Share this page!

Maybe Scrolly?
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Twitter logo
Jan 18 • 15 tweets • 6 min read
The RAF airlift of AT-weapons to Ukraine is now 5 x C-17 sorties.

Rough order, you can fit around 400 FGM-148 or NLAW on 463L pallets on a single C-17.
1/
NLAW's inertial guidance is accurate versus moving targets to 400 meters and stationary at twice that. It uses a 15 cm Bill style slant down tandem HEAT warhead and will beat the front slope of any Russian tank.

You can't jam it.
2/
Only active defenses can stop and NLAW. And a tank hunter team can simultaneously fire several at the same tank to saturate an active defense.

Plus NLAW can be fired indoors.

Sub-tweet thread on NLAW 👇👇👇👇
3/
So, what does 2,000 transferred NLAW in the hands of the Ukrainian Army mean?

It answers the primary need of the Ukrainians, namely, a lot of ATGM with sure kill given a fair hit on a later Generation T-72/T-80/T-90 tank.

See Phil Karber here:
4/
 defence-ua.com/minds_and_idea…
And also see Phil Karber here regards providing USMC surplus Humvee TOW missile launchers and US Army surplus Bradley Fighting Vehicles to Ukraine:
5/
 defence-ua.com/army_and_war/v…
The Trump and Biden Administrations have sent 120 Javelin Missile launchers and several thousand (that number is not public where I've looked) Javelin missiles since 2017.

Given there are 40 active Ukrainian battalion battle groups with another 16 in
6/
 defence-blog.com/ukraine-to-rec…
...reserves. That works out to three Javelin launchers and maybe 30 (speculative guess) missiles in the BTG.

This is why Phillip Karber was calling out the need for more.

While the Javelin in small numbers has won engagements like The Battle of Debecka, IRAQ, 2003
7/
There is simply no comparison between the Russian Army of 2021 and the Iraqi Army facing the Kurdish Peshmerga Army during invasion of Iraq in 2003.
8/
 weaponsandwarfare.com/2016/06/12/the…
The best a Ukrainian BTG can hope for with three Javelin launchers and 30 missiles versus a Russian regimental scale attack is 18 tank & AFV kills with a 100% loss of all three launchers & crew while being over run.
10/
Two thousand NLAW change this calculations by a lot.

Forty Ukrainian BTG now have another 50 NLAW on top of the three Javelin launchers & each NLAW missile is in a disposable launcher

An attacking Russian regiment can face a peak of 53 simultaneous sure kill if hit ATGMs.
11/
What the US Army Ft. Irwin National Training Center has shown time after time is that massed & simultaneous ATGM salvos from multiple ranges break large scale tank attacks.

The RAF airlift of 2,000 NLAW to Ukraine has given the Ukrainian Army that capability.

12/
The addition of NLAW to Javelins & existing older Ukrainian anti-tank weapons means the three Javelin launchers per BTG will survive several engagements.

BLUF: The Russian Army trying to take Eastern Ukraine now will lose 500 more tanks than before the RAF NLAW airlift.

/End
Correction: The Ukrainian Army has 26, not 16 reserve BTG.
There are now _SIX_ RAF NLAW supply flights to Ukraine.

The RAF anti-tank missile transfer flights to Ukraine proceed apace.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Trent Telenko

Trent Telenko Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @TrentTelenko

Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jan 2
Given the enormous interest in the "Electronic Warfare during the Battle of the Bulge" thread.

I'm posting a new thread whose subject is the historiography of EW in WW2 with foundational books, a road map of available primary sources, & recent research

1/
The late Alfred Price's "Instruments of Darkness: The History of Electronic Warfare, 1939–1945' is the foundational WW2 electronic warfare history.

It has been in continual print since 1969 with the last edition in 2020.

amazon.com/Instruments-Da…
2/
"Instruments of Darkness..." provides the some of the history of the "Battle of the Beams" but focuses on RAF Bomber Command's war with German integrated air defense system (IADS)
3/
Read 29 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Dec 29, 2021
The subject of this thread will be the electronic warfare history of the Battle of the Bulge.

This history is almost unknown in military history circles, let alone the public, because there have been exactly two articles on it in 75(+) years.
1/
STRATEGIC JAMMING IN PERSPECTIVE.
Long range jamming platforms have been the focus of air campaigns against integrated air defense system (IADS) since WW2. There have never been enough of them and their allocation is a strategic level concern in every war fought since 1945.
2/
The 8th Air Force's 36th Squadron was its heavy jamming unit. It supported 8th AF bomber streams forming up to attack German with VHF band barrage jamming to prevent the Luftwaffe hearing formation chatter & it had a jamming major role during the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
3/
Read 22 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Dec 11, 2021
@ArmouredCarrier @smooreBofB1940 @AC_NavalHistory @Drachinifel @MilAvHistory @MilHiVisualized @CBI_PTO_History @DrydockDreams @TheBaseLeg IJNAS single engine planes in service in 1941 were equipped with the Type 1 Ku 3 RDF system. This included the Mitsubishi F1M Type Zero Observation Seaplane, Allied reporting name Pete.

So IJN cruiser spotters could & did use the Yamamoto C3I System within range of the beacons.
@ArmouredCarrier @smooreBofB1940 @AC_NavalHistory @Drachinifel @MilAvHistory @MilHiVisualized @CBI_PTO_History @DrydockDreams @TheBaseLeg MacArthur's Central Bureau tracked single engine IJN float planes as a operational pattern warning of a major troop convoy before enciphered message traffic arrived.

I hadn't figured out how they were doing that until the role of M/F radio beacons came along.
@ArmouredCarrier @smooreBofB1940 @AC_NavalHistory @Drachinifel @MilAvHistory @MilHiVisualized @CBI_PTO_History @DrydockDreams @TheBaseLeg Those IJN float planes worked at night hunting for PT-boats as well as submarines by day.

They needed the beacons up to accomplish their missions.

When Central Bureau hear the beacons. They knew a troop convoy was in-bound.
Read 5 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Dec 10, 2021
The subject of this thread is the IJNAS C3I system behind the destruction of Force Z.

(I'll be using clips from Angus Konstam's book to illustrate this thread)
ospreypublishing.com/store/military…
1/
The anniversary of the sinking of Force Z is on the minds of many #twitterhistorians

For example, @ArmouredCarrier has three really nice videos on YouTube about the sinking of HMS Repulse
2/
 youtube.com/results?search…
Konstam's book is wonderful for most of the journalistic "Who, What, Where, When, How, & Why" on Dec 10, 1941, but it leaves out how the command control, communications & intelligence worked for the IJNAS Rikko Kokutai and why it came into existence in time to destroy Force Z.
3/
Read 26 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Dec 9, 2021
@Vausterlitz1 It was not a "dumb" question.

It is just one that has not been well answered.

On 11 January 1942, the IJA completed a study on whether Hawaii could be successfully invaded and, if it could, what would be needed to retain the islands.
@Vausterlitz1 They concluded:

Yes, we can capture it, but supplying would be very hard due to shipping tonnage shortages.

Namely, food to feed 500,000 Americans plus the Japanese Garrison would have to be carried across 4,000 miles of ocean;
@Vausterlitz1 because these were the breakdowns by food grown on Hawaii for consumption:

fruit (84%)
rice (10%)
dairy products (28%)
fish (30%)
eggs (40%)
meat (41%)
vegetables (46%)

The IJA officer noted that 2.9 million tons of supplies had been sent by the US to Hawaii during 1941; or
Read 7 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Dec 8, 2021
"MacArthur's Pearl Harbor" AKA the Dec 8, 1941 destruction of FEAF air power at Clarke Field is the subject of this thread.

(Photo: Destroyed P-35 fighters on Clark Field)
1/
One of the important things to know about General Douglas MacArthur was that almost nothing said or written about him can be trusted without extensive research to validate its truthfulness.

There were a lot of reasons for this. The biggest being that if the Clinton era
2/
political concept of “The Politics of Personal Destruction” had been around in the 1930s through 1950s, Gen. MacArthur’s face would have been its poster boy.

Everything he did was personal & that made everything everyone else did in opposition to him “personal” to them. Thus

3/
Read 23 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @TrentTelenko has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @TrentTelenko!

Read all threads by @TrentTelenko

:(