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.
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/
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. 9/
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/
...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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The Russian railways living on Cold War rolling stock (40%) & infrastructure, now ended contracting out to Europe, and now has less advanced Chinese rail contractors, means Russia is on right side of the curve below.
Russian railway car trucks (illustrative photo⬇️) rely upon Western SKF & Amsted cassette bearings that have not been supplied since May 2022 and the Russian co-production facilities were shut down from a lack of proprietary software...
It has been clear for about 18 months that the Ukrainian military has put in the time to master and digest the materials in the US Strategic Bombing Surveys for lessons on how to take down an industrial economy.
The latest rail ferry strike is just the latest example.
USSBS🧵 1/
This was the "Biden vs Trump Debate moment" for USSS Director Cheatle.
In a situation as "1st shot at Fort Sumter" volatile as this, Cheatle needed to "Come to Jesus," be 100% truthful & offer a full mea culpa admitting to her follies.
Worse, both she and her superior DHS Secretary Mayorkas were very publicly caught out as lying on the most important facts regarding the lack of protection for former President Trump.
While I utterly despise @JDVance1 public statements on Ukraine...
...the collapse of the @JoeBiden candidacy reinforces his "Hillbilly Elegy" candidate brand at the expense of Democratic Party's negative campaigning with non-Democrats, and the working class generally.
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And @JDVance1 statements that the USA doesn't make the munitions or have a ship building infrastructure for a multi-front war...
Nor are there any plans to have such a mobilization supporting that logistical capability
The rate of increase of Russian ground force casualties tracks a collapse of skills from the attrition of competent Russian officers without a Russian training establishment capable of replacing them.
The "Next 100k" of Russian casualties always happens faster.
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It also tracks the collapse of the Russian army motor transport that is preventing both medical system casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) and the resupply of forward positions with food, water and medical supplies.