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Comment by _kbh_ | Hacker News Reader

Russia is not the Soviet Union, and it's no longer the 1940's. If the Russians lose a significant amount of tanks and troops, the country will face serious issues in Ukraine.

Not to mention they are incapable of currently replacing the tanks, and even if they could they only make about 100 hundred a year. Most of the tanks they have where built during the Soviet Union era and where just progressively upgraded.

Finland ceded territory because they where losing the war, Ukraine does not at least yet seem to be losing the war.

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You're assuming Russians will just keep on as they are as if nothing happens. But it's not guaranteed. What if they repurpose a plant or two to making the cheapest tanks possible, let's say T-34? What if they call a general draft?

If I was asked to jump into a T-34 against modern ATGM's I would revolt more then the tankers already are.

A T-34 would be next to unless in Ukraine, and would just be a death sentence, a T-34 probably isn't even worth fielding against the more modern armour and ATGM's that are in Ukraine.

Not to mention that Russia likely doesn't have any tank groups trained on the T-34 so they would need to spend time doing that as well.

If Russia calls a general draft they are beyond desperate, their actual contract army is already doing incredibly poorly in Ukraine, called up conscripts would do even worse.

Its worth keeping in mind that Russia still needs to defend the rest of its territory whilst invading Ukraine, they are incredibly paranoid about NATO and if Finland/Sweden join NATO they will need to deploy more troops to that border to try look like a real super power again.

In recent years Russia has focused their economy on resource extraction while allowing the farming and industrial sectors to become dependent on imports. As long as sanctions remain in place it is unlikely Russia will be able to consistently manufacture any modern industrial products including tanks.

The largest and only tank factory has gone idle for lack of parts.

Russia had a "Made in Russia" program for the military. But apparently bribes let many side step the rules and post proud "Made in Russia" announcements in the press, while basically relabeling imported parts. Even more amusing is a fair number of those parts come from the Ukraine.

More factories isn't going to help, and these days it's hard to steer, power, target an enemy, or communicate without chips, which Russia is running very short of. Intel, AMD, and even Russia designed CPUs (Elbrus) are hard to come by, TSMC (and other foreign fabs) are honoring the sanctions.

Apparently even the basics like steel are getting hard to come by.

are Chinese fabs honouring sanctions? what about downstream suppliers of generic ARM chips?

>Apparently even the basics like steel are getting hard to come by.

aren't they a sizeable steel exporter? "2018, Russia exported 33.3 million metric tons of steel, a 7 percent ... Russia exports steel to more than 130 countries and territories."

> The largest and only tank factory has gone idle for lack of parts.

This has been reported in western media; it might be true, or it might be a part of information war. Assuming it's true, shall we expect this to be a permanent problem or a temporary one?

> it's hard to steer, power, target an enemy, or communicate without chips

Hard but not impossible. Given that there's a military attache in each Russian embassy, and given the chips are sold over the counter pretty much anywhere, shall we expect this to be a permanent problem or a temporary one?

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