Replenish II.

This is coolbert:

As extracted from a pdf document dated 1990 an interview of a very senior Soviet career military officer [Gen.-Col. (Ret.) Andrian A. Danilevich.

Portions as extracted an assessment [rather somber] of the Soviet economy to mobilize for war during a time of protracted conventional war.

Consider within context of the decision of the Russian to withdrawal from mothballed stockpile rather ancient T-62 tanks, refurbish and upgrade same for the Ukraine Conflict.

"How did we assess the economic situation in analyzing a prolonged conventional war? Take the rates of attrition. Today, with the highly accurate weapons and specific anti-tank weapons, the rate of attrition would be five to six times higher than in the last war. In other words, the rate of attrition per operation was estimated at 120 %. This means that if we had 1,000 tanks at the beginning of an operation, we would lose 12,000. This seems absurd. But the fact is that in the course of an operation there is 25% rate of attrition due to repairable mechanical failure. In the course of an operation these tanks would be repaired and put back into action. They would fail a second time, and again be repaired, and the total would be 120%. But now this rate would rise to 200 - 300%. So you needed a tremendous repair capacity within the formations themselves. But even a tremendous repair capacity could not replenish these losses, so you need a huge industrial capacity. But the tanks are much more complex now. To produce a T-34 you needed four plants: one for engines, one for the main body, one for the control systems . . . . Now you need 340 plants to build a medium tank, say a T-64A . You need all of the above, plus night vision systems, laser sights, stabilization systems for fire-on-the-run, fire control systems, anti-radiation systems, various kinds of armor, etc. 340 plants ! Try doing all of this during a war. And you cannot use low tech. Well, you can, but if the other side has high-tech, it will be a rout. So you need high-tech tanks."

Those T-62 tanks removed from "mothballed stockpile" going to take three years for goodly numbers of them to appear on the battlefield of the Ukraine Conflict and make a difference? Exactly how long is the Russian expecting the Conflict to continue it is reasonable to ask?

coolbert.