Trent Telenko Profile picture
Mar 2, 2022 11 tweets 5 min read Read on X
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.🧵

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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...

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...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👇👇

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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.

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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:

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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

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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
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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.

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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.
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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
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...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.
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More from @TrentTelenko

May 6
This is Grok analysis of one of my X threads is a good example of why farming out your thinking/analysis to AI is a really bad idea.

Grok accurately reflects a highly flawed US National Security consensus about small drones.😱

A Grok vs Drone Reality🧵

x.com/i/grok/share/B…
Grok focused on Ukrainian drone capabilities to the exclusion of actual fielded Chinese drone capability and literally eight decades old aviation technology like conformal fuel tanks which have also been applied to cruise missiles in the Chinese technological base for 20 years
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The Chinese Sunflower-200 is it's clone of the Iranian Shahed-136. It appeared at Russia's Armiya-2023 show and in 2025 combat in Sudan.

The China Defense website says it has a 3.2-meter length, 2.5-meter wingspan, a flight speed of 160-220 km per hour with a maximum take-off weight of 175 kilograms, a combat payload of 40 kilograms and can fly up to 2000 kilometers.
x.com/clashreport/st…
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Read 18 tweets
May 4
I cannot begin to tell you how heartened I am by this development in Ukrainian combat barrier doctrine.

1/
Compare the picture above to my complaints about Ukrainian fighting doctrine in the Summer of 2024.

2/
Or my B*tching about its lack in the Summer of 2023 for the Russian Army

3/
Read 7 tweets
May 1
1560 dead Russian mortars and artillery tubes was 2/3 done by drones per ISW.

Drones are the primary counter-battery system on 21st century battlefields.

US Army field artillery branch OTOH is showing up to the counter-battery indirect firefight with knives, AKA the M109A6.

1/
The M109A6 Paladin 155mm/L39 caliber self-propelled gun is the T-62MV obr. 2022 of the artillery world.

The gun is inferior to every other major power's fielded SPG world wide.

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The computerized fire direction system of the US Army Artillery is a overly centralized, decades old Star/mini-computer architecture, which has an electromagnetic signature so bright that it can be detected bouncing off the surface of the moon

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Read 17 tweets
Apr 27
Just...Reapers are not flying "Deep ISR" over Yemen.

They are dying due to a lack of electronic warfare equipment over Yemen.

I believe @noclador is overlooking the event @RyanO_ChosenCoy is calling out - The fall of Assad's Syria.

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Ukraine's HUR sent two drone teams with 150 drones to Syria in in June 2024 to support the Turkish supported Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

2/3
By December 2024, Assad's regime fell because it could not counter Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) small drone airpower that Ukraine provided.

@RyanO_ChosenCoy is saying 25 such HUR teams with 80K drones would do in the Houthi from its lack of counter UAS capability.

See Grok⬇️
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Read 4 tweets
Apr 26
I see this F-35 procurement problems post is getting traction thanks to @elonmusk .

Let's add the F-35 problem list with bolts AKA fasteners.

1/
F-35 Fastener Corruption🧵 Image
I cannot begin to tell you all how fishy this passage from that article is:

"In addition to the F-35 production line at Ft. Worth, Texas, the commingling of the two types of bolts was also discovered at the Italian F-35

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... Final Assembly and Check-Out (FACO) facility, but not the one in Japan, the DCMA reported."

Spot checking of aircraft production and depot level maintenance facilities fastener bins is a standard operating procedure for DCMA everywhere it has quality personnel.

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Read 19 tweets
Apr 26
Well designed Cope cages work against FPVs.

Why the West, and particularly the US Army, is in deep denial over that reality is rooted in the US Army's denial that the FPV anti-tank drone is replacing the ATGM for cost/performance reasons.

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The Ukrainian missile crews salvaging brand new $20K Stugna ATGM to make more FPV drones underlines the battlefield kinematic superiority of multi-copter drones to boost-glide ATGM.

2/
The ability of FPV's to operate in the dead ground makes them 2x as effective as ATGM at a lower cost:

1st Gen. FPV Drone =(π)5 km^2 78,539,816 sq m w-100% of coverage of targets

Tow Missile = (π)4.5 km^2 = 63,617,251.23 sq m at ~50% coverage 32.1 Sq km

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Read 4 tweets

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