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[–]TheJamesRocket 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The Ukrainians make incredibly outlandish claims about Russian losses that are impossible to believe. However, this guy Oryx seems to have a good catalog of Russian equipment losses in Ukraine. This guy is very anti-Russian but does a decent job in cataloging equipment losses for Russia.

If he is professionally honest AND meticulous in his accounting. Lets see what he has to report.

Tanks- 192(65 destroyed). The bulk seems to be Soviet-era tanks. Not one T-90M lost. I think this can be attributed to its small numbers and perhaps its active protection system.

AFVs- 113. The overwhelming majority seem to be obsolete MT-LBs from the 60s.

IFVs- 166. Disproportionate losses of Airborne corps BMDs. Their light armor didn't do them much favor.

APCs- 63. Mostly Soviet-era BTRs.

These numbers sound plausible enough. The Russians are proficient at using combined arms to overcome the enemy with minimal losses to themselves. They are a 1st rate army fighting against a 2nd rate Ukrainian army. And remember, some tanks that are 'knocked out' can still be repaired and put into service.

Towed artillery- 26. The Russians use very little towed artillery. Probably mostly used by the rear-echelon national guard and other Donbas militia units.

SPGs- 28. Surprisingly low number as the Russians are an artillery army first and foremost and SPGs form the backbone of the artillery.

MLRS- 19. Again, very low numbers considering how heavily the Russians use it. I guess the Bayraktar drones weren't that useful and American supplied artillery radars didn't make much of a difference.

The small number of artillery pieces destroyed is not that surprising. Howitzers, SPGs, and MLRS are positioned many miles behind the front line, after all; Their main vulnerability is to counter-battery fire, and the Ukrainians don't have much artillery to shoot back with.

SAM systems- 29. Low number considering that the Russians are very anal on organic SAMs for their brigades. Not as many were destroyed as well. A lot of the equipment was abandoned due to a lack of fuel stemming from the rapid advance in the early days.

Presumably, these were shorter ranged missile systems like the Tunguska, Pantsir, or maybe Buk. Its unlikely that any longer ranged missiles like the S400 were destroyed. But it is interesting to speculate how the Ukrainians knocked these systems out: Were they using anti-radiation missiles like the HARM? And if so, why weren't the Russians able to counter them?

Fixed-wing aircraft- 12 of which one crashed and another was destroyed on the ground by a Tochka-U missile. Not as bad considering that Ukraine started the war with over 300 SAM systems and receive AWACS and ELINT data from US and NATO aircraft nearby.

This IS surprising. Given the number of air defense systems used by the Ukraine, and the high sortie rates of the Russians, you would have expected them to take higher losses than this. The Russians must have conducted a very thorough suppression of air defenses.

[–]casparvoneverecBig tiddy respecter[S] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Most Rus SAMs lost were short-ranged ones. They were mostly lost to ambushes or abandoned due to running out of fuel. I think one Buk was destroyed by a Byraktar. Not really a failure of the SAMs but poor logistical planning by the Russian army. I don't think any SAM was lost to Ukrainian air action.

Ukrainian air force has not made much of a contribution other than getting shot down by Russian SAMs and fighters. I wouldn't be surprised if some Russian Su-35 pilot racked 3 or 4 air kills.

The S-400 made a record on the second day of the war. It shot down two Ukrainian Su-27s over Kiev from across the Belarussian border...over a distance of 150 km! No wonder NATO is against any country buying the S-400.

The Russians didn't use the S-400 after that all, and they haven't used most of their jamming capabilities and none of their hypersonic missiles. My guess is that the Russians don't want to give off intel on these high value weapons to western observers.