Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jun 1, 2021 23 tweets 12 min read Read on X
After a several weeks hiatus, this thread is revisiting the logistical disaster known as Operation Iceberg.

Specifically, it is looking at the planned versus executed beach clearance capability in the campaign.
1/
The opening tweet to this thread showed the "beach clearance standard narrative."

There was a lot more going on covering a much larger area of Okinawa and Ie Shima battle space.

The interactions between these beaches clearance supply capacity & operations is unexplored.
2/
This map is a big part of the unexamined beach clearance narrative. It is the map of the operations of the US Army 1st Engineer Special Brigade. One of the very few ETO units that made the trip to the Pacific and fought there as well.
3/
As I mentioned in an earlier thread, the planning assumptions of Iceberg were that the western port of Nada would fall by 30 April 1945 allowing the closure of the Hagushi Beach roadstead. This would allow Phase II combat ops to use beach lighterage .

4/
This didn't work out for a lot of reasons, starting with the decision by General Geiger of III Marine Amphibious Corps to dash across Okinawa to the East coast.
5/
And how that action -- which "put them 11 days ahead of plan" -- left the Hagushi beach head uncovered with land-based AA guns to the North East for Kamikaze's to flow in on 6 April 1945.
6/
Followed by a friendly fire disaster that ravaged the fuel unloading infrastructure for Yontan & Kadena air fields. The huge Kikusui (“Floating Chrysanthemums”) Operation No. 1 on 6-7 Apr 1945...
7/
...resulted in an operational decision to accelerate Phase II operation Northern Okinawa & Ie Shima for radar & airfield sites respectively.

This hit beach unloading capacity, hard, as the USMC III Amph. Corps removed it's vehicles supporting beach clearance to head North.
8/
Unit for unit USMC units had less vehicles than the US Army. The 6th Marine Division's 55 mile run to the north required a new beach head at Nago village on the Motubu peninsula. Maj. Gen. Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr. had to post his HQ there to know his daily logistical status.
9/
The Nago beach head was kept open until early May 1945 supporting 6th Mar. Div. operations in eliminating IJA Colonel Takehiko Udo's reinforced 2nd Btn, 44th Independent Mixed Brigade at Yae-Take.

The problem was that Gen Shepherd wore out his supporting LVT's going this.
10/
LVT's in WW2 were wasting assets. The tracks lasted about 100 miles on land, plus transmissions wore out quickly as they were overloaded & underpowered.
They were good for about 100-120 miles on land before their powertrain was automotive junk needing deep overhaul.
11/
Okinawa was the 1st operation for USMC LVT-3's. The dash to the north on the ground was not in the original Iceberg plan.

A two-division amphibious landing was supposed to accomplish this. That the shipping to do this would not be available wasn't known until Feb 1945.
12/
These late changing plans -- & the lack of USMC/USN staff officers due to the actions of Gen Oliver P. Smith in removing them -- meant the USMC LVT-3's simply lacked the enough spare parts.

See Note 26 from Victory & Occupation Chapter II-9 (photo)
12/

Given 200 of the 461 USMC LVT-3's were sidelined by a lack of spares from over use in Apr 1945.

The USMC idea of a end around invasion at Minatoga a' la landing plan Baker was a "blame the dead guy for not executing an option your decisions made impossible" pipe dream.
13/
The upshot of the burn out of the 6th Mar. Div. burn out of their LVT-3's was the need to place additional beach heads at the Machinato & Asa Gawa inlets on 19 & 26 May respectively to deliver artillery ammunition, fuel & food to USMC units.
14/
The manpower to do this came from two decisions. The first was to close down the northern (USMC) landing beaches at the Hagushi roadstead.

The second came as a result a May 16th decision by General Buckner regards the onloading of US Army Victory class ammunition ships.
15/
All artillery ammunition for ground forces at Okinawa would be unloaded in the Marianas and transshipped to LST's to land over Okinawa beaches.

Essentially Gen. Buckner, with Adm. Nimitz's support, was stealing beach clearance capability from the 20th Army Air Force to
16/
...to support his troops on Okinawa.

That this started impact Gen LeMay's B-29 force the week after the 20th AF stopped dropping bombs on Kyushu Kamikaze bases was no accident.

The 2015 paper by Evan Isaac - "Operation ICEBERG: How the Strategic Influenced the Tactics
17/
...of LTG Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. at Okinawa" is the 'go to' of modern academic scholarship on General Buckner's logistical nightmares during the planning & execution of Operation Iceberg.

See link:
etd.auburn.edu/bitstream/hand…
18/
That the US Navy SOPA (Senior Officer Present Afloat) would protected a USN amphibious combatants carrying US Army Artillery ammunition at Okinawa anchorages...but not merchant crewed Victory ships...was also 'not an accident.'
It was central to Buckner's May 16th decision.
19/
US Navy SOPA protected its AE, AKE & LST ships with Navy ammo at Okinawa.

US Army ammo ships SS Logan Victory and SS Hobbs Victory (photo) on 6 Apr 1945 plus SS Canada Victory on 27 Apr 1945 were all "cargos doomed to boom" if given to USN protection.
20/
kamikazeimages.net/stories/hobbsv…
The US Army only called forward SS Berea Victory with Army artillery shells on May 27th when they had a XXIVth Corps ammo control point at Yonabaru to unload and protect her at, rather than at the beach at Nakagusuku Bay the USN SOPA controlled.
21/
wikiwand.com/en/SS_Berea_Vi…
It is a military truism that "no plan survived contact with the enemy."

It wasn't Gen. Buckner's enemies, as this pre-invasion Tenth Army planning document shows, who destroyed his beach clearance capability at Okinawa.

It was the actions of his USMC & USN allies.
/END

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More from @TrentTelenko

Nov 5
Western media & political commentary are dominated by "doomers" predicting short & long term outcomes on the 'inexhaustibility' of Russia's personnel & equipment pools, despite overwhelming evidence that Russia is struggling badly.

Reality:
Russia is in a crisis of loss. 🧵
1/ See: https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/confirmed-russian-battlefield-equipment-losses-1730799222.html
The following are the things I've been tracking for some time:

1. The Russians are losing an infantry division every week to 10 days in terms of soldiers at a rate of between with a 1,100 to 1,700 and associated equipment.

2/ Image
2. The Russian artillery is getting shorter ranged over time from losing the ability to make barrels and liners for 152mm guns. We are seeing literal WW2 122mm artillery pieces, presumably from North Korean stocks, in the Donbas.

3/
Read 15 tweets
Nov 3
This Warzone article is an example of one of the things that has been driving me bug house nuts watching the US Military deal with drones.

Recognizing the utter collapse of analytical rigor compared to the "Big Five"
1/
...procurement programs and the MLRS artillery rocket system in the late 1970's-to-early 1980's.

The post 1973 Arab Israeli War US Army understood the idea of "the logistical costs of a stowed kill."
2/ Image
The US Army kept the 105mm on the M1 in production so long because the depleted uranium (DU) 105mm "Long Rod" APFSDS could kill a early T-72 and you could carry 55 rounds versus 40 rounds for a 120mm gun firing a tungsten APDS or early DU APFSDS round.

3/ Image
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Read 47 tweets
Oct 4
Thermite drones inside a bunker are all sorts of evil beyond burns.

My WW2 flame weapon research found that CO, carbon monoxide, fills the chemical bonds that O2 does in the lungs of air breathing fauna.

That means once CO hits those bonds in your lungs, you suffocate.

1/
What killed Imperial Japanese soldiers in WW2 "without a mark" inside bunkers was carbon monoxide poisoning, not a lack of O2.

Once you get enough CO in the lungs on the O2 chemical bonds.

No further O2 can get into the bloodstream and you suffocate.

2/ Image
I ran across that fact in a trip report of a US Army Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) medical doctor sent to Leyte to take blood samples from IJA corpses that died from flame weapons.

It didn't work out and the CWS used goats in bunkers hit with flamethrower weapons to get the CO poisoning medical data.

3/3Image
Read 4 tweets
Oct 4
You all realize that this Ukrainian thermite drone innovation just made every field fortification design by every army in the world obsolete?

1/
Any trench w/o overhead cover and any passage or firing slit that is big enough to shoot a crew served heavy weapon or vehicle out of is also big enough for a FPV drone spewing thermite to fly into.

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Every field fortification manual ever written by every military in the world is obsolete and will have to be re-written with an eye to placing curtains, nets or wire screens across firing slits and doors to keep out small drones.

3/3 Image
Read 4 tweets
Oct 1
These appear to be long range heavy MLRS of 240 mm to 400 mm diameter rather than "ballistic missiles."

1/
Heavy MLRS like the Chinese PLA, 350 km range, PCL191 erases the distinction between short range ballistic missiles & guided MLRS.

It is unclear exactly what the real ranges range of Iranian Heavy MLRS are given Chinese technology transfers.
2/

The "missile" impacts have the classic artillery rocket impact ellipse with strikes being on the line of flight axis having more dispersal (long/short) that left or right of it.

3/
Image
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Read 7 tweets
Oct 1
Just...no. That's bad analysis.

One of the spaces @secretsqrl123 had with @RyanO_ChosenCoy present. He made clear Ukrainian FPV drones based on Hollywood camera multi-copters have a 50 km one way range.

The other issue is the disintermediation of drones from platforms.
1/
Image
"Disintermediation" means any shipping container or flat space on a vessel/vehicle works as a launcher.

A ISO container with 126 drones can be stacked on a 24 X 24 top level of a Chinese MGX-24 container ship and lob 72,576 drones in a simultaneous wave 50 km or more.

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Another thing that works are simple racks in cargo aircraft, helicopters or boats.

The Russians are using simple racks in the Mi-8 to hold FPV drones in large numbers to engage Ukrainian boat drones or special forces craft with MANPADS or FPV's.

3/
Read 18 tweets

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