Trent Telenko Profile picture
Feb 4, 2022 10 tweets 6 min read Read on X
@danieljleahy & @ww2tv had a crackerjack stream on Australian Stuart tanks at Sanananda New Guinea this morning. Someone in the chat asked how they go there.

This thread will address that question.
1/
So, lets talk about the Australian Operation Lilliput that ran freighter convoys from Milne Bay to Oro bay in 1942.

The route that was used in Dec 1942 was pioneered by the US Army Small Ship Service (USASS).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation…
John Sheridan Fahnestock and Adam Bruce Fahnestock, friends with Pres. Roosevelt, originated the idea of a unit of small sailing ships to deliver supplies to Bataan, called “Mission X.”

It was a measure of the desperation of the time that MacArthur bit
2/
transportation.army.mil/history/docume…
These small boats were the key distribution mode for the SWPA. They moved supplies at night from advanced bases outside the bombing range of the Japanese Army and Naval Air Forces. Like the PT-Boat, their biggest enemy in 1942-43 was the small Japanese float planes...
3/
...that flew day & night plus were both low and slow enough to spot them. Then either these sea planes attacked, or worse, orbited and reported by radio to awaiting Japanese fighter patrols.
4/
The RAAN vessel HMAS Paluma (a 45 ton former examination vessel, see photo) did the actual surveys with the USASS luggers & fishing smacks the to find a reliable approach for larger vessels from Milne Bay to supply troops landed by air near Cape Nelson.
5/
ozatwar.com/sigint/paluma.…
The 1st Lilliput convoy "Operation Karsi" was in Dec 1941, it took "...the former train ferry Karsik was pressed into service as an emergency tank landing ship, carrying four M-3 Stuart tanks of the Australian 2/6th Armoured Regiment to Oro Bay."
6/
awm.gov.au/visit/exhibiti…
The Japanese took great exception to these convoys.

And given the geography of the Owen Stanley mountain range. The IJN had air superiority a few hours every day.

Photo left is of survivors of the s’Jacob, sunk on 8 March 1943, await rescue by HMAS Bendigo near Oro Bay
7/
The Allies in their turn took greater exception to these IJN attacks and deployed airfields radar & fighter control sensor network to gain air superiority & shield these sealanes.

This effort began before the Stuarts were delivered & went on after Sanananda was won.

8/End
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More from @TrentTelenko

Feb 17
Drones are both a compliment and supplement all existing ground force combined arms weapons systems and do so at a lower cost.

For the last year to 18 months - and sources vary - three out of every four Ukrainian and Russian casualties are from drones.

Paradigm Shift 🧵

1/5
Artillery plus EVERY_OTHER_ weapons system on the Ukrainian battlefield does 1/4 of 2025-2026 drone casualties.

Such is the BLUF of the drone battlefield paradigm shift in terms of human blood.

2/5
This means the world has changed so radically that any US Army officer higher than Captain is negative value added on a drone battlefield because their professional military education is as obsolete 1930's US Horse cavalrymen Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures were in 1944.

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Read 6 tweets
Feb 17
The problem for an independent EU nuclear deterrence force is sheer numbers, the EU lack of them.

What the Putinists have proven is that Western deterrence assumptions about "acceptable losses" were naive mirrored thinking, attributing Western values to Russia.

1/
The assumption of credible "deterrent effect" has to be shifted into the loss band of annihilation of threat forces - anything less than that, as the Ukraine war proves, is an acceptable loss for the Putinists.

We are at over a million Russian casualties to date.

2/theguardian.com/world/2026/jan…
That means a 200 kiloton nuke in either St. Petersburg or Moscow, or dozens of tactical nukes into airfields & missile fields across Western Russia as an EU nuclear response to a Russian first strike are acceptable at a minimum.

3/ Image
Read 7 tweets
Feb 15
It looks like my 4th Gen nukes posts here on X shook out data from US three letter agencies. Who belatedly realized that classifying physics was both self-defeating & stupid.

The bad news is the FYEO web site is now reporting a _NINTH_ 4th Gen. nuclear tech approach by China with metal nitrogen/nitrogen anion salt.

1/3Image
Specifically, this new Chinese approach to 4th generation nukes that create fusion device without a HEU/PU fission trigger can be packaged as small as 100 to 200 grams and can fit into a group two size class drone.

This is worse than my worst-case expectations.

2/3
My worst-case 4th Generation nuclear scenario was based on explosively pumped flux compression generator fusion primaries with U-238 jackets in something sized to fit into an ATACMS warhead.

China's approach is 1/25th that mass/volume. 😱

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Jan 24
I'm sorry, but this statistic:

>>Violent crime is falling, with homicides down ~21%. The largest annual drop on record.

...has been heavily polluted by improvements in trauma care, particularly hemostatic (blood clotting) bandages.

US Trauma care & FBI statistics🧵

1/ Image
The statistical comparison in the FBI data from pre-1961 is invalid as the underlying medical systems have so changed as to utterly pollute the "murders per 100,000" data.

Violent crime data pre-1961 and post 1961 are apples to oranges comparisons.

2/
-Trauma care centers (1961),

-Standardized trauma procedures (1978),

-Adoption of military Korea/Vietnam medical emergency treatment & air transport procedures,

-Improved triage (1986)

-And (since 2011) widespread adoption and use of blood clotting bandages...

3/
Read 8 tweets
Jan 24
Chairman Xi suffers from the traditional dictator's trap of believing his own sh*t because he has made it too dangerous for his cronies and underlings to tell him the truth.

He has failed the "Dictator on the Wall Test."

1/
Thanks to that, Chairman Xi's Regime has pretty much no resilience in adversity because it's so kleptocratic and it's all about what the guy in charge can do for his next set of corrupt cronies today.

2/
This 1970's comment about the Shah of Iran is so historically on point in 2026 because it shows how Xi's regime is failing "The dictator on the wall test."

3/ Image
Read 8 tweets
Jan 22
Greenland is badly needed by the USA to engage nuclear armed hypersonic glide vehicles and FOBS from China and Russia aimed at the continental USA.

So-called experts saying Greenland is "unnecessary" are "Cold War thinkers" focused on traditional ICBM threat geometries.
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They are not thinking in terms of the detection geometries required for lofted or depressed trajectory ICBM's, HGV, and/or FOBS.

For those threats, the further forward you can deploy radars and interceptors, the better for detection and intercept.

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When geometrically minded experts in Australia looked at PLARF depressed trajectory ICBM's, HGV, and FOBS threat set.

They ended up placing a TPY-2 radars on the Cocos Island & Christmas Island ("Greenland for Oz") to generate tracks for SM-3 & THAAD interceptors.
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Read 4 tweets

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