Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jun 12, 2021 6 tweets 3 min read Read on X
This is a short thread on Japanese bulldozers in WW2.

There weren't many & they were small

My copy of Rikugun. Volume 2: Weapons of the Imperial Japanese Army & Navy Ground Forces 1937 - 1945 does not show a single Japanese bulldozer design.
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There are a few hints about them on the internet.

In December 1942, the Imperial Japanese Navy commissioned Komatsu to produce heavy earthmovers for the purpose of building air bases.

See this link -- kenkenkikki.jp/museum/bulldoz…
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Only 148 of the 5,000 kg Komatsu bulldozers were produced by the end of the war. Some were sent to the Philippines to build air bases

And note "Heavy" by Japanese standards compares to the 23 tons of a US D-8 bulldozer of 1943 vintage.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caterpill…
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Even a "small" American D-4 Caterpillar tractor with bulldozer blade was massing 10 tons.

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The Imperial Japanese Navy's Komatsu bulldozer was slightly more, mass-wise, at 5,000 kg than a Caterpillar D-2 at 7,420 to 8,536 pounds (3,366 to 3,872 kg).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caterpill…
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The real measure of Japan as an industrial power in WW2 wasn't it's battleships, so much as it's lack of bulldozers.

A single field in England in the summer of 1944 held more Allied earthmoving bulldozer capability than the Japanese built from 1937 - 1945.

/End Image

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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.

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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."
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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/
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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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