Instead of refurbished tanks leaving the facility, analysts increasingly observed support vehicles built using old T-80 hulls, including armored recovery vehicles and heavy weapons platforms. This may indicate that many remaining hulls are too degraded to restore as operational tanks.
The trend, according to the researcher, could signal that Russia’s remaining T-80 reserves are no longer viable for combat
The T-80 is a piece of shit tank. The reverse speed sucks which makes it a deathtrap and also the ammo and propellant is stored close to the crew making it a deathtrap when it cooks off from a hit.
Still, this was one of the better tanks russia had given their bar is so low. It is pretty amazing how terrible russia is at making tanks and how much they refuse to accept their tank design lineage is a dead end.
edit as a reminder -> No tanks are not obsolete because of drones.
Before diving into the analysis of this matter, it is important to note that armoured forces and heavy armoured vehicles have proven indispensable in all recent armed conflicts since 2020, despite the changing and increasingly hostile conditions on the battlefield. Armoured forces continue to play a critical role in modern ground warfare, while many militaries across the globe plan to expand and further develop this branch of service. The tank is not dead, and armoured forces are not going to go extinct in the near future.
Undoubtedly, armoured forces and armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs) have to adapt to the new combat environment – technically, tactically, and doctrinally. However, this has been a normal part of their evolution since the beginning of the 20th century.
https://euro-sd.com/2026/01/articles/armed-forces/48794/countering-the-drone-threat-to-heavy-armour/
That T-90 MBT that got taken out by a Bradley just running circles around it and hammering it 100 times was hilarious.
Growing up playing video games with the Bradley in it used to make me think… this thing is kind of a monster, it doesn’t really feel like an APC, it feels like an angrier version of a tank that exchanged heavier armor and a larger gun for a set of attributes that allows it to be more bloodthirsty than a tank… and then seeing that yes in real life the Bradley is in fact a monster like that has been wild.
I just figured it was American-centric wargame developers always making the Bradley a beast “because 'Murica the best” but nope… the Bradley is just a terrifying machine to fight that can shit out a full crew of infantry and then send you straight to hell with its gun. It seems like you have to physically coax the Bradley away from the frontline after it has dropped troops off as the driver, it just instinctually wants to turn around and charge the enemy autocannon blazing.
Russia has nothing even close to the Bradley IFV while Europe is building a new generation of Bradley inspired IFVs that will likely outclass any Main Battle Tanks russia can field in a meaningful amount for the forseeable future… while being able to carry AT infantry crews in the back to boot (with Manpads or AT drones).
Bradley is surprisingly good considering all the “Pentagon Wars” development hell. I think a lot of people still think its junk. When it was more effective than the Abrams in Iraq the theory was that the fighting there mostly didn’t require tanks. In Ukraine of course, the fighting was very mechanized in the beginning until equipment losses and drones ended it.
And the Bradley still did very well, better than the MBTs. At this point I think it’s reasonable to wonder if MBTs are obsolete, if not all tanks. A lightly-armored vehicle like a Bradley is going to be no more vulnerable against modern MANPATS and drones than a MBT, but it’s going to provide just as effective protection against small arms. It’s easier to maintain, longer range, and it can do more missions.
A modern Abrams is terrifying, they can acquire a target in seconds and hit it while moving over uneven terrain at 30 mph. If the objective is to hit the enemy at a concentrated point there is literally nothing on earth more well suited.
This isn’t a bash on the Bradley, the Bradley is clearly built by people who deeply understood armored manuever warfare and knew how to make a monster IFV.
The tank is very much not obsolete, the Bradley just gives it a run for the money because of how forward thinking, uncompromised yet balanced the design is. Also manpads/drones have become so powerful it multiplies the power of a vehicle like a Bradley…
…still though, doesn’t beat a main battle tank like the abrams.
Pretty interesting how few tanks in general Russia is able to field it what kinda seems like an ideal place to use them. If tanks aren’t useful in Ukraine then what are they even for?
Tanks are useful in Ukraine, russia just sucks at making Main Battle Tanks.
“Western” tank design shits on this trash for several reasons but the most important is that russian tank design has never really cared about actually keeping tank crews alive, so their tank crews all die whenever they go to war, thus for russia in general being a tanker is inherently a temporary, lowskill job like most other things in the russian military.
“Western” tanks on the otherhand are designed to keep their crew alive so all the investment into those humans to train them best how to use a tank isn’t obliterated when the tank is hit by a shot and all the ammo and propellant cooks off, annihilating the crew and sending the turret into the sky. It is one thing to fight a tank, it is entirely another to fight a tank with a veteran tank crew who have survived intense combat.
The emphasis on a competent degree of reverse speed is also a good example of this, I cannot understand how russians have convinced themselves not having a quick reverse speed on a tank isn’t necessary for a main battle tank to perform basic tactical functions as a tank. It is obvious even in the abstract if you have played a semi-realistic tank video game that the idea of having a slow reverse speed is suicidal in tank combat.
If I had to choose between a tank with russian reverse speed and no tank I would pick no tank every time, if you watch the way Abrams tanks fire in range training you can see the basic “advance just into view, fire a handful of shots, reverse” loop is a core functionality of the tank that makes it far more survivable as a tool than just having heavier armor than the target could ever ensure.
For russia to have spent decades building tanks and just ignoring these things is pathetic honestly and none of the excuses people give for these glaring issues with russian tanks hold water in my opinion. Great the reverse gear is an agricultural gear for getting out of mud, cool I am sure Ukrainian AT crews appreciate that functionality supremely when a russian tank has overcommitted even a nanometer too far and they are now sitting ducks because to quickly flee they must turn around and leave weak armor exposed or just raw dog it and reverse at a snail’s crawl.
edit I don’t mean anything precise when I say western tank, I consider a south korean k2 a “western tank”, I only mean the description very loosely
never given a shit about actually keeping tank crews alive
Which is wild given that this is pretty much the ENTIRE purpose of a tank.
Exactly
I thought the purpose of a tank was to provide mobile cover for infantry against small arms fire
You can do that with a self propelled gun or a thousand other things. The entire concept of a tank is increased crew survivability and therefore flexibility in deployment.
A tank that doesn’t protect its crew is just a self propelled gun, and you would use it differently than you use a tank.
No, unless by infantry you mean the tank crew, most of the time if you aren’t in armor yourself you don’t want to be ANYWHERE near tanks engaged in direct combat, artillery is the fertilizer to grow successful vigorous armored pushes, tanks grow straight out of rolling artillery barrages you never ever want to experience, but also shit hits the fan hard, heavy and incomprehensibly fast around tanks even when they aren’t amidst/on the edge of artillery strikes friendly or otherwise.
This is before you bring active protection systems like the Trophy system into the conversation too.
The purpose of the tank is to blow up machine gun nests and kick the door down. The infantry are nearby, waiting to rush through the door, but they don’t typically hang out directly behind the massive, loud angry door breacher because it is probably the most dangerous place to be as exposed infantry.
Parades on 9th of May, duh
As an armchair general, I see very little use for tanks. When everything from planes, helicopters, LAVs, landmines, javelin equiped soldiers as well as specialized drones can easily take them out, they are just expensive tombstones.
I think their only use is for rapidly advancing through broken battle lines for flanking which is not a thing in the Ukraine war.
As an armchair general, I see very little use for tanks.
Yes, tanks are so completely useless that Ukraine wants them more than anything and Russia is spending million refurbishing even shitty ones and China keeps hundreds of them to stockpile on top the thousands they already have.
Surely, if all of these would only listen to you! How foolish they are.
Or maybe they realize that a highly mobile, well-protected, highly accurate source of firepower is an immense asset in a war. The reason Russia keeps losing SO many tanks is because they’re very very bad at combined arms. Russia isn’t making progress with an army of tanks, Infantry, trucks, helicopters, IFVs, planes and drones, but you’re only saying tanks are obsolete. Why?
I said I’m no expert. Why? Because like I said, they are expensive, easily countered by all other arms groups and they don’t seem to accomplish much but be expensive targets. Your argument about Russia refurbing more speaks more to my argument here than yours. They are out of them, because they are so easily destroyed and expensive, time consuming to produce and have seemingly poor survivability.
As to Ukraine wanting them and not having them, that too speaks to my point. Very very expensive to produce and don’t last long. They may be somewhat tactically useful, but strategically worthless, doubly so in a war of attrition. The sheer brilliance of Ukraine’s world leading droneworks is the other side of this coin. Cheap, easy and effective. Tactically useful and Strategically useful.
If you are in the biz, I would appreciate any facts or real world stats on survivability of tanks in war vs what they take out. I don’t know what militaries call cost/benefit analyses, but they must exist. Bang for your buck so to speak. Heh.
As for China and the like stockpiling, militaries are both innovative at times and traditional. The tradition is that tanks had proven themselves in WWI and II, but that combat environment doesn’t exist anymore in an era of Javelins and drones. Like I said, there are many many ways to destroy an object that reported costs $2.5 to 4 million up front, plus the fuel, munitions and logistical dependencies, let alone a skilled crew of 4 or so with things that cost thousands and can be deployed at scale.
The taliban won a war of attrition in Afghanistan against Russia and then the US who had M1A Abrams with every conceivable advanced doodad and are experts in combined arms. Great tacticians, shit strategists. They lost to goat farmers. Vietnam comes to mind too.
Tanks have amazingly precise guns. If you need to put 20-30 kg of explosives in a window from a few km distance – a tank might help you.
Not to mention that the Abrams tank can do that highly accurately while moving at 40 MPH over rough terrain. Their stabilization system is second to none. Ukraine has received around 80 of these tanks I believe.
They are proving to be obsolete in modern warfare.
A heavy chunk of armour with a gun and optics that can hit a gnat at 2500 m is far from obsolete. However, combined arms warfare has quite recently seen the introduction of small drones as a branch in itself. These will require dedicated counter-measures just like any other facet of combined arms.
Man portable anti-tank weapons didn’t make the tank obsolete. They made it clear that tanks needed reactive armor, active protection systems like TROPHY, and supporting units that prevented infantry from shoot-n-scoot’ing from places the tank can’t see. Aircraft didn’t make the tank obsolete either, even though an attack helicopter can absolutely wreck a tank column. They just made it clear that any mobile armoured unit needs sufficient air cover. The same is true for small drones: Today, there are very few effective counter-measures available, which makes any tactic other than “hide underground” seem obsolete. However, counter-measures like the PROTECTOR CUAS are likely to become more commonplace, and once the tanks move together with those, they won’t be as easily countered by small drones anymore.
This is a very dangerous, extremely offbase assumption.
Why were the Abrams donated by Australia sent STRAIGHT to the frontline into the most intense flashpoints of it around Pokrovsk? Is it because they are obsolete?
This narrative isn’t based in reality, and it is seriously starting to eat away at people’s brains. Tanks are not obsolete, Ukraine has outpaced russia in the development of antiarmor weapons using drones, that does not mean tanks are obsolete it means tanks must evolve… and russia is unable to evolve here except by welding stuff on ad-hoc to try to duct tape over the fundamental design failures in their approach to designing tanks.
The rest of the world however is evolving their tanks and if anything unmanned vehicles underline the importance of a Main Battle Tank as a hardened control node in a network of supporting unmanned vehicles.
I am really getting tired of russia shitting the bed and then watching the rest of the world confidently conclude in awe that beds must be for shitting…
Rapid thermodynamic expansion?
