Trent Telenko Profile picture
Aug 22, 2021 13 tweets 6 min read Read on X
The Harlem Hellfighters of WW1 fame were deployed as the 369th Coast Artillery Regiment (15th New York) in WW2.

Their service in WW2 was not only heroic, it was strategically vital...and their treatment that time was the forgetting of both.

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In 1943 the Harlem Hellfighters 369th regiment was broken up and organized into the 369th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Gun Battalion and the 870th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion.

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museum.dmna.ny.gov/unit-history/c…
The African American 870th AAA AW Btn was shipped to Okinawa, Lt. Col. W. F. Lucas commanding.

The 870th was to guard one of the airfields to be built in Southern Okinawa after the island was over run at the end of Apr 1945.

The IJA & May rains put an end to that plan.
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870th AAA AW Btn was armed with 16 each 40m autocannons and M-51 quad-Maxon mount .50 caliber machine guns in four batteries with four of each weapons.
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niehorster.org/013_usa/44_org… ImageImage
When the 870th Harlem Hellfighters arrived at Okinawa. Their 40mm and .50 caliber weapons were taken away from them. They were issued rifles, carbines, machine guns, bazookas and mortars and sent to Kerama Retto.

The group of islands was a major Naval base with a problem.
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The problem was that the islands in the group had not been properly cleared of Japanese resistance by the assault troops.

While more than 350 IJA suicide boats were captured or destroyed at Kerama Retto. When the 77th Division infantry battalion was withdrawn. The garrison
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...crewing them came out to contest American control of Kerama Retto.

On 11 May a landing party lead by USN Cmdr Drexler, the C.O. of LST Flotilla 47 went to Aka Shima and was ambushed by hold out Japanese soldiers.

Drexler's bayonetted body was recovered the next day.
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Midnight 11/12 May a Japanese infantry force assaulted Tokashiki town with rifles, Bangalore torpedo's and satchel charges

On the 16 May 1945 at Zamami Shima a USMC SCR-270 radar fuel was set on fire by infiltrators.

The ensuing fire badly burned 3 officers and 31 enlisted.

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With all of this going on, the 870th was converted to infantry to mop up the Japanese the 77th Infantry Division left behind.

This is a short description of their work from the late 1945 report Antiaircraft Activities of the Pacific War.
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This is the Tenth Army After Action report Anti-aircraft Staff Section describing the 870th's infantry work in Kerama Retto.

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And this is the description of the 870th's infantry work in the article "Activities of the Tenth Army AAA," Anti-Aircraft Journal July-Aug 1949. See the passage from Pages 9 - 10 below.

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This map of the US Navy seaplane sectors searched from Kerama Retto gives you an idea of how vital the work of "Harlem's Hellfighters" was in securing the island group was in WW2...and how little recognized.

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More from @TrentTelenko

Jul 2
Injection molding requires an industrial scale, and above all, _reliable_, supply chain to be more efficient that 3D printing.

This is in a lot of 3D/AM industrial guru papers on the transition from low thousands a year production to the tens of thousands scale.

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Injection molding gets you a lot of one thing cheaply. Think lots of fiber optic guided FPV drones, which are immune to radio jamming.

3D/AM allows a lot of modifications to meet the changing requirements of war. Think rapidly evolving Ukrainian interceptor drone designs.

2/
The issue for Ukraine versus Russia is Ukraine has to more widely disperse its industrial base because Russia has a bigger cruise and 500 km(+) ballistic missile production base.

Ukraine's need to disperse production and evolve drones means 3D/AM is a better industrial fit.

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Jul 1
Ukrainian mass production of FPV interceptor drones has reduced the cost per shot from $7,200 to $5,800.

The US Coyte II drone interceptor runs to $100K a shot.

The cost difference was the Big/Expensive/Few platform & missile cult was in charge of developing the Coyote II.
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The Coyote I was a propeller interceptor like the Ukrainian FPV's, but it wasn't "enough" for the higher end drone threat like the TB-2 Bayraktar.

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So the US military abandoned kinetic solutions the lower end drone threat.

And it has to pretend that high power microwave weapons and jamming will be the answer to fiber optic guided FPV's at weed height and grenade dropping drones behind tree lines.

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Read 4 tweets
Jun 27
The F-35 Big/Expensive/Few Platform & Missile cult is in deep denial of this battlefield reality.

Air superiority below 2,000 feet/600 meters has been lost by crewed aircraft.

F-35's are irrelevant for the Mavic drone threat, save as a budget threat to the C-UAS procurement.
1/
The arrival of the Ukrainian Gogol-M, a 20-foot span fixed-wing aerial drone mothership, with over a 200km radius of action while carrying a payload of two 30km ranged attack drones under its wings, underlines the impact of low level airspace as a drone "avenue of approach."
2/
The Gogol-M flys low and slow, below ground based radar coverage like a helicopter.

It opens up headquarters, ground & air logistics in the operational depths to artificial intelligence aided FPV drone attacks.

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Read 9 tweets
Jun 27
This is the main example of one of the most unprofessional delusions held by the US Navalist wing of the F-35 Big/Expensive/Few platform and missile cult.

Russian fiber optic FPV's have a range of 50km - over the horizon!

1/
This means things as the Russians make these FPV's from Chinese commercial drone components in six figure and soon 7 figure (millions!) numbers.

This has huge implications for the impending Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

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When China invades Taiwan, the 1st move will be occupying the small islands around Formosa (left) and making them drone, GMLRS & HQ9 SAM bases.

50 km circles around all those small islands cover almost all the invasion beaches (map right) with PLA 50km fiber optic FPV's.

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Read 5 tweets
Jun 24
It isn't just a matter of pre-2023 sniper tactics being obsolete.

Every patrolling tactic taught by the US Army Infantry and Ranger schools are obsolete when you can "just send a drone. "

1/3
Drones simply don't have ground line of sight issues like soldiers do.

Drones can see in more of the electromagnetic spectrum than humans.

And the US Army refuses to buy enough small drones (1 m +) to train their troops to survive on the drone dominated battlefield.🤢🤮

2/3
"Just send a drone" is the proper tactic for almost everything a 21st century infantryman does from patrolling, raiding enemy positions, sniping and setting up forward observation posts.

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Jun 23
Please note that Iran _ISN'T_ shooting down IDF drones over Tehran⬇️

There are technological reasons for that.

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The odds are heavily in favor of the IDF having parked Hermes drones with "Gorgon Stare" technology over Tehran to hunt Iranian senior government officials.

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P.S.

This is the wiki on Gorgon Stare technology.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_St…Image
Read 4 tweets

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