, and the last few weeks alone, Russians losing 10+ tanks a day has been pretty common. If they're burning through 2x to 3x as many tanks as before, they're probably hustling to replace them with refurbished/repaired ones, and we might be able to get a better idea of how many "good" tanks they have left as well as how long they can burn through them before losing a significant portion of the capability they have now. For instance, taking your numbers of 3500 or so "good tanks", if they're losing 10+ a day, then in 1 year instead of 3, they'll be having some serious problems. Love the vid and look forward to an update.

You're videos are the best and I sometimes check to see if you have a new losses one out thanks so much for the content

Kudos to the amount of time and effort you put into a video like this one, it's very interesting to see the state of Russia's hardware situation and makes sense when watching footage from the war in Ukraine.

Still didn't run out

"How Long Does Russia Have Left?" Wait......did I miss the answer to that question?

Wouldn't you update this video? The one about BTR and BMD too. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your excellent and honest work! Go ahead!

Soviet Union's industrial might was insane, man. Even to this day there are thousands of stored IFVs somewhere in warehouses.

One point worth considering is that Russia isn't going to use every last tank they have in Ukraine. They still need to keep armor held back in reserve to guard their vast borders or suppress internal uprisings like the Wagner coup. It's likely they would hold at least several hundred if not more than a thousand back for these purposes, so when you consider that their situation on the battlefield is even worse.

Again a very intersting and helpfull Video. Thank you for your work

so, 5:51 : as of oct2023 3525 in 'ok' condition, 5450 in all, total 7:08 from 3911 as of apr2023 to 3525 on oct2023; 386 less in 6 months

The 349th has an awful lot of exposed hulls with no turrets

I'd like a video on how many soviet tanks ukraine still has left. I know he said the last video ukraine is getting foreign equipment so counting isn't necessary. But I think it's important to know when ukraine will be completely dependent on the west(they basically already are)

Excellent work as always. Thank you

This is my favorite type of update! Great job!

I assume the Oryx numbers are an undercount, since they seem to work pretty hard to make sure their numbers aren't an overcount. I remember someone suggesting that the real Russian tank losses were probably around 1.5 times the Oryx number (which seems to be roughly in line with the Ukrainian MoD claim). When I refreshed my Oryx tab just now their figure for knocked out Russian tanks was 2,461. 2,461 * 1.5 is 3,691.5. We're 20 months into the war. If they have 3,525 good tanks left, and they continue losing tanks at the same rate they've been losing them it will take 19 months to run down what they have in storage. That becomes 21 months if you assume they are building 20 brand new tanks per month. Obviously they will not continue losing tanks at the same rate. Once they no longer have enough tanks to give all of the units fighting in Ukraine the full amount they're authorized to have they will lose fewer tanks simply because there will be fewer in the line of fire. But I figure they can keep their tank units at full strength through 2024 and the first half of 2025. I'd guess that from the second half of 2025 and beyond it will no longer be possible for them to maintain their tank units in Ukraine at full strength. They will have fewer and fewer tanks in Ukraine each month from then on. But since they're constantly producing new tanks, the number of Russian tanks in Ukraine will never reach zero (until the Russian army itself is removed from Ukraine). A couple of notes. This assumes that the Russians have been losing tanks at exactly the same rate since the beginning of the war, which they haven't. It also assumes that the rate of Russian tank losses will not suddenly increase, which it might.

Can you make a similar video about Ukraine's equipment?

When they leave a few tanks scattered around the field, I think that indicates those tanks are very damaged, possibly even totally inoperable.

Two things that seem worthy of highlighting: 1. Even when using Russia's tank production numbers (which are likely inflated), their army is still far from being able to recover their losses. 2. The war could have change dramatically if Russia had bothered to build more garages and storage areas to keep their MBTs in better condition.

Two more weeks, this time for sure.

So... 3,500 remaining with a production rate of 1 a day and a loss rate of 5 a day (on average, MUCH higher lately) means: 3,500/(5-1)=875 days worth of supply remaining. And if you use the daily loss rate average from the last several weeks, that drops to as little as 175 days of supply during major offensive operations.

4:54: Out of the 20 garages in this image in the 5x4 row, 7 lacks snow on the roof. To me that suggests 7 of them are being actively used by personnel (needing heating) and the rest are not being heated.

Thanks, Covert Cabal.

One thing that might explain why the T-80s have remained relavtively untouched is the engine. The T-55, T-64, T-72, and T-90 all use the same engine, upgraded over the years, but it can trace its roots back directly to the T-34's V2 engine. (That's a model designation, not the cylinder count.) The T-80 is the exception, because it has a gas turbine engine, similar to what you'd see in the American M1 Abrams. Gas turbines are more finnicky to operate, more maintenance intensive, and use a lot of fuel, even by the standards of tanks. That higher logistics burden might be a factor in Russia's reluctance to field the T-80s in large numbers.

The bases with an increase in number and outside the large garages, are most likely being refurbished in the garages. As to the older tanks being sent to the front first, might have more to do with the different ammunition they use... 100mm ammo may be more plentiful in storage.

TY again CC.

its better if you put out an update once a year, seeing that russia still has massive numbers of equipment and 6 month updates account to pretty much insignificant changes to the overall russian arsenal

It’s also worth questioning the quality of new tanks Russia is producing. Multiplying your output of tanks by 2.5 is no small undertaking, especially when under sanction. I’m curious if some of the tanks being rolled off the assembly line are being built to the same standard as prior to the war, or if they have one or two features missing.

12:05 Ah yes, the important accordion service tool.

Thank you for the video!

12:04 Why is this guy holding an accordion?

Simply amazing video. As someone else said this is an example of what good humans do for the good of the world. Amazing. Thank you.

About 14 years ago I did a change of command for a legacy unit. Incoming commanders have to sign for the items on the MTOE. I was quite likely the first person in decades to actually do a full count/accountability for record in decades. It took me weeks and i had to travel to get it done as equipment was scattered far and wide. Previous commanders had just pencil whipped that thing and called it good. By the end of my count the BC came down and basically told me to knock it off... i.e. dont do a real count after my paperwork hit his desk. Millions of missing equipment to include an entire excavator... This is in the US. To make my point... Nobody, not even Russia really knows what the have left because for decades grift and laziness have made the paperwork worthless. And they're far far worse at it then the US is.

It was interesting to see the mechanics loading the tank's accordion-launcher but I couldn't quite tell if it was an old "dumb" accordion or the new long-range GPS-guided variant.

8:02 they have new laser rangefinder and Thermal sight with kontakt-5 plates for protection. Also new fire control

I was in the 1st Armored Div. in 1982, Doctrine then was that "when the ballon goes up", the ruskies would send waves of tanks, starting with the oldest and then work to the newest last....Odds are, after missing on the big 3 day takeover, they've slowly kinda switched back to a modified type of this doctrine to save the best for last....

Covert Cabal is THE AUTHORITY on these things! Thank you for your painstakingly detailed and difficult work!

Brilliant video! very fascinating analysis.

If you want to figure out what's going on, if you can calibrate images, you might be able to get the compaction of soil from fresh tank tracks. That's probably easier than trying to determine if a tank is good or bad from 4 pixels. You'll need more than rgb for that. Don't know the going rate for satellite images, I usually just scrape up whatever free ones i can find!

Another Great Content From A Great Content Creator, Keep it Up Bro. I definitely Admire Your Channel For a very long time. From a Good research & Great Narration Equals to Brilliant Content. 👌

You should be counting those overhaul facilities. Not for their number, but to see if the decrease in storage Jared’s matches up to the numbers being overhauled every x period.

What I have heard is that T55 and T62 tanks unlike newer variants were still intended to have indirect fire support as a secondary function so they basically come with artillery sights as standard. That might be the main reason why these very old tanks are put on the battlefield.

Wow considerable effort, great job

I think Russia is trying to use up the older tanks while they are gearing up the Omsk plant for the new T-80 production line and are sorting out the existing T-80's in storage so when they start producing the parts they can quickly refurbish the T-80's to the new production line models while buying more time for the total production suppliers to get setup.

I suspect that the main reason why so many T-55/62 are pulled from storage is because they're used to train a large amount of tank crews. Their simplicity makes it easy to train crews quickly rather than using more modern tanks that are very much needed on the frontline.

Can’t believe I stumbled upon this channel again, I swear I remember you having an old video on the Arleigh Berke vs some Russian missile cruiser, if you did whatever happened to it?

Great work as always!

Very good analysis, thanks for your work. I found RU has lost lots of old type of T-80s in this year. Just curious where might they come from since the number of t-80 storages didn't drop a lot.

Some of these bases are so disorganised that you can bet the highest command that ever inspected the base is the satellite itself.

One thing i missed here is the top down rampant corruption which resulted in stripping stored equipment from everything worth anything on the market. Even copper like cables etc will have been sold for scrap. So most of what's left needs a full refurbish. Storage, like mentioned here many times, is in wet conditions and i doubt barrels are treated that well they can withstand years of damp neglect. Trucks etc, apart from the humidity problem, also have a UV problem and need to be rotated for the tires, already in short supply, to age evenly. Spoiler, they don't. In short, storage in Russia is different from storage in the west and far more difficult to push back into service as clearly shown by the complaints of soldiers using them. Some shoot and some drive ... but few both.

What if they are moving the tanks out of the garages to give the appearance that they are not depleting the bases.

12:03 But the real question is, how many tactical accordeons can Russia fit in one anti-capitalist tank?

How many self propelled artillery and air defense pieces do they have left? That’s prolly more relevant

Another possible reason for the use of the older tanks is that it's easier to train soldiers on. so it's faster to get them into service and on the front lines.

Have you ever correlated your data with Perun? His Russian tank losses videos are fascinating.

To point out the elephant in the room, Ukraine is always going to run out of tanks before Russia. They are using the same tanks for the most part, losing them hand over fist, and attacking the other sides tanks with the same weapons. The crucial difference is that Ukraine doesn't have thousands of tanks in reserve, to replace their losses.

Playing the according for the mechanics will help create happy tanks

solid work

So, by visually confirmed definite losses (destroyed and captured), Rus has lost, on average, 107 tanks per month and, by Ukr figures, Rus has lost, on average, 256 tanks per month. GIven that Rus produces, at most, 17 new tanks per month, it would need to modernize/mostly refit something between 90 and 239 tanks per month to cover their losses, at least in quantity, nevermind in quality. Given the older and older models being used, and the overall lesser quantity of tanks present on the battlefield. Plus, the more they reffit, the harder it becomes, because they of course use first the ones in a better condition.

I think Russia subscribed to the daily tank delivery from 'Hello Trash' 😅

So long as these tanks and other vehicles are recoverable there not really losses and given that the front lines haven't changed much most of the equipment hasn't been lost one way or another.

You'd think they would add shadows when they were painting planes on the airfields, so clever but missed an oh so important little detail, and even with shadow the shade would move relative to the position of the sun