This is a thread that will explain the implied poor Russian Army truck maintenance practices based on this photo of a Pantsir-S1 wheeled gun-missile system's right rear pair of tires below & the operational implications during the Ukrainian mud season.🧵

1/ Image
For the sin of being the new guy, I was the DCMA quality auditor in charge of the US Army's FMTV "vehicle exercise program" at the contractor manufacturing them from the Mid-1990's to the mid-2000's Then we got more new guys.

Short form: Military trucks need to be...

2/ Image
...turned over and moved once a month for preventative maintenance reasons.

In particular you want to exercise the central tire air inflation system (CTIS) to see if lines have leaks or had insect/vermin nests blocking the system.

CTIS Controller & CTIS diagram👇👇

3/ ImageImage
One of the biggest reasons for the repositioning, per TACOM logistic Representatives, was that direct sunlight ages truck tires.

The repositioning of Trucks in close parking prevents a lot of this sun rotting and cycling the CTIS keeps the tire sidewalls supple.

4/ Image
When you leave military truck tires in one place for months on end. The side walls get rotted/brittle such that using low tire pressure setting for any appreciable distance will cause the tires to fail catastrophically via rips.

See early video:

5/
Now look at the same Pantsir-S1 tire sidewalls after the Ukrainians tried to tow or drive it out of the mud.

The right rear tire fell apart because the rips in it were too big for the CTIS to keep aired up.

No one exercised that vehicle for 1 year

6/
There is a huge operational level implication in this. If the Russian Army was too corrupt to exercise a Pantsir-S1. They were too corrupt to exercise the trucks & wheeled AFV's now in Ukraine.

The Russians simply cannot risk them off road during the Rasputitsa/Mud season
7/ Image
And there is photographic evidence of this.

There are 60(+) Russian army trucks crowded & parked on this raised road bed to avoid the fate of the mud-bogged Pantsir-S1.

8/ Image
Given the demonstrated levels of corruption in truck maintenance. There is no way in h--l that there are enough tires in the Russian army logistical system.

So their wheeled AFV/truck park is as road bound as Russian Army columns were in the 1st Russo-Finnish War.
9/ Image
What that means is that as long as and where ever the Spring Rasputitsa is happening. The Russian Army attack front is three wheeled AFV's wide.

When the Ukrainians can block the road with ATGM destroyed vehicles. They can move down either side of the road like Fins in 1939
10/ Image
...destroying Russian truck columns.

The Crimea is a desert and the South Ukrainian coastal areas are dryer. So we are not seeing this there.

But elsewhere the Russians have a huge problem for the next 4-to-6 weeks.
11/End Image

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More from @TrentTelenko

Mar 22
This @ChrisO_wiki thread is very useful in explaining the Russian volunteer experience in Ukraine.

Read the whole thing.

I'm going to highlight a portion of it for the long term medical/cultural implications for Russia.
1/
Specifically I'm going to underline the issue of traumatic brain injury.

It is a ubiquitous & almost universal wound infantry suffer in an artillery heavy war.

And because it is internal, it is the most misdiagnosed.

2/
I've gone into what TBI is previously on the Twitter platform.

See:

3/
Read 14 tweets
Mar 21
A lot of people are looking at the 'bang' and 'bling' in this announcement.

I'm looking at the heavy fuel trucks.

They are the "key logistical enablers" required for a mechanized Ukrainian counter offensive.

AFU offensive🧵
1/
Because when the US Military is talking heavy fuel trucks. It is talking about these.⬇️

It's talking M978 HEMTT fuel trucks with tank rack modules. @battle_order has a nice video explaining moving fuel with them.

2/
ImageImageImageImage
There is also the possibility that the palletized loading truck variant of the HEMETT might be used with just tank rack based modular fuel system.

I doubt it, because the older M978 HEMTT fuel trucks with shorter service life are available for shipment to Ukraine.

3/ ImageImage
Read 17 tweets
Mar 17
Senior Lieutenant Andriy Rudykof the Center for the Research of Trophy and Prospective Weapons and Military Equipment of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Presented this briefing:

"TANK T-90M - FAILURE INSTEAD OF A BREAKTHROUGH"

1/
The people over at 4Chan provided a summary translation, which I will drop over the next several tweets

1. Big focus on propaganda – especially “high-tech” factor
2. Even official specifications for the tank (3:40) bring the Russian claims in questions
2/
boards.4channel.org/k/thread/57514…
3. T-90M is de facto an extensive modernization of T-72B obr. 1989 with some design solutions borrowed from NATO tanks (including “Nakidka”)

4. AFU got a chance to analyze a T-90M captured in September 2022
3/
Read 22 tweets
Mar 15
This is for all the Twitter accounts saying Ukraine isn't getting kill ratios as good as it claims, thus Ukraine should rabbit from Bakhmut ASAP.

See this AFU military performance 🧵
1/
The Ukrainian Defence Ministry has been so kind as to provide an English translation for non-Russian readers.

2/
I've been hearing from various people of this Russian officer operational pattern of taking a a hundred or so Mobiks to the front line and abandoning them (Mobik description - "F--king off") as they attack Ukrainian positions since November 2022.

3/
Read 15 tweets
Mar 14
This is a customer review of the cataract surgical practice that I was supposed to get my left eye cataract removed by today.

=======

DO NOT GO HERE. Masks are a contentious issue, but a business should be upfront about their policies.

I made VERY clear, every time...
1/5
I came here (3 appointments) that I would need to wear an n95 mask during my cataract surgery. The anesthesiologist said this would be fine, and even offered to mask themselves, but didn't know if they still had enough n95's. I offered to supply them, and they said ok.

2/5
When I got to the surgical center, they said I would only be allowed to wear a surgical mask.

They refused the masks we brought (sealed, individually packaged n95's).

Then they cancelled the procedure.

3/5
Read 5 tweets
Mar 14
@maphumanintent Regards this @maphumanintent:

>>we'll call it a win by throwing copium and cyber lightning bolts at the problem while hand-waving away all the thorny details."

I disagree.

There are a lot of new Ukrainian weapon, logistical & Russian vehicle & force design reasons to

1/
@maphumanintent ...think the Russian Army currently lacks the communications and mobility to stop a Ukrainian breakthrough attack.

Looking at the vehicle/force design reasons, the statement:

"The firepower of the Russian Army is in it's vehicles," pretty much covers it.

2/
@maphumanintent All the best Russian digital spread-spectrum & frequency hopping radios were in its newest vehicles. Most of whom have been destroyed in the last year of fighting.

This leaves Russian artillery with older Cold War generation radios, 3G cell phones or Chinese commercial...

3/
Read 19 tweets

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