Ukrainian Side is Seriously Underpowered

[DerKommissar]

11 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Heresy.....Call the inquisition! 

Inquisition has arrived. (When you really think about it, a T-80UK IS a hideously mutated T-64... on steroids)

[General Jack Ripper]

On ‎9‎/‎9‎/‎2018 at 11:59 PM, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Heresy.....Call the inquisition! 

[MikeyD]

I fired up a QB today and much to my great surprise my T-64BVs acquitted themselves very well during the game! I cannot say that had been my experience to date. Maybe it was because the weather was light fog so Russian superiority in spotting was negated. Also it was armor only so I kept the commander unbuttoned (a bad idea when there are snipers about). T64's always been a nostalgic favorite of mine. Its nice to see it finally winning a scenario.

 

[HerrTom]

6 hours ago, MikeyD said:

I fired up a QB today and much to my great surprise my T-64BVs acquitted themselves very well during the game! I cannot say that had been my experience to date. Maybe it was because the weather was light fog so Russian superiority in spotting was negated. Also it was armor only so I kept the commander unbuttoned (a bad idea when there are snipers about). T64's always been a nostalgic favorite of mine. Its nice to see it finally winning a scenario.

Oh yeah, I found my enemy's T-64BVs did a number on my T-72B3s in my By the Beautiful Blue Dniepr scenario.  They're definitely nothing to scoff at, especially if they're hull down.  That 125mm gun is still dangerous!

[snarre]

my commander die moust of time when ERA detonate , risky to ceep him unbuttoned.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

It's been kind of quiet in here for a while, Gur Khan suggests why:

http://gurkhan.blogspot.com/2019/08/blog-post_22.html

[Haiduk]

18 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

It's been kind of quiet in here for a while, Gur Khan suggests why:

http://gurkhan.blogspot.com/2019/08/blog-post_22.html

Gur-Khan as always heard the song, but got it wrong. Stopping of BRT-4 program and other developments happenrd because of Ukroboronprom (UOP) and Ministry of Defense now it deep withstanding. Corruption and artiphical overpricing from one side and stupid bureacracy from other. Different commercial interests of different influent persons, who's standing behind UOP and MoD. Formal reason of BTR-4 stopping - MoD says the Finnish armor plates, which are using by UOP in BTR-4 is not conform to Ukrainian standards and demands to use Ukraiain armor. UOP answers the steelplant in Mariupol, belonging to oligarch Rinat Akmetov can't to maintain producing of quality armor in necceseery volumes and sells the steel only in huge parties, so Finnish armor more profitable. That armor was shelled on the range and showed own proper conditions, but MoD claimed, real hulls were assembled with armor of different type, not matching the armor, showed on the tests. Also two factories (hulls asemling and turrets assembling) failed own producing in 2018 because different reasons (corruption, obsolete equipment, debts etc), so Malyshev's factory remained without work.  For 2018 only 8 BTR-4 were produced. This is weird situation on sixth year of war but this is Ukrainian reality... Each official in sate companies thinks about own pocket, not for state interests.

About BM Oplot. There is not any need in thees tanks now. It was great 10 yeras ago, but now it's upgrading potential is very low. So BM Oplot can be produced only for export, but Ukrainian army need comletely new tank. T-84 Oplot (first generation of 2000 year) which were moved in 14th brigade is more inner propaganda step, than real need. And thanking to ass-handed workers and engineers it turned out to big fail. There is no more T-84 for Army.

Now T-64BV upgrading program is successfully implemented. Thermal sight for commander and EOP gen.III for driver and gunner, digital radio, GPS navigation, Nozh ERA in Kontakt-1 boxes - all this raise opportunities of T-64BV almost on the BM Oplot level. There is about 100 T-64BV already upgraded and moved to own units.

 

Russian engines, use in T-64? Ahaha ! And this is main editor of military magazine.

Edited August 23, 2019 by Haiduk

[Sgt.Squarehead]

All of which boosts BTR production how, exactly? 

[ikalugin]

I think it would be fair to say that at this point the Ukrainain AFV production industry is both zombified via internal problems (ie corruption) and has it's lifeblood (workforce) drained (ie by Russian and Polish companies).

But it would be nice to see agregate confirmed delivery figures on domestic orders over the past 5 years of new AFVs and for deep modernisation. While 100 upgraded T64BVs may sound impressive, they should be compared against either the opposing force or the VSU's own losses (79-175 lost?).

Edited August 25, 2019 by ikalugin

[Haiduk]

20 hours ago, ikalugin said:

at this point the Ukrainain AFV production industry is both zombified via internal problems

This is correct for state factories. Commercial companies, which design own armor, sucessfully execute state orders. For example "Praktyka" comapany now is finishing the order for 40 "Kozak-2" armored cars. Totally this will be already 200 vehicles. Now new "Kozak-2M" is complening state test program and will be adopted for air-assult units. Also "Praktyka" presented own 6*6 APC "Otaman" for Marines. 

20 hours ago, ikalugin said:

But it would be nice to see agregate confirmed delivery figures on domestic orders over the past 5 years of new AFVs and for deep modernisation.

Theese are two tables from official White book-2018 of MoD

Table 3.1. New and modernized weapon systems.

Table 3.2. Repaired weapon systems

 

Edited August 26, 2019 by Haiduk

[IMHO]

@Haiduk, thanks for the interesting info first of all! Don't the numbers for 2018 look too optimistic? Isn't it a pre-election effect? 2014 numbers at least for small arms look too low for me. 2014 should be the year of mass replenishment of weapons lost, shouldn't it?

Edited August 25, 2019 by IMHO

[ikalugin]

@Haiduk I am aware of this list (and the white book) and this is why a breakdown is important, as for example ЗРК could stand for anything between a MANPADS launcher to S300V SAM battery or S300PS SAM divizion. So without those breakdowns the figures are not quite all that usefull.

Edited August 25, 2019 by ikalugin

[Haiduk]

14 hours ago, IMHO said:

@Haiduk, thanks for the interesting info first of all! Don't the numbers for 2018 look too optimistic? Isn't it a pre-election effect? 2014 numbers at least for small arms look too low for me. 2014 should be the year of mass replenishment of weapons lost, shouldn't it?

Military budget for 2018 was too fat ), but pre-election factor also could take place. 

New small arms in 2014 could be only of "Fort" state factory. "Fort" during pre-war time produced weapon only for police and for civil market. So, it production capabiliies too limited. I remember, in 2014 they produced for army about 500 Fort-223 rifles, mostly for airmobile, special forces and National Guard.

14 hours ago, ikalugin said:

@Haiduk I am aware of this list (and the white book) and this is why a breakdown is important, as for example ЗРК could stand for anything between a MANPADS launcher to S300V SAM battery or S300PS SAM divizion. So without those breakdowns the figures are not quite all that usefull.

The line has a word "SAM COMPLEXES", so this is not MANPADs 100%. Complex=battalion, though in can be also single vehciles Osa and Strela-10 of ground forces.

Edited August 26, 2019 by Haiduk

[IMHO]

1 hour ago, Haiduk said:

Military budget for 2018 was too fat ), but pre-election factor also could take place. 

 

My guess is FY2018 budget can't explain that. Even for repairs production lifecycle for a piece of heavy equipment (like armored vehicles) would be about 9 months give or take. So if one considers monthly production capacity limitations most of the advance payments from the MoD should have happened in FY2017. What do you think?

[Haiduk]

1 hour ago, IMHO said:

 

My guess is FY2018 budget can't explain that. Even for repairs production lifecycle for a piece of heavy equipment (like armored vehicles) would be about 9 months give or take. So if one considers monthly production capacity limitations most of the advance payments from the MoD should have happened in FY2017. What do you think?

State Defensive Order is a classified information, so I have not any information about funds, prices and terms. Some information about repair and orders of some parts, systems and devices can see in "State Order Messenger" issue, but there is no integrity information. Though, we have armor repair factories in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Zhytomyr, Mykolaiv. Each specializes on some sort of repair works and modernizations. Even with corruption and ineffective managment they capable totally to repair hundreds vehicles per year. Nine months per one repaired vehicle is too long as for me. Pre-war cycle of BM Oplot producing "from zero" was 14,5 months.   

[IMHO]

6 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Nine months per one repaired vehicle is too long as for me

Agree with your opinion on repairs. I meant "upgrade" but somehow wrote "repairs". I counted nine months between advance payments from MoD and actual delivery of the vehicle. For modernization MoD would need to make this advance payment to the prime contractor then prime contractor transfers advances to subsystems suppliers and only after this payment subsystems suppliers would start producing their respective parts. And that's only if subsystems suppliers do not need to upgrade their tooling.

[Haiduk]

15 hours ago, IMHO said:

Agree with your opinion on repairs. I meant "upgrade" but somehow wrote "repairs". I counted nine months between advance payments from MoD and actual delivery of the vehicle. For modernization MoD would need to make this advance payment to the prime contractor then prime contractor transfers advances to subsystems suppliers and only after this payment subsystems suppliers would start producing their respective parts. And that's only if subsystems suppliers do not need to upgrade their tooling.

I heard upgrading of one T-64 takes about month or two, but lost this discussion, can't say exactly. The program was started in 2017, first demonstration T-64BV mod.2017 (it's official name) was in April. To the end of the year about three dozen tanks were upgraded - four of them participated in Strong Europe Tank Challenge. Other tanks already went to units in 2018. Initially tanks upgraded only in Kharkiv, but since the end of 2018 Lviv factory also mastered modernization process, so number of upgraded tanks increased.

[IMHO]

2 hours ago, Haiduk said:

I heard upgrading of one T-64 takes about month or two

I'm sure the actual hands-on work can be squeezed in the time frame you put here. My comment was about the feasibility of using FY2018 budget to pay for the increase the actual production numbers in 2018 by 2-3 times YoY. To upgrade a tank one needs to push the upgrade contract through the red tape AFTER one has the approved state budget, pay the costs to actually transport the tank to the plant, then the prime contractor advances the subsystem producers and ONLY AFTER that subsystem producers would start the work on their components save delivering them to the prime contractor. So 2018 numbers seem more like Poroshenko's upbeat pre-election propaganda about how good the guy was about growing the might of Ukrainian Armed Forces. Like they counted all the tanks that were CONTRACTED to be upgraded rather than actually delivered to MoD. Or alternatively they counted all the tanks they "upgraded" by simply doing the simplest job of taking them out of stock and making them battle-ready as of 60s-70s standards. Ukrainian plants absolutely have no spare money in their pockets to pay for expensive stuff like tank's thermal sights before Ukrainian MoD provides the funds to do so. Were it 10-20% increase YoY I'd believe it but 2-3 times increase...

Edited August 27, 2019 by IMHO

[ikalugin]

On 8/26/2019 at 12:30 PM, Haiduk said:

Military budget for 2018 was too fat ), but pre-election factor also could take place. 

New small arms in 2014 could be only of "Fort" state factory. "Fort" during pre-war time produced weapon only for police and for civil market. So, it production capabiliies too limited. I remember, in 2014 they produced for army about 500 Fort-223 rifles, mostly for airmobile, special forces and National Guard.

The line has a word "SAM COMPLEXES", so this is not MANPADs 100%. Complex=battalion, though in can be also single vehciles Osa and Strela-10 of ground forces.

Battalion is a misleading translation because ЗРК=/=ЗРДН.

And yesm sinlge Osa units would qualify too.

[Haiduk]

2 hours ago, ikalugin said:

Battalion is a misleading translation because ЗРК=/=ЗРДН.

I know, but western terminology hasn't a word "divizion" for definition of artillery&missile unit, consisting of several batteries. It names "battalion".

[Haiduk]

5 hours ago, IMHO said:

Or alternatively they counted all the tanks they "upgraded" by simply doing the simplest job of taking them out of stock and making them battle-ready as of 60s-70s standards.

No, all upgraded tanks are acting vehicles, which take from units, not from stocks. Reservs of repairable T-64B/BV in stocks already exhausted.  

About all this chain you are right, but I don't see any impossible to do this and upgrade 100 vehicles for 1,5 years. Results of 2018 can be even higher, but because of many reasons plans wasn't execute on 100 %. I can't find this table, but as I remind, about 200 armored vehciles was planned to buy according to State Defensive Order in 2018, but real number of vehciles turned out less in to times.

[ikalugin]

55 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

I know, but western terminology hasn't a word "divizion" for definition of artillery&missile unit, consisting of several batteries. It names "battalion".

Yes, but because not all complexes are divizions (for example look at the S300V that Ukraine operates - there a system is called a divizion) calling complexes battalions is a bad practice and is misleading the reader in my opinion.

Same applies to Russia etc ofc, which is why I tend to try to use clear cut terminology.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Ummmm.....

http://gurkhan.blogspot.com/2019/09/50.html

Is it my imagination or are things getting a bit desperate? 

[MikeyD]

If it works it works. Apparently Ukraine loves their 1983-vintage British Saxon troop transports. A vehicle that can reliably stop a 7.62 steel core bullet, something they couldn't say about their BMPs and BTR-70s. 

[IMHO]

10 hours ago, MikeyD said:

A vehicle that can reliably stop a 7.62 steel core bullet, something they couldn't say about their BMPs

Can you provide proofs? BMP-1 save for BMP-2 withstands Russian 23mm and Western 20mm from front at 500m and 7.62 AP at the sides at zero distance. It has 16-18mm armor at sides.