A year ago, independent analysts noted an increase in activity at the Kremlin’s 1,295th central tank repair base and garage in Arseniev, in Russia’s Far East.
Technicians were reactivating dozens of 1950s-vintage BTR-50 tracked armored personnel carriers and driving them off the yard. “We found 63 BTR-50s at the 1295th which have all been removed and they seem to be in good condition,” analyst Highmarsed reported.
There are two entire battalions of vehicles. Off-road rides for lots of Russian soldiers. But for Highmarsed there is another, darker implication. I expect to see more BTR-50 losses in the future,” the analyst predicted.
In fact, the Russians have decommissioned no less than 10 BTR-50s indexed through the Oryx intelligence collective. The survivors, however, are still in action: some new turrets and most with increased armor to deflect the ever-present explosive drones that have made it incredibly damaging for any Russian vehicles to break out of their cover.
Rather, “museum pieces” — as one observer described them — are more routinely being installed 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.
The BTR-50, however, is lightly armed and armored. When the heavier, heavily armed BMP-1 debuted in 1966, thousands of BTR-50s were transferred to second-line units. BTRs carried artillery, engineers, and anti-aircraft guns until MT-LB tractors also began upgrading older cars in those roles.
By the end of 2022, the Russian military was only using a handful of geriatric BTR-50s. No wonder the Russians have kept some BTR-50s. “Russia sees no need to completely replace its stock of older 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 functions far from any enemy force. Meanwhile, a few thousand old cars have been rusting in warehouses. Two years later, those surplus BTR-50s would have been unlikely to see action in Ukraine. But that was before the Russians lost more than 15,000 armored cars 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, storage yards held tens of thousands of old tanks, fighting vehicles and other vehicles. But the stocks weren’t infinite. As they began to deplete, the Russians began deploying more civilian-style vehicles for direct assaults on 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. They take advantage of gaps in enemy defenses to penetrate temporarily and deeply into enemy territory. That is why recent Russian advances are mainly measured in meters and not miles.
And why the surviving BTR-50s are, despite their advanced age, still a precious commodity for the Russians.
Sources:
1. Hautmarse
2. Kherson special cat
3. Oryx
4. The Russian of War
5. WarTranslated
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