A year ago, independent analysts noted an uptick in activity at the Kremlin’s 1295th Central Base of Repairs and Storage of Tanks in Arsenyev in Russia’s Far East.
Technicians were reactivating dozens of 1950s-era BTR-50 tracked armored worker transport vehicles and removing them from the structure site. “We discovered 63 BTR-50s on 1295 Street that have been removed and appear to be in good condition,” analyst Highmarsed reported.
There are two entire battalions of vehicles. Off-road rides for a bunch of Russian soldiers. But for Highmarsed there is another, darker implication. “I would expect to see more BTR-50 losses in the future,” the analyst predicted.
Indeed, the Russians have given up as lost no less than 10 BTR-50s that the Oryx intelligence collective has documented. The survivors are still in action, however, some new turrets and, at most, extra armor to deflect the ubiquitous explosive drones that made it incredibly damaging for any Russian vehicle to take cover.
Rather, “museum pieces” – as one observer described them – are not unusual along the 800-mile front line as Russia’s broader war against Ukraine approaches its fourth year. But its resurgence may only be temporary. All Russian cars are endangered species in a war governed by drones.
The BTR-50 is a 15-ton, diesel-fueled armored tractor with two crew and space for up to 20 passengers. It usually packs a heavy machine gun. The BTR-50 entered service in 1954 and, for the next 12 years, was the Soviet army’s main fighting vehicle. BTR-50 crews would haul infantry into battle, protect the soldiers as they dismounted and then support them with its machine gun.
However, the BTR-50 was lightly armed and lightly armored. When the heavier, more armed BMP-1 debuted in 1966, thousands of BTR-50s were cascaded to second-line units. BTRs carried artillery, engineers and anti-aircraft guns until MT-LB tractors also began to upgrade older cars in those roles.
At the end of 2022, the Russian military was only using a handful of geriatric BTR-50s. No wonder the Russians have retained some BTR-50s. “Russia does not see the need to completely replace its stock of older vehicles. automobiles and has instead adopted a hybrid technique for modernization,” Lester Grau and Charles Bartles in their definitive e-book The Russian Way of War.
But those operational BTR-50s fulfilled secondary roles away from any enemy forces. Meanwhile, a few thousand old automobiles have rusted in the warehouses. Two years apass, it would have been improbable for those surplus BTR-50s to pass into action in Ukraine. But that was before the Russians lost more than 15,000 armored automobiles and other heavy equipment.
Given that Russian industry builds maybe 200 BMP-3 fighting vehicles and 90 T-90M tanks annually as well as a few hundred other armored vehicles including BTR-82 wheeled fighting vehicles, the vast majority of the replacement vehicles the Kremlin must generate to make good combat losses unavoidably comes from once-vast stocks of old Cold War equipment.
Three years ago, tens of thousands of old tanks, combat vehicles and other vehicles were stored in warehouses. But the stocks were not infinite. As they began to wear out, the Russians began deploying more civilian-type automobiles to directly attack Ukrainian positions: cars, vans, all-terrain vehicles, motorcycles, and even electric scooters.
Today, it’s practically routine for some unarmored civilian vehicle packed with terrified Russian infantry to barrel toward Ukrainian lines—likely heading for fiery destruction.
The deployment of civilian vehicles is one sign of stress in Russia’s equipment-generation effort. The continued sightings of up-armored BTR-50s is another. Recent satellite imagery indicates even deeper stress. In some of what were once the most abundant storage yards, there are no longer any recoverable vehicles. Not even 70-year-old BTR-50s.
That doesn’t mean Russia won’t keep fighting. It does mean its forces will increasingly fight on foot. Incredibly, foot-borne infantry often fare better than vehicles do under relentless drone attack. The former are fleeting targets. The latter are usually pretty hard to miss.
“Every time” Russian regiments attempt a vehicle attack, “the result is zero,” one Russian blogger recently lamented in a missive translated by Estonian analyst WarTranslated. But “the infantry, with artillery and drones, is slowly but currently taking advantage of one tree line after another. “
However, there is one thing that dismounted infantry does do. They take advantage of gaps in enemy defenses to temporarily and deeply penetrate enemy territory. That is why recent Russian advances are mainly measured in meters and not miles.
And why the surviving BTR-50s, despite their complex age, are still a valuable asset for the Russians.
Sources:
1. Highmarsed
2. Kherson special cat
3. Oryx
4. The Russian of war
5. War
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