Recovery

I've seen a lot of footage of knocked out Russian armor filmed by Ukrainians and I don't think I've seen something really important about that mentioned.

There's a knocked out tank where there are Ukrainians filming it.

Not a tank recovered by the Russians.

Tanks are actually kind of hard to kill permanently.  It's quite astonishing what can be repaired and returned to service.

It's one of the reasons that Kursk was so devastating to Nazi-Germany.  The Soviet Union held the ground at the end and Zee Germans weren't able recover and repair their salvageable tanks.

What this really means is the Ukrainians are recovering the hulks and salvaging what's useful from them.

Something else which is apparent from some of this footage is Soviet/Russian tanks (this includes Ukrainian tanks which are the same designs) are shockingly easier to kill permanently than Western designs.

Lots of crispy rusted shells from catastrophic ammo fires.

It's been interesting for my ex-tanker ass to watch explosive reactive armor actually work and seeing that you can saturate the active defenses that Russia was saying made their tanks impervious to anti-tank missiles.

Measure / Counter-Measure.  The pendulum swings.

PS: I've been looking for a definitive answer about the footage of Russia transporting a shit-ton of T-62M's by rail and where those tanks were going.  Most people posting it are claiming it's near the Ukrainian border, a few are saying it's a shipment to Syria.  I don't KNOW.  But if the former is true, that's bad for the Russian war effort.  Update: A quick look around shows some of the same painted markings on Syrian T-62M as are seen on the train.  If that's a shipment ID, then it's old footage being used as propaganda.  If that's a repair batch number then it's meaningless to the tank's destination.

I have read that the tanks being transported were earmarked for Syria and are being diverted, that could explain the matching numbers.  Or not.  I admit, I don't know.

Pyrrhus wept.