September 28, 2007: At the end of the Cold War,
Russia had about 53,000 tanks in service (about 40 percent of them relics from
the 1950s, or earlier). Now there are only about 12,000, and less than ten
percent of them are modern. Back in 1991, about half of the tanks were of
questionable serviceability and usefulness, but that still left the Russians
with 25,000 modern tanks, ready to roll west. With the collapse of the Soviet
Union, 80 percent of the troops were sent home, and, in the next decade, only a
few hundred new tanks were purchased. Most of those 50,000 tanks ended up as
scrap.
The current tank fleet has about 500 T-90s and
T80s (VIDEO). These are roughly equal to early model U.S. M-1s. Most of the current
Russian tanks are late model T-72s, some of them upgraded with excellent
electronics (fire controls systems and thermal sights). Of the 12,000 tanks the
Russian army says it has in inventory, only a few thousand are ready to roll,
and go into combat. In effect, Russia has lost use of some 90 percent of its
tanks since 1991. Back then, nearly all those 50,000 were assigned to a combat
division. OK, most of those were reserve divisions, but if most of the
reservists showed up in wartime, they would know how to get their tanks
operational. That reserve system collapsed along with the Soviet Union, so now,
the Russians could get about 5,000 tanks operational on short notice. That's a
big drop from the 1980s.
