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As someone who grew up in the cold war, the fact that a random youtuber can task a satellite that has enough precision to make an educated guess as to the type and condition of imaged tanks is either one of the most impressive or scariest things that I can imagine. And you should really do a colab with Perun.

It's just amazing that we are living during a time when a private citizen can get a hold of military intelligence that 50 years ago would make generals piss their pants from excitement.

Jaw-dropping intelligence gathering. You've literally done a whole department's work single-handed. Incredible job.

The kind of work you’re doing is beyond amazing. I’m an 80s/90s kid, and the fact that you can now get these images , let alone commission a company to get them is unreal. Love your channel!

You should have a job as an intelligence analyst for the level of detail you’ve made into this project.

Regarding the tank storage sheds, it would make sense to me that the tanks stored in those would have been the first tanks to be taken out and shipped to be upgraded or direct to front line units. If they're pulling tanks out of storage areas that have been sat in the open for years I'd be surprised if there are many left in those sheds.

Love the content! I don't see too many Content Creators actually going into depth with research like this and explaining it. Most of the time, they just speculate and move on. So this kind of dedication is appreciated.

OK, hiring a satellite to take custom pictures is not something I expected from a YTer. Impressive.

I don’t think I have ever seen so much work put into a 14 minute KZfaq video. Truly impressive work.

I believe the Russian MoD watches this video to get an idea of how many tanks they actually have in storage

Great video! No baloney, straight to the point, a cool balance of facts and educated guesses along with a little bit of why... Thank you for sharing this information and for doing the nightmarish part!!😬

People hate on t62 tanks but they do a great job of behind the line security like sitting at a checkpoint that wont see combat

You're probably the only youtuber I've seen that actively uses the revenue to provide us with more content, You're a real gem Covert Cabal

I'm very impressed with the dedication you have put into making this video. Keep up the good work!

Thanks for providing us a clear picture through the fog of war. It's amazing what you do. Thanks as well to everyone supporting the work you do, enabling us all to enjoy your incredible content.

Ok covert cabal. When I first looked at this video I decided I needed to come back and have a careful look with a clear mind. Now, 4 months later what I see is the following. 1. The Military Balance figure for 2023 has 1,800 in service, 5,000 in storage so 6,800 in total. And that's presumably after a year of attrition. 2. Your figures for 2022 (pre war, or sometime during 2022?) Good 4696, Bad 2,380 - this is not counting those not in storage. Timestamp 4:41 3. Your figures by type for earlier in 2023 (added up). Good 3,911. So 785 fewer "good" tanks. Timestamp 9:29 And then apart from some other minor issues, this is really the only useful figures I can extract. So, we're back to the fundamental question: How many tanks did Russia have pre-invasion? Your 2022 figures are 4696 "good" tanks. In a previous video you came up with something like 2,800 active (iirc). Creating a baseline figure of 7,500 tanks. Subject to the caveat of when in 2022 this applies to The figures from the Military Balance (for 2023) are somewhat at variance, when you think about it. But not hugely so. To be honest, I think your figures are likely closer to the mark and Military Balance are still being a bit generous. So what is the basis of the variance between your original video and this one? In the original video you had 6,000 tanks in storage in total and in this one it's 7,000 total. You also had 3,000 "good" tanks in the original video, now 4,696 "good" tanks in this video. Clearly the classification of good vs bad has shifted and I'm not entirely sure how you did this, though the social media pictures of the bases might have come into that. I'd submit that there are plenty of tanks that probably look good on the outside, but are suffering ageing (or theft) in ways that can't be seen. So I'm still sceptical of the overall good/bad ratio. I'm also basing this scepticism on the number of tanks that have been pushed around. Obviously seeing if they'll start, what bits are missing, then parts hunting. What I'm going to do here is to accept that your total figures for 2022 (again, not sure if this is pre-war or not) as reasonably reliable. Along with the figure from the other video about the number of tanks in active service. So 10,000 tanks (7,000 storage + 3,000 active) of which "bad" accounts for at least 2,380, but again, I'm inclined to believe more are "bad". In other words, we are looking at a baseline of somewhere around 7,000 recoverable tanks that Russia had pre-war. Give or take some uncertainties about the dates. That compares to the 5,800 total usable tanks, which was my "take home" figure from your original video. I have every reason to believe that Oryx is a substantial under-count. Oryx itself says this. In any case, the ratio of Russian tanks destroyed or captured, according to Oryx versus the tanks counted as taken off the Russians by the Ukraine Ministry of Defence has typically been around 1:1.9 but I think this ratio shrank a bit in recent months (haven't checked). As has been noted, not everything that blows up in Ukraine gets shared on social media. So I have reasonable confidence in the official Ukraine MoD figures. So let's proceed from there. Now, what this means is that as of today (19th Aug 2023) Russia has remaining 7,000 - 4,332 = 2,668 tanks. The 4,332 is the official Ukr MoD figure. In the last couple of months, the average rate of attrition for Russian tanks has been about 12 per day (since the start of the war, the average was 8, but it has gone up in recent months). At this rate of attrition, Russia will end up with zero tanks in 222 days. Now three more factors 1. Russian production of tanks. I believe its dozens per month, not hundreds. Against an attrition of 360+ per month. In other words, we hit zero in 266 days, not 222. 2. Attrition will climb as Ukraine breaks out and we see more manoeuvre warfare. The rate could double. 3. Russia doesn't need to run out of tanks for the situation to become critical. Hundreds, maybe closer to a thousand remaining. And I'm even this time ignoring the notion that Russia needs tanks in reserve for it's own territorial defence, because I think that Russia is now that desperate it would actually leave it's borders (and Moscow) poorly defended. Bottom line: 2,000 more tanks will disappear in 120 to 180 days (depending on your assumptions including production). Yes, that's December to Feb. That may bring Russia to "critical". We may even see signs of weakening, like more older tanks, during fall. We'll see. Meanwhile I'm going to sit back and watch that tank counter tick over to 5,000 sometime in late Sep/early Oct and it'll get to 5,500 in mid to late Nov. And meanwhile, the count of dead armoured vehicles has reached 8,410 and at current rate of attrition that will be 10,000 in November. Russia can mobilise all it wants, but those fresh mobiks are going to have to walk.

Russia NEVER said it was 800 t62 They said that they were going to modernise 800 tanks Now t80, t 72 and t62 have been seen coing into that factory in the far east

We appreciate the effort and hard work you and your team put in to create quality content! Keep up the great work!

Insane amount of work you put into your videos! Thank you!

As a former tank mechanic and systems technician, the one major issue, among many, is barrel droop. Gravity is a bitch on long tank main guns and nothing is immune to the effects of gravity. Tanks being stored that long will need to be totally overhauled including replacing the barrel for barrel droop. Those systems used to keep a tank in useable shape does nothing to mitigate barrel droop. A bad barrel will render the main gun inaccurate and useless regardless of how well it is stored and the pictures in the video show no attempt to prop up the barrels at all. I can say from experience changing out a barrel is a bitch. At the point of +/- 5,000 shots in the 120mm barrel of an M1A1 and M1/A2 is replaced to be refurbished and if the droop detector registers the barrel to be out of spec, it is also removed to be refurbished. If it is an M1A1 the tank is just sent to the factory for an upgrade to the M1A2 latest model. Just from a turret perspective, I hope Russia has a lot of spare barrels, main gun breach assemblies, race rings, and bearings. Along with many, many other parts. All those old tanks are good for, at this point, is for scrap steel. And whatever old ass crap they manage to get running and field are only good for being tank crew coffins! As any mechanic will say, if you let an engine, transmission, and trans axle sit too long, the fluids, grease, and oils will gum up and the seals will dry up or just rot or turn to goo as well depending on the material used to make the seal. I can go on and on, but I firmly believe all those older tanks in storage are just scrap at this point. Just speaking from experience. I feel pity for the crew for any old tank being put in the field to fight. For several reasons that I mentioned, your numbers are way too high in attempting to count serviceable and operational tanks that Russia can field.

The original news report in Russian originally said "800 vehicles", it did not say 800 T-62s. This got mixed up as other news outlets picked up the story.

9:45 it sems that the "800 T-62" news was missreported. 1. Andrey Gurulyov, former general/now politician, visited the 103rd Armored Repair Plant. 2. That repair plant was modernising T-62 at the time (you can find video footage of that visit and see the T-62). 3. Gurulyov announced that 800 tanks would be modernised at this factory over a time of 3 years, INCLUDING T-62. He did not say that ALL 800 would be T-62! That said, the number was just one claim by one politician anyway. He might well have missunderstood it himself, exaggerated, or straight up made it up. Yet it was generally reported as a plain fact.

This project is really a great contribution to the OSINT information on the war and helps the understanding of those who are not in possession of official intelligence. Obviously, assessing these things from a distance has its limitations, but the educated estimate you provide is still invaluable.

I don't know if I enjoy that image at 4:04 per se, but I certainly appreciate what you had to do to get it. Keep up the good work and I for one, will keep watching.

Absolutely superb OSINT - invaluable and one that can be used as a reliable source. Thanks for your time, effort and expense in doing this. Cheers from Oz :)

Could barely wait until another one of these was released, thanks for all the hard work!

here in Slovakia we have underground bases for tanks or former mines repurposed as storage facilities or huge hangars inside Mountains, which where used during Warsaw pact times to store all type of weapon systems and ammo...so I assume Russia will have such bases as well and you with your satellite imagery will not find them...and god knows what is inside them

Excellent. One more future factor will be the proprtional time/work it takes to get stored tanks ready. When reserves are called, the guys from the shop are first going to prepare those with the least problems before taking those with bigger maintenance needs. That means, the more you draw on reserves, the longer it will take to get a tank ready.

Those +250 T-55 can be used as indirect Artillery if they still have enough 100 mm ammo or converted to the heavy infantry fighting vehicule BTR-T (Small brother of the terminator) or any other vehicule (engineering/logistics...).

Covert Cabal on a date: Girl: so, what do you do for a living? Covert: I spend money to aquire satellite imagery of Russian tank depots in order to count them and make free to watch videos about it Girl: You got me at satellite imagery

Incredible work! Thank you so much for doing this!

Amazing work! To be fair, it's pretty hard to tell the condition of a tank from any image, not just satellite. Decent paint doesn't mean decent mechanical condition. I'm sure they don't completely disassemble and reseal every engine. I can only imagine how many "refurbished" tanks roll out with massive oil leaks and a note taped to the inside to top up the fluid every 100km hahaha.

Out of curiosity, how much money did it take to make this video?

Perun: Military economics analyst and PowerPoint king Covert Cabal: satelite imagery specialist with a pathological counting fetish.

How many "really old tanks" that have been in storage for ever, are actually good ? Its the engines that may be quite difficult to get going... its going to be far easier to refurbish the armour and guns on a running tank given its had the engine kept running, and various equipment updated,, than to transplant a working engine and various updates into a tank that is in long term storage ...

A few years ago I saw a report about how a Russian hunter found a whole field in a Siberian forest with Russian tanks in good condition. I also remembered the story of the Russian RD-180 rocket engines, which supposedly should have been destroyed. But the Russians suddenly offered to sell them to the USA. The American representative said: But you don't have those engines! Then they brought him to a large hangar and opened it. He said that he saw this huge hangar with rows of RD-180 engines going into the depths of the hangar... There were dozens or even hundreds.. You never know what and where is hidden in Russia, given their tendency to distribute weapons in unexpected places. It would be necessary to scan the entire territory of Russia. But this is physically impossible, even if the tanks are in an open field.

I have watched other similar videos that you’ve done and I am totally impressed with the attention to detail and use of rational analysis. I tip my hat 🎩 to you and yell Thanks!!

OMG,this guy can give oryx a run for their money.A lot of respect for the work you put in @ Covert Cabal.

your videos are amazing. That takes a LOT of work and patience. Well done, please keep up the hard work you do!

Brilliant analysis as usual my friend, you're one of the few most rational, most accurate and most consistent military content makers around mate, well done!!

In the plant showing the upgrade of "800 T62" also shows them upgrading T80B its not only T62 and they will be done in like a year

ı love this guy and his obsession of remaining russian tanks

"I tasked a satellite..." that is an awesome thing to be able to say.

Good work! Most excellent dedication, massive kudos to you. I would only make an editor's note: reduction in countable items goes "fewer", instead of "less" like with substances. Anyway, top job!

Amazing job, couldn't imagine the work to do this, well done sir

Outstanding (and generous) work. Thank you

Remember the storage & repair bases may use other tanks to scavenge parts to make other tanks work so that can screw up those numbers.

Fantastic analysis once again! Well done...thanks for sharing!

Yes, this is what I have been waiting for. Thank you Covert Cabal!

Great video! Thanks for the update! Can't wait for the next

Wow. That's an amazing amount of effort! Thanks for the great report and analysis.

That's the problem of making conclusions from space photos. My father and my two uncles served in Soviet army. They have told me that back then at least a third of stored tanks would never move ever ever, and that was like 35-40 years ago.

Finally. Thank you! Can't wait to watch this 🙏 please make these a quarterly update if you can!

Thank you for the effort, work and time you put into preparation of your videos. I am completely amazed! You're awesome

Thank you Great work on this. God Bless Happy Easter.

One theory as to why the T80s haven't moved much is that because they have gasoline engines, while most other Soviet/Russian vehicles have diesel engines, including most of their military trucks and vans. I seem to recall seeing somewhere that most of the T80s were in the Artic units as the gas turbine engines handled the extreme conditions a little better. Don't quote me though.

Love the detail and dedication for the topic especially from one person doing all of this research

Regarding the 800 T-62 being modernized is not accurate, the original source said they were going to modernized 800 tanks from the storage, including T-62, the translation was Just wrong.

So these numbers assume that the garages actually have tanks in them. That’s the smart thing to do but also it’s possible that it an overcount.

Did you include the T-34’s there are lots of museums they could pull those back into service from!

One our so so neighbor in Czechoslovak Group-Excalibur said, rebuild old rusty T-72 to excellent quality ready to fight(from T-72M/T72Ural to T-72Avanger) is more time demanding than making new tank.

Thanks! For your satellite picture fund.

Amazing work, thank you for your effort!

Amazing work, thanks for all that time and sharing your findings.

Really appreciate your seriously dedicated work on this. I did a really rough back-of-the-envelope estimate, and made it about 70-80% of your number... 2 years seems a reasonable estimate of the theoretical supply of Russian MBTs. However, given the current loss-rate, it's unlikely that Russia can refurbish tanks fast enough to keep a constant number of tanks on the front line. From public sources, I estimate they can bring about 30-40 a month from storage to the front line. That means a net loss of MBTs of perhaps 80-100 a month (assuming Oryx gets about 70-80% of actual losses). I know this is a gross estimate - do you have a better calculation?

thank you for going through the effort to do this the tedious and expensive way so that we can get the best information possible

Absolutely amazing detail and research you earned a follow my friend. It amazes me why they even have t-54/55s t62s t64 even in storage. That would be like us having m60s and m48s in storage in such numbers that would suggest we’d plan on using them again.

Would be interesting to do a similar comparison with US tank stocks.

What a tremendous amount of work you put into this topic. It is unparalleled anywhere on the English speaking internet. Keep up the great videos.

This is peak research and reporting, well done, I hope this does well enough to cover the cost of the satellite images.

It's still fascinates me how a single individual can just go I would like a satellite here to take pictures of this location. And they'll just drop a number. And if you can pay it it'll happen. What strange times we live in.

Also, Russia has probably been pulling the fully functional tanks out of storage first. Note the shots where individual tanks have been extracted and not entire rows. It would lead me to believe that the next tranche of extracted tanks will be the ones that had some operational difficulties, so perhaps it will take twice as long per tank to get them in service. And then the last group, those with major malfunctions, probably are extractable at a rate of about 1/4 or worse of the first group of fully (or almost fully) functional tanks.

This is a top notch breakdown of the details. Very professional ❤

Does comparing questionable tanks in images with/without snow help glean any insight for edge cases in the count? (Like the same items but before and after snowfall/melts etc)

This high altitude statistical video will inspire amateur researchers from all branches of the earth sciences. Your tank spotting prowess and attention to deterministic detail is a joy to behold.

Amazing video. I can't believe the amount of effort you put into this! Holy cow, you sir, are a legend. I'm here from Ryan McBeth's community post shouting this video out btw.

Really impressive job! But I think the real values are known even more exactly by US, using really good quality satellite images and a lot of trained personnel. Plus a lot of time lapse / "historical" images taken through the years. I do respect your invested amount of work. Keep it up and good health!

U do a wonderful job man! I absolutely LOVE the theme music you chose and look 4ward 2 every single new vid u put out. TY. Seriously!

Appreciate the work you did putting the numbers together

This gives me flashback from around 2012~2013 back when I was doing research on Soviet Heavy Bomber divions and Soviet Air bases - I wanted to figure out where the Soviets parked their Tu22 and Tu16 Anti-ship bombers, so I could create more realistic naval scenarios in games like CMANO. It was quite an interesting time to research all the informations about Soviet air bases and bomber divions, only using Google satellite images and other sources from the internet. Turns out the Soviet Union had several bomber divisions all across the Soviet border close to the Pacific Ocean, North Atlantic, Baltic Sea and even Mediterranean Sea, basically covering all major seas and oceans around Europe and Asia completely, always ready to send multiple Bomber formations to attack USN and NATO shipping fleets (carrier fleets) at any time. Which basicly means the Soviet Union was a gigantic aircafft carrier of its own, covering entire continents. But doing this kind of research about tank fleets is even more difficult and impressive task. Hats off to you

We appreciate all your hard work work put into this video! This type of intelligence gathering and geographic data collection is not necessarily fun or easy. Kudos!

I just don't think the pentagon has more up-to-date information than you've just given us Please don't go crazy counting tanks Absolutely fantastic work

Amazing and informative video, I really appreciate the hours and skills you commit to providing facts and information to the rest of us, Thank you!

Very impressive video & underlying due diligence. Respect! Thanks.

Your dedication is crazy, thank you so much for the interesting content

Can you make video on how many tank Great nation of Wadiya have? President prime minister general Aladeen says 50000 but it's little hard to believe.

Thanks for the thorough research. Appreciate you buying the satpics. For us.

Giving a like for a ton of effort-good on you. My understanding tho is many tanks need parts that aren’t available, which makes some % not usable.

Dude your research on this is incredible. Hats off to you sir.. subbed and liked...

It's probably nothing but I recall back in the 1970/80s, seeing photographs of Warsaw Pact tanks. In what looked like large undercover or underground storage facilities. The low ceilings certainly gave the impression of being underground rather than specially constructed sheds. I can't remember if they were in Russia or closer to NATO lines in East Germany / Poland etc. But I do remember there were hundreds rather than dozens.

Russia is now confirmed to have lost at least 2405 tanks in Ukraine.

Thank you for your videos. Your work has given great insight. After seeing the video twice, I think you touched on the reality of the tanks.

Appreciate the effort, thank you.

I been following this channel since 2018 but god every time it amaze me how much of hard work he puts in these 10 mins video thank you much appreciate your amazing work from the bottom of my heart ❤️🙏

Amazing insightful research work. Thank you

THANK YOU for doing this research dude

Wow, truly love your dedication to this subject and getting the answers

Fantastic work! really appreciate your effort! Have shared with my friends.

Tanks for the information bro.. thank you very much 😅