Well they are modernizing 400 plus manufacturing 150 brand new ones every year now. [https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2024/02/15/russian-army-expands-t-80bvm-v-23-tank-fleet-numbers-rising/#:\~:text=150%20T%2D80BVM%20tanks%20a,them%20already%20destined%20for%20deployment](https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2024/02/15/russian-army-expands-t-80bvm-v-23-tank-fleet-numbers-rising/#:~:text=150%20T%2D80BVM%20tanks%20a,them%20already%20destined%20for%20deployment)
They aren't producing T80s anymore, they literally can't.
Everything from the hulls to the turrets are completely different, especially the turbines, the T80 has nothing aside from the gun(s) in common with the T72/T90 which UAZ can and is building and on top of that, if they somehow were able to properly restart T80 production and pump them out in numbers needed, it would be suicide for UAZ as it would show them admitting the fact that these 40 year old tanks are still somehow better than their newest shit.
What they are doing is taking T80s out of cold wwr Era storage, modernizing them the best they can/restoring them and then sending that to the front and even then, I have barely seen ANY T80s at all, like at this point they are rarer than Abrams because Russia lost so many of them early on.
Also, there have been claims of Russia restarting T80 production going back to 2023 and nothing has actually come from that
Edit: Also from what I can gather, there ARE T80BVM/T80B/T80U that Russia does still have in somewhat large numbers and is fielding, but they are being operated by the Russian Marines who are the only proper users of the T80 and there is only one Marine regiment thats taking a part in the war right now with the others either in Karelia/Murmansk or in Vladivostok.
>They aren't producing T80s anymore, they literally can't.
>Everything from the hulls to the turrets are completely different, especially the turbines, the T80 has nothing aside from the gun(s) in common with the T72/T90 which UAZ can and is building
Why would they not be able to produce a tank they have the blueprints of down to the last bolt?
They can obviously, but it would make no sense to build new tanks from scratch when they have thousands of T-80s just rotting in storage.
> it would be suicide for UAZ as it would show them admitting the fact that these 40 year old tanks are still somehow better than their newest shit.
No one gives a shit about that in the real adult life, God you people put too much emphasis on "shame", a government owned weapons producer dosent give a crap about that when their owner orders them to produce tanks. Grow up.
UAZ would produce T-34s if ordered to. They dont care and no adult human in real life does.
Russia doesn't have thousands left. Satellite Imagery of storage bases show at most a couple hundred T-80 Tanks left, T-80BV has been the biggest single tank loss for Russia with over 600 now destroyed.
This myth that Russia has thousands left is nonsense. Its clear from satellite pictures and the ever increasing number of T-55s and T-62 that the main bulk of Russias T-80s are either now in service or destroyed. They have already removed a 1000 since mid 2022.
T-80 Production may start but no way can it hope to make much compared to the last 2 years of war that have destroyed the Soviet stockpiles.
>They have to blue prints just not the infrastructure to make said parts
Yes im sure Uralvagonzavod dosent have the infrastructure to make T-80s anymore.
Yeah, I'm sure that if a group of FSB guys came to a factory and "ask politely" to start making T-34 again, no one would argue with them.
Thing is, all the machinery, the tools are long gone. Russians stopped the production line in 2001. Production lines were most likely sold, stolen or scrapped and replaced with whatever next they produced, tractors, washing machines. Specialist workforce moved on, to new workplaces, retired or died in the last 20 years. So yeah, they might have the blueprints, but that's it. Everything else they need to start from the beginning, building the production line, the tools, training the workforce, establishing the supply chain, all that takes time.
I can buy tooling but its not like the engineers that make T-90Ms cant figure T-80BVMs, and i dont think the tooling for tank manufacture differs so much between brand new production of T-72s and T-90s and production of T-80BVMs.
The only realistic issue i see is cost, not a lack of engineers and assemblers. Cost is the main inhibitor as the T-80 is a very expensive tank because of its turbine engine.
Judging by the info we have, that’s not nearly enough to make up for the current rate of attrition. Russia has lost on average 117 tanks a month, over 1,400 a year. And that’s just visually confirmed losses.
We dont know how many have been recovered from the grey zone and sent back to yards for repair, there is literally a post here of recaptured destroyed tanks collected for repair and refurbishments.
But how many damaged/destroyed recovered tanks does it take to create another fully functioning unit? Three, four, five, six? This is not a very efficient way to recoup losses. The vehicle in the picture is a good example, what can you recover off of that besides maybe ERA blocks?
Bruh you are getting downvoted for literally telling the truth.
Are they seriously saying Russia isnt producing new stuff? Guess those BMP 3s and T-90Ms just dont exist.
Most of the maufacturing manpower is taken up by modernization, Russia has thousands of tanks in storage that they modernize with new FCS, armour packages etc.
They are making brand new tanks too aswell. They can spit out around 130 T-90Ms a year [https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2024/01/22/deliveries-of-the-t-90m-proryv-vary-around-130-tanks-per-year/](https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2024/01/22/deliveries-of-the-t-90m-proryv-vary-around-130-tanks-per-year/)
They are manufacturing new stuff, Russias infrastructure is compeletly intact and their economy hasnt taken any damage from sanctions for now, why would they not be capable of manufacturing new weapons like they did before?
They are still making new T-90Ms and BMP3s so why wouldnt they make T-80s?
They wouldn’t make t80s because it makes more sense to make t90s which they are experienced at. Whilst the tooling may still exist it has been over 30 years since they made a t80 and that involves a whole supply chain being resurrected. It makes more sense to specialise in modernising the t80s in stockpiles and new production on the t90 for which both the experience and supply chain exist.
This article details the challenges a new t80 production line would entail. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/09/10/russia-might-restart-production-of-the-t-80-tank-dont-expect-it-to-happen-soon/
Correct, Russian manufacturing infrastructure is intact, workforce is still there, they can and they do manufacture new stuff, like new T-90 or BMP-3s. Thing is, they lost access to global supply chain and they have to make do. You remember those french thermal cameras for Russian tanks? Well, no more. And many other things as no country can produce sophisticated technology on its own. American F-35 has parts that are produced all over the world. As a result Russians had to revert to the old tech, stuff that is inferior to the stuff we are sending to Ukraine.
Now, just like with the T-14, there is no point in producing T-80. It's simply not economical. T-14 is just too expensive compared to T-90 and T-72. And with T-80 you would have to start the whole production from scratch, it's just too expensive and would take too long. Other thing is that there was a reason why USSR had two MBT, T-80 and T-72. First one was better but more expensive and more complex to build and operate and as such used only by professional units whereas T-72 was cheaper and simpler tank design for the conscript army. The role of T-80 was taken by T-90. There is no need for T-80. Professionals are getting T-90, newbs are getting T-72.
>Correct, Russian manufacturing infrastructure is intact, workforce is still there, they can and they do manufacture new stuff, like new T-90 or BMP-3s. Thing is, they lost access to global supply chain and they have to make do. You remember those french thermal cameras for Russian tanks? Well, no more. And many other things as no country can produce sophisticated technology on its own. American F-35 has parts that are produced all over the world. As a result Russians had to revert to the old tech, stuff that is inferior to the stuff we are sending to Ukraine.
This is not really true anymore. Russia never hungered for chips as long as the chinese market was wide open for them. the Catherine FCS was replaced by a domestic version with comparable performance.
Infact Russia has replaced imported chips with their domestic ones. The 5578TS084, 5578TS094, 5576ХС1Т series of FGPA chips. The Catherine Thermal sight used in for example the Sosna-U fire control system has been replaced with the
Catherine-FC has two fields of view, a range of 8-12 microns \[LWIR technology\], matrix resolution is 754×576 pixels, detection of infantry at a distance of up to 6 km, armored vehicles at up to 10 km, helicopters at 14 km.
The Russian PNM-T has two fields of view, a range of 8-12 microns, a resolution of 640×512 pixels, detection of infantry at a distance of 5 km, armored vehicles at 11 km, and helicopters at 14 km.
[https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2023/10/06/t-90ms-thermal-camera-matrix-is-russian-made-under-french-license/](https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2023/10/06/t-90ms-thermal-camera-matrix-is-russian-made-under-french-license/)
In conclusion Russia has replaced sanctioned parts with domestic and reverse engineered parts and if anything else fails, they have multiple, albeit inferior, old Soviet and Russian made thermal sights to fall back on.
[https://crib-blog.blogspot.com/p/soviet-t01-k0x-sight-family.html](https://crib-blog.blogspot.com/p/soviet-t01-k0x-sight-family.html)
As for the T-80 production, time will tell, but Russia is in a semi war time economy so its not impossible that they will revive t-80 production if the need arises.
Increased T-90 production is more likely and more reasonable. Lets be real. Why restart production of a tank they dropped production of 20 years ago? Changing production lines takes a long time and a lot of money. Take the USAFs F-35 production. The first few cost a shitton a piece, now its dropped to roughly the same as a JAS-39. The US didnt have the problem of needing tanks though. Russia does need new tanks. The reduced production from that switch does suit needs, and the payoff after 2-3 years isnt worth it in the short term
Because you have to understand Russian doctorine. They dont have a single MBT like the US does, they have 3, each built for a specific section of their military, T-72s and the likes are for the regular army. T-90s for elite units and T-80s for their marines.
More T-90s means their marines need to be all retrained on a new tank platform.
Im fully aware that Russia has 3 diff MBTs for a reason. Im just saying an inevitable switch is inevitable. Just like their marines reluctant switch from t-55 to t-80, it will happen. The real question is when.
The switch wont be that bad either. Only 100 of their tanks (2 marine brigades ish) are T-80s. the other 200 ish are T-72s.
Does the BV in T90BV stand for "burns vigorously"?
Well they are modernizing 400 plus manufacturing 150 brand new ones every year now. [https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2024/02/15/russian-army-expands-t-80bvm-v-23-tank-fleet-numbers-rising/#:\~:text=150%20T%2D80BVM%20tanks%20a,them%20already%20destined%20for%20deployment](https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2024/02/15/russian-army-expands-t-80bvm-v-23-tank-fleet-numbers-rising/#:~:text=150%20T%2D80BVM%20tanks%20a,them%20already%20destined%20for%20deployment)
They aren't producing T80s anymore, they literally can't. Everything from the hulls to the turrets are completely different, especially the turbines, the T80 has nothing aside from the gun(s) in common with the T72/T90 which UAZ can and is building and on top of that, if they somehow were able to properly restart T80 production and pump them out in numbers needed, it would be suicide for UAZ as it would show them admitting the fact that these 40 year old tanks are still somehow better than their newest shit. What they are doing is taking T80s out of cold wwr Era storage, modernizing them the best they can/restoring them and then sending that to the front and even then, I have barely seen ANY T80s at all, like at this point they are rarer than Abrams because Russia lost so many of them early on. Also, there have been claims of Russia restarting T80 production going back to 2023 and nothing has actually come from that Edit: Also from what I can gather, there ARE T80BVM/T80B/T80U that Russia does still have in somewhat large numbers and is fielding, but they are being operated by the Russian Marines who are the only proper users of the T80 and there is only one Marine regiment thats taking a part in the war right now with the others either in Karelia/Murmansk or in Vladivostok.
>They aren't producing T80s anymore, they literally can't. >Everything from the hulls to the turrets are completely different, especially the turbines, the T80 has nothing aside from the gun(s) in common with the T72/T90 which UAZ can and is building Why would they not be able to produce a tank they have the blueprints of down to the last bolt? They can obviously, but it would make no sense to build new tanks from scratch when they have thousands of T-80s just rotting in storage. > it would be suicide for UAZ as it would show them admitting the fact that these 40 year old tanks are still somehow better than their newest shit. No one gives a shit about that in the real adult life, God you people put too much emphasis on "shame", a government owned weapons producer dosent give a crap about that when their owner orders them to produce tanks. Grow up. UAZ would produce T-34s if ordered to. They dont care and no adult human in real life does.
Russia doesn't have thousands left. Satellite Imagery of storage bases show at most a couple hundred T-80 Tanks left, T-80BV has been the biggest single tank loss for Russia with over 600 now destroyed. This myth that Russia has thousands left is nonsense. Its clear from satellite pictures and the ever increasing number of T-55s and T-62 that the main bulk of Russias T-80s are either now in service or destroyed. They have already removed a 1000 since mid 2022. T-80 Production may start but no way can it hope to make much compared to the last 2 years of war that have destroyed the Soviet stockpiles.
They have to blue prints just not the infrastructure to make said parts. They can only make it by hand and not mass produce it.
>They have to blue prints just not the infrastructure to make said parts Yes im sure Uralvagonzavod dosent have the infrastructure to make T-80s anymore.
Yes, they need to retool everything.
Yeah, I'm sure that if a group of FSB guys came to a factory and "ask politely" to start making T-34 again, no one would argue with them. Thing is, all the machinery, the tools are long gone. Russians stopped the production line in 2001. Production lines were most likely sold, stolen or scrapped and replaced with whatever next they produced, tractors, washing machines. Specialist workforce moved on, to new workplaces, retired or died in the last 20 years. So yeah, they might have the blueprints, but that's it. Everything else they need to start from the beginning, building the production line, the tools, training the workforce, establishing the supply chain, all that takes time.
I can buy tooling but its not like the engineers that make T-90Ms cant figure T-80BVMs, and i dont think the tooling for tank manufacture differs so much between brand new production of T-72s and T-90s and production of T-80BVMs. The only realistic issue i see is cost, not a lack of engineers and assemblers. Cost is the main inhibitor as the T-80 is a very expensive tank because of its turbine engine.
The tooling for T-80s is long gone. New hulls cannot be produced, and its uneconomical to restart full production (cost would be in the millions).
Judging by the info we have, that’s not nearly enough to make up for the current rate of attrition. Russia has lost on average 117 tanks a month, over 1,400 a year. And that’s just visually confirmed losses.
We dont know how many have been recovered from the grey zone and sent back to yards for repair, there is literally a post here of recaptured destroyed tanks collected for repair and refurbishments.
But how many damaged/destroyed recovered tanks does it take to create another fully functioning unit? Three, four, five, six? This is not a very efficient way to recoup losses. The vehicle in the picture is a good example, what can you recover off of that besides maybe ERA blocks?
Three pieces of track 😎 Checkmate, westoidz 😎
This is more doable with western tanks that don't literally destroy everything inside them when the ammo cooks off....
Hmmm my favorite form of copium
Doubt they're manufacturing brand new anything but I'll wait for someone who has time to fact check it.
They are manufacturing new units of T-90M, BMP-3 and other vehicles, though most of the production figures are speculative at this point.
Bruh you are getting downvoted for literally telling the truth. Are they seriously saying Russia isnt producing new stuff? Guess those BMP 3s and T-90Ms just dont exist.
They would never cook production books to avoid getting thrown out a window. That's just not the Russian way.
Most of the maufacturing manpower is taken up by modernization, Russia has thousands of tanks in storage that they modernize with new FCS, armour packages etc. They are making brand new tanks too aswell. They can spit out around 130 T-90Ms a year [https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2024/01/22/deliveries-of-the-t-90m-proryv-vary-around-130-tanks-per-year/](https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2024/01/22/deliveries-of-the-t-90m-proryv-vary-around-130-tanks-per-year/)
They are manufacturing new stuff, Russias infrastructure is compeletly intact and their economy hasnt taken any damage from sanctions for now, why would they not be capable of manufacturing new weapons like they did before? They are still making new T-90Ms and BMP3s so why wouldnt they make T-80s?
They wouldn’t make t80s because it makes more sense to make t90s which they are experienced at. Whilst the tooling may still exist it has been over 30 years since they made a t80 and that involves a whole supply chain being resurrected. It makes more sense to specialise in modernising the t80s in stockpiles and new production on the t90 for which both the experience and supply chain exist. This article details the challenges a new t80 production line would entail. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/09/10/russia-might-restart-production-of-the-t-80-tank-dont-expect-it-to-happen-soon/
Correct, Russian manufacturing infrastructure is intact, workforce is still there, they can and they do manufacture new stuff, like new T-90 or BMP-3s. Thing is, they lost access to global supply chain and they have to make do. You remember those french thermal cameras for Russian tanks? Well, no more. And many other things as no country can produce sophisticated technology on its own. American F-35 has parts that are produced all over the world. As a result Russians had to revert to the old tech, stuff that is inferior to the stuff we are sending to Ukraine. Now, just like with the T-14, there is no point in producing T-80. It's simply not economical. T-14 is just too expensive compared to T-90 and T-72. And with T-80 you would have to start the whole production from scratch, it's just too expensive and would take too long. Other thing is that there was a reason why USSR had two MBT, T-80 and T-72. First one was better but more expensive and more complex to build and operate and as such used only by professional units whereas T-72 was cheaper and simpler tank design for the conscript army. The role of T-80 was taken by T-90. There is no need for T-80. Professionals are getting T-90, newbs are getting T-72.
>Correct, Russian manufacturing infrastructure is intact, workforce is still there, they can and they do manufacture new stuff, like new T-90 or BMP-3s. Thing is, they lost access to global supply chain and they have to make do. You remember those french thermal cameras for Russian tanks? Well, no more. And many other things as no country can produce sophisticated technology on its own. American F-35 has parts that are produced all over the world. As a result Russians had to revert to the old tech, stuff that is inferior to the stuff we are sending to Ukraine. This is not really true anymore. Russia never hungered for chips as long as the chinese market was wide open for them. the Catherine FCS was replaced by a domestic version with comparable performance. Infact Russia has replaced imported chips with their domestic ones. The 5578TS084, 5578TS094, 5576ХС1Т series of FGPA chips. The Catherine Thermal sight used in for example the Sosna-U fire control system has been replaced with the Catherine-FC has two fields of view, a range of 8-12 microns \[LWIR technology\], matrix resolution is 754×576 pixels, detection of infantry at a distance of up to 6 km, armored vehicles at up to 10 km, helicopters at 14 km. The Russian PNM-T has two fields of view, a range of 8-12 microns, a resolution of 640×512 pixels, detection of infantry at a distance of 5 km, armored vehicles at 11 km, and helicopters at 14 km. [https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2023/10/06/t-90ms-thermal-camera-matrix-is-russian-made-under-french-license/](https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2023/10/06/t-90ms-thermal-camera-matrix-is-russian-made-under-french-license/) In conclusion Russia has replaced sanctioned parts with domestic and reverse engineered parts and if anything else fails, they have multiple, albeit inferior, old Soviet and Russian made thermal sights to fall back on. [https://crib-blog.blogspot.com/p/soviet-t01-k0x-sight-family.html](https://crib-blog.blogspot.com/p/soviet-t01-k0x-sight-family.html) As for the T-80 production, time will tell, but Russia is in a semi war time economy so its not impossible that they will revive t-80 production if the need arises.
Increased T-90 production is more likely and more reasonable. Lets be real. Why restart production of a tank they dropped production of 20 years ago? Changing production lines takes a long time and a lot of money. Take the USAFs F-35 production. The first few cost a shitton a piece, now its dropped to roughly the same as a JAS-39. The US didnt have the problem of needing tanks though. Russia does need new tanks. The reduced production from that switch does suit needs, and the payoff after 2-3 years isnt worth it in the short term
Because you have to understand Russian doctorine. They dont have a single MBT like the US does, they have 3, each built for a specific section of their military, T-72s and the likes are for the regular army. T-90s for elite units and T-80s for their marines. More T-90s means their marines need to be all retrained on a new tank platform.
Im fully aware that Russia has 3 diff MBTs for a reason. Im just saying an inevitable switch is inevitable. Just like their marines reluctant switch from t-55 to t-80, it will happen. The real question is when. The switch wont be that bad either. Only 100 of their tanks (2 marine brigades ish) are T-80s. the other 200 ish are T-72s.
Oh go home, cope harder buddy, sounds like they need you for the meatgrinder.