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

Apr 18
There is an tragi-comic story behind this Russian foreign ministry claim.

The Russian use the term "direct participation" because of a lie by Chancellor Scholz a year ago when he claimed the computer system used to program the Taurus missiles...
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...was a huge supercomputer in Germany that could not be replicated for Ukraine.

But German computer scientists found an article that described the 20 year old computer system used by Taurus.

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BLUF: Today that Taurus mission planning software could be operated on a MacBookPro.

But the lie was never retracted by Scholz and the Russians still use it for propaganda.

So Russians can not exploit Scholz's lie to scare Germans, because they know it's a lie.🤡

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Read 4 tweets
Apr 17
The CO of the top scoring Buk [Nato designation SA-11 Gadfly] battery in the PSU did an interview ~2 years ago (early 2023).

He said they used their own Mavic drones to check that their camouflage and

Zoltan Dani & A2/AD doctrine🧵
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...that their battery concealment was good enough to fool Russian drones.

So, the PSU does a drone quality assurance check on its camo during the "hide" phase of the hide-shoot-scoot cycle, AKA you have to survive in order to have the opportunity to shoot enough to become the highest scoring SAM battery.


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In contrast, the Russian VKS parks their missile TELARs in the middle of a field to get maximum obstacle clearance and range. Then they are shocked when hit by deep strike assault drone or GMLRS rocket.


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Read 18 tweets
Apr 16
In 2005, the Strategypage -dot- com web site had the following on the downing of an F-117 over Serbia.

These tactic are the heart of Ukrainian IADS doctrine.
---
How to Take Down an F-117

November 21, 2005: The Serbian battery commander, whose missiles downed an American F-16, and, most impressively, an F-117, in 1999, has retired, as a colonel, and revealed many of the techniques he used to achieve all this. Colonel Dani Zoltan, in 1999, commanded the 3rd battery of the 250th Missile Brigade. He had search and control radars, as well as a TV tracking unit.

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The battery had four quad launchers for the 21 foot long, 880 pound SA-3 missiles. The SA-3 entered service in 1961 and, while it had undergone some upgrades, was considered a minor threat to NATO aircraft. Zoltan was an example of how an imaginative and energetic leader can make a big difference. While Zoltan’s peers and superiors were pretty demoralized with the electronic countermeasures NATO (especially American) aircraft used to support their bombing missions, he believed he could still turn his ancient missiles into lethal weapons

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The list of measures he took, and the results he got, should be warning to any who believe that superior technology alone will provide a decisive edge in combat. People still make a big difference. In addition to shooting down two aircraft, Zoltan’s battery caused dozens of others to abort their bombing missions to escape his unexpectedly accurate missiles. This is how he did it.

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Read 15 tweets
Apr 15
Lots of US military officers like to believe Ukraine is identical in most ways to Saddam's Iraq & some are foolish enough to say so publicly.

It'd just not true in terms of Ukrainian IADS leadership, equipment, organization, training and doctrine.

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The #2 of PSU in Feb 2022 had been imbedded in Serbian air defense in 1999 during Operation Allied Force.

Where Col Zoltan Dani SA-3 Goa unit not only defeated USAF SEAD doctrine from 24 Mar to 10 June 1999 with good training & tactics.

Zoltan also bagged an F-117.

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Ukraine spent 23 years duplicating Zoltani's emissions control and mobility doctrine for it's IADS.

Additionally in 2014-2015, the PSU IADS operated under the Russian long range MLRS/TBM park directed by UAV's that were cued by EW-Sigint for a year.

Minimally the Ukrainians
3/
Read 11 tweets
Apr 14
The problem for this USN-Taiwan "hellscape strategy" is it's obsolete given that the Chinese have access to Russia's newest generation of FPV interceptor drones to counter it, via using China's "5 times bigger than the rest of the world combined" drone industry & sea militia.

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US Flag ranks and their senior staffs' refuse to acknowledge the disintermediation of drones mil-tech.

All you need is a game controller/radio or a smartphone controller & a waiter tray stand.

Then you are launching a FPV drone with 70% the lethality of a Javelin ATGM
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The Drone paradigm shift for Flag rank ground officers is like Horse Cavalry from 1913 to the WW1 1918 battlefield - cold.

For Flag Rank naval officers, it is like going from the 1922 battleship line to 1950's jet carrier battle group.

USN senior leaders have more problems.
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Read 6 tweets
Apr 13
One of the 'benefits' of being a 33 year 3 month vet of the US military procurement enterprise is you are around when the bodies are buried, directly or through people you know.

Such was the case with US Army anti-drone procurement.

Portrait of US Army procurement failure🧵
1/
This is an email correspondent of mine talking about US Army anti-drone kit testing, prior to 2010, about a competition between two anti-drone contractors --

"The toughest part of detecting drones is figuring out if they're drones or birds.
2/
That was actually the big 'step' they managed.

But, no, the directed pulse did not interfere with their radar. And the test they did they took down seven drones in less than seven seconds at range.
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Read 18 tweets

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