How quickly can Russia rebuild its tank force?

During World War II, Nazi Germany destroyed Soviet tanks at an unprecedented rate. Yet, although the Red Army lost 80,000 tanks, the Soviet Union's industrial might allowed it to end the war with more tanks than it had at the start.

A column of Russian tanks and armored vehicles in Mariupol, Ukraine. Photo: Reuters

Today’s tanks are much more complex and expensive, so they are deployed in significantly fewer numbers. However, Russia is believed to have lost a significant number of tanks in its conflict with Ukraine. Kiev forces claim to have destroyed more than 3,250 enemy tanks. Oryx, an open-source intelligence blog, puts Russia’s losses at 1,700. The International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates that about half of Russia’s pre-conflict T-72 fleet, estimated at around 2,000 and making up the bulk of its tank force, has been destroyed.

According to The Economist magazine, although tanks do not provide a distinct advantage for Russia in a special military campaign in the neighboring country, their soldiers would struggle to carry out a major offensive without sufficient support from them.

Kiev has begun receiving tanks from its Western allies in recent weeks and could use them for a spring offensive. Moscow will need to bolster its tank force if it is to hold on to the territory it has gained control of. The question is how quickly it can replace the tanks it has lost.

In the 1940s, Soviet factories could produce more than 1,000 tanks per month. Factories specializing in tractors and railway engines were also ordered to build tanks for the Red Army.

Increasing production is harder these days. The electronics in modern tanks, which enable night vision, gun aiming and a host of other features, are complex. That slows down production and makes it difficult for many factories designed for other types of production to easily convert to tank production.

Russia now has only one tank factory left, UralVagonZavod, a massive complex built in the 1930s. But financial mismanagement and massive debts have slowed the factory’s modernization. Workers joke that they are assembling tanks by hand. According to the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, the factory builds just 20 tanks a month.

A Western official assessed that, in general, the demand for tanks of the Russian armed forces is 10 times greater than production capacity.

In an effort to meet demand, Russia has accelerated the pace of restoring older tanks, including thousands in its inventory. In Ukraine, modern Russian tanks such as the T-90 are fighting alongside large numbers of T-72b3s, models built decades ago but upgraded with guns, reactive armor (which reduces the chance of a tank being hit by a bullet), and digital communications systems. Even with these improvements, the older tanks are inferior to newer models and less able to withstand attacks from Ukrainian forces. But they are still useful.

According to Russian media, UralVagonZavod is repairing about eight tanks a month, while three other armored vehicle repair plants are helping to refurbish about 17 tanks a month each. Two more plants of similar size are expected to be put into operation in the next few months.

That means that while Russia can only build 20 new tanks per month, it could soon recover 90 or more per month from its factories. But that would not make up for the estimated 150 tanks it is losing each month, according to Oryx’s analysis. Production could also be hampered by a severe shortage of components such as advanced tank control microprocessors due to a series of sanctions imposed by the US and its allies.

Moscow is even using microprocessors from imported dishwashers and refrigerators for its military hardware, the European Commission claims. Some new tanks refurbished for the campaign in Ukraine contain a mix of hardware from different models and lack high-tech equipment such as wind speed sensors that help with accurate firing.

Russia is not alone in its problems, however. Ukraine and its allies also lack the ability to produce tanks quickly. Ukraine’s only tank factory, near Kharkiv, was destroyed early in the conflict with Russia. The United States, which has promised Kiev 31 M1A2 Abrams tanks, has a factory capable of producing 15 tanks a month.

Production in the West was similarly slow, leading to a scramble to find used tanks to aid Kiev. But overall, the attackers still used more tanks than the defenders.

Observers are still waiting to see how Russia will utilize and develop its tank force in the ongoing conflict across the border.