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

Mar 12
What jumps put for me looking at this report of the Mullah's decamping to Mashad is the US-Israeli intelligence had to know as soon as it started.

I believe that the steaming of the USS Ford through the Suez Canal happened because of this.

Collapse 🧵
1/
If the Mullah's command was moving.

Their ability to command drone and missile strikes on the USS Ford would be minimal, if only to avoid US-Israeli radio-direction finding.

Mashad is also very convenient place to run away from Iran if the government falls everywhere else.
2/ Image
The Mullah's are so afraid of getting the "Maduro Treatment" by US Special Forces in Mashad that they have blocked the local airport runways with cars

3/
Read 12 tweets
Mar 9
The problem with this thought is the Iranian drones being fired now are the uber sophisticated Russian-guilt Geran using radio mesh and cell phone sim card link video-navigation.

1/3
They are flying lower and more sophisticated trajectories taking advantage of radar shadows from oil infrastructure in the Gulf to prevent the generation of good intercept tracks.

Gun armed ships and attack helicopters low amongst oil rigs are the best play here.

2/3
It is only a matter of time until Geran/Shaheed FPV motherships are being fired by the IRGC at Gulf Oil infrastructure using Gulf Cell phone networks as video data links.

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Mar 8
This is a point I have been pounding upon since 2023.

The "Big/Expensive/Few Mafia" in the US Flag ranks and Western Defense Contractors have denied this harsh reality for reasons Upton Sinclair has expounded upon.
1/
Both I and @johnkonrad were mocked for pointing out how deadly drones were for being disintermediated from existing military platforms for ubiquitous commercial transportation infrastructure like cargo containers.
2/ Image
Image
The Ukrainian Operation Spiderweb showed who were prophets and who were the complete and utter fools.

BLUF:

The Big/Expensive/Few, love the F-35, fanboy community got to eat 💩

3/ Image
Read 6 tweets
Mar 5
Very, Very, few people understand the implications of this Israeli hack combined with its deep penetration of Iran's Regime means for the US-Israeli campaign to exterminate the Mullah's Regime Security Forces.

Let's talk about Gorgon's Stare & Post GWOT smart bombs🧵
1/ Image
Gorgon's Stare and its peer systems like ARGUS, Vigilant Stare, Constant Hawk and Agile Condor are Wide Area Aerial Surveillance (WAAS) systems, the all-seeing eye in the sky.

They are increasingly sophisticated mergers of multi-spectral cameras, computer data bases and more recently A.I.

2/
WAAS has had a rocky and politically charged history (See 2011 text below) but the data fusion technology has gotten to the point that more and more cameras can be networked together over larger areas with the data saved for later analysis.

Analysis which is improving via AI
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Read 14 tweets
Mar 2
The crash of the Tanker maritime insurance market will force Gulf tanker escort operations.

Crashing maritime insurance was why 1988's "Operation Praying Mantis" happened.

The problem for China & the EU in 2026 is Gulf Oil no longer flows to the USA.

1/3 Image
The USA is an energy exporting nation now and it doesn't need Gulf oil.

The idea that a huge price spike with the US Economy is actually something Pres. Trump can affect via EXPORT Tariffs.

If domestic suppliers can't make money selling abroad...they won't.

2/3
This will spike oil prices outside the USA, but forcing China to pay the world rate for oil is in the USA's interests.

A 2026's "Operation Praying Mantis" will require Chinese and European Navy's doing the escort duties without the US fleet.

3/3.
Read 4 tweets
Feb 28
I don't doubt that Ukraine cyber hacked in Russian digital terrain elevation maps that the Russians compiled for themselves. Up to date digital terrain elevation maps are a good thing to have.

Plus NASA also had a huge archive of digital terrain elevation data.

1/
But the art of planning munition trajectories to use them is a separate and uniquely military skills set.

Ukraine has had four years of combat experience doing the task of planning munition trajectories.

2/
Which is why I called them out as replicating SMAC's capabilities.

Combat experience is 10 times the best simulations.

The Flamingo flies lower and much faster than most of the other deep strike assets the Ukrainians use, but it is also larger.

3/
Read 6 tweets

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