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Russia turning to Tankenstein's Monster to fill the armor gap? [1]

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Date: 2023-03-08

That's...well....it's certainly a thing, that's for sure.

As we know from following various Ukraine updates here on DKos, the Russians have lost a LOT of tanks and armored vehicles in Ukraine. This includes over 1,000 verified destroyed tanks and about another 500 or so captured, either intact or damaged, by Ukraine. And that’s just the visually verified stuff, not the stuff that’s gotten snuffed behind the front lines or never got photographed and uploaded to social media or something.

We’ve also had reports of just how poorly reserve stocks of Russia’s tanks were kept, including tales of warehoused tanks having been stripped of parts, including things like expensive high-end optics, rendering them useless for use on the front line. While Russia was rumored to have as many as 10,000 tanks, reality has revealed that many of those are old or ill-kept and the real numbers of functional tanks are far fewer than had been suspected at the start of the invasion.

In the last few weeks there were also rumors that as a counter to the various main battle tanks that are being sent to Ukraine by the west, Russia would be sending it’s T-14 Armata tank to Ukraine.

If you know anything about the T-14 and it’s history, that particular story is laughable. The development of the T-14 has been a decades-long quagmire and only a relative handful of prototypes exist (depending on who you believe, between 14 and 40 of them were actually completed). Those prototypes have been plagued with problems (they made their public debut in a parade in Moscow in 2008 with several of the prototypes. One of them broke down mid-parade). Given how long it’s been since any attempt at making any more has been, it’s doubtful that many of those prototypes are even in any sort of working order. And given Russia’s logistical difficulties, you can only imagine the problems of trying to keep what are almost bespoke one-off vehicles already known for being very problematic running in the field in Ukraine would be when needed parts will need to be essentially custom made.

So now word has come out the the Russian army doesn’t WANT the T-14 in Ukraine. And I can’t say I blame them. The most likely scenario would be that one would trundle forward to the front line and break down into a gigantic paperweight, making a lovely propaganda victory for the Ukrainians as some farmer tows it away with his tractor.

Instead of the shiny new T-14, Russia declared last fall it was going to dust off 800 T-62 tanks and get them out of mothballs and refurbished to send into Russia.

To put some perspective on that...the last T-62 rolled off the production line in the USSR in 1975, and while many were upgraded over the years into the 1990’s, Russia hasn’t had a front line unit equipped with them since 2008. Most have been warehoused, with a few stationed with training and reserve units.

And now word is that some new...ummm...improvised? Is that the word I’m looking for? Tanks have shown up in Ukraine.

In short, the Russians have welded/bolted/superglued WW-2 era 25 mm naval anti-aircraft guns on top of MT-LB amphibious fighting vehicles.

MT-LB’s are based on designs originally produced in the 1950’s to pull artillery but then were adapted into the MT-LB format to add a bit of armor. Emphasis on “a bit” — the thickest armor on the vehicle is on the front and is only 14 mm of steel. Enough to stop small arms or shrapnel, but nowhere near enough to survive anything worse than that. It can also carry up to 11 infantrymen inside, though I’m not sure how welding a cannon to the roof might affect that capability.

These “Tankenstein’s Monster” vehicles are almost like something out of a Mad Maxesque fever dream and it makes one wonder what the utility of them would really be. They won’t be a match for any Ukrainian armored vehicle they’re likely to run up against, or any infantry with any kind of anti-armor capability of even the most minimal sort. I can only imagine what the weight of the guns on the rear does for handling or the vehicle’s supposed amphibious qualities. About the only real use I can think of for these might be for anti-drone use? Anyone else got a theory?

But if Russia is pulling T-62’s out of mothballs and jury-rigging things like these hybrids to send into Ukraine, it points to what is presumably a dire lack of tanks and other armored vehicles. You don’t send a tank not produced since 1975 into combat if you’ve got up to date T-80’s or T-90’s available to send instead. You don’t weld a 70+ year old anti aircraft gun to the top of a glorified armored tractor if you’ve got enough IFV’s.

Now, to be fair, the Ukrainians have ALSO chop-shopped a few MT-LB’s of their own, in at least two cases adding 100 mm anti-tank guns at least one with an 85 mm gun attached to the roof (maybe that’s where the Russians got the idea) to essentially turn those guns into more mobile artillery. But given Ukraine was the underdog here facing an unprovoked invasion, it’s much more understandable for them to resort to improvised equipment. One wouldn’t think the vaunted Russian juggernaut that people thought existed pre-invasion would be resorting to this sort of thing, especially if they had the kind of vast stores of tanks and armored vehicles that they supposedly had on paper. And especially during an invasion of their own choosing that they should have been well-prepared for.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/8/2156923/-Russia-turning-to-Tankenstein-s-Monster-to-fill-the-armor-gap

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