The Fighting Vehicle Massacre! In a Few Weeks, Losses of Russian BMPs Tripled.

More mechanized assaults means more mechanized losses.

An up-armored Russian BMP. Via Will Knowler

• Russian forces mostly attacked on foot earlier this year

• The pause in mechanized assaults was a chance to stockpile vehicles

• When mech assaults resumed, mech losses spiked

• In early October, the rate of loss of BMP fighting vehicles tripled

• The Russians are now losing more BMPs than they can build

• Stocks of old stored fighting vehicles are running low, too

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Russian regiments in Ukraine effectively stopped attacking in vehicles early this year—and, instead, sent infantry forward on foot or on motorcycles.

The shift to infantry assaults took advantage of the relatively dry weather and firm ground, prerequisites for infantry assaults—and also bought the Kremlin time to stockpile tanks and infantry fighting vehicles for the coming winter, which like all Ukrainian winters would be cold, wet and muddy. Conditions that favor vehicular assaults.

Russian mechanized assaults resumed in early October, mostly around the village of Shakhove, a few miles north of the fortress city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast. Pokrovsk anchors Ukrainian defenses between the Russian Center Group of Forces and the twin cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Shakhove anchors Ukrainian defenses north of Pokrovsk.

That Shakhove hasn’t yet fallen should tell you how well the new mech assaults are going for the Russians. Equally telling: the tally of losses. Russia was losing very few BMP fighting vehicles … until it wasn’t. In the span of a couple of weeks, the IFV loss rate more than tripled.