Trent Telenko Profile picture
Mar 4, 2022 17 tweets 6 min read Read on X
Lady's and Gentlemen, boys & girls, it is time saddle up for another installment of the "Mud and Truck Maintenance in Ukraine" feed.

And this one will be a doozy, because we are talking about Russian truck refueling in the 64km column north of Kyiv. 🧵

1/
I am going to expand on this earlier tweet on the satellite photo montage.

The Rasputitsa, bad tire maintenance, vehicle overcrowding, and lack of fuel have isolated most of this Russian Army column from its rear.

2/
No matter what kind of fuel conservation techniques they engaged in. The 1st 17km or so of that 64 km Russian Army column is out of fuel.

They planned a 3-day operation which is in its 8th day.

And given the temperatures and radio use, those vehicles have dead batteries.
3/
This is why that Russian 41st CAA general was killed.

He showed up at the head of the column to unscrew the logistical mess, screaming at people and waving his arms in the air in visual range of a Ukrainian Army Sniper.
4/
As for why the Ukrainians haven't rolled up those Russian troops in a 'motti' yet. They were busy.

The Russian Hostomel airbase occupation force had to be annihilated to keep fuel from being airlifted in by helicopter.
5/
The head of this 64km column ain't going anywhere. With or without fuel. The Russians can get neither fuel trucks nor wreckers there.

And this "drop dead effect" is proceeding along the column from south to north. The ONLY way that column will move at all is backwards first
6/
This is assuming it moves at all before the Ukrainians destroy it.

The front and middle of the column showed up with food, fuel & ammo for 3-days, & we are 8-days into the war.

The column is packed so tight that you can only refuel about 100-200 meters of column at a time
7/
via a--holes & elbow by jerry cans. Then carefully back out those refueled trucks in order to get to the next 100 meters with the refueling truck and jerry cans.

It would take a week a month from now, when the ground dries, to unf--k this mess.
8/
The Russian Army will not be able to move trucks off road before then.

9/
Nor in a lot of cases will the Russian Army tanks in that column be able to move off road.


10/
The Russians have formed the world's longest POW camp. And the Ukrainians don't have to feed it.

There simply hasn't been anything like this in warfare since the Anglo-American Anzio beachhead in 1944.

11/
The Russian troops in the 40-50 km of the traffic jam closest to Kyiv will run out of food before the jam can be cleared to them.

They'll have to abandon their vehicles and walk north just to get food.

12/
The reason the Russian column got to be so long was due to Russian Army officers “fulfilling the plan”.

They might be shot by the chain of command for disobeying orders to advance into the traffic jam, but won’t be if they obey orders to fulfill the plan.

13/
I'm not saying Ukraine will win or even that Ukraine can prevent Kyiv from being encircled.

I am saying the Russian Army troops in the first 50 kilometers of that 64 km column will have nothing to do with it.

14/End
PS.

The Ukrainians really do want to motti that column.

PPS

And the Ukrainians do have the means to hit the fuel trucks at the North end of the Kyiv column to prevent its unwinding before the mud season is over.

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More from @TrentTelenko

May 26
Ummm...no. @grok said 10K Truck Movements, not trucks.

A truck making two movements a day within 150 km of the Russian border for 30 days is 60 truck movements out of the 10K, or 0.6%.

@grok's estimate was based on mirror imaging Western Mechanized logistics.
Truck Intel🧵
1/
I did two further @grok analytical passes which reduced the truck movements, first to 3K to 8K truck movements:

"Revised estimate: Likely 3,000–8,000+ effective military/logistics truck movements per month on key southern routes (e.g., M-14 segments, Mariupol–Taganrog/T-0509, Berdiansk/Melitopol spurs), potentially higher in gross passages but far lower in productive throughput than Western equivalents due to systemic non-mechanized constraints."

2/Image
And then down to 2.5K to 7K truck movements, See:

"Likely 2,500–7,000 effective military/logistics truck movements per month on key southern routes (M-14 segments, Mariupol–Taganrog/T-0509, Berdiansk/Melitopol spurs), with gross passages potentially higher to offset massive inefficiencies—but productive throughput remains severely constrained by non-mechanized realities, supplements like rail/barge, and systemic intelligence blind spots."

3/Image
Read 10 tweets
May 25
This⬇️

>>In total, I have more than 100 mapped hits on russian logistical means.

...means a lot in terms of truck attrition.

100 killed out of a truck fleet of projected 2,500 on this route is 4% of the total.
1/
Ukrainian military intelligence estimated Kamaz made 15,000 trucks from Feb 2022 to early 2026.

Call that period 49 months, and that's a Truck production rate of 300 a month.

100 trucks killed in a couple of months is "normal wastage."


2/
A hundred Russian trucks, with a high proportions of fuel tankers and wreckers concentrated on one or two supply roads or a single road junction in a couple of weeks is a horse of a different color.

That is anti-access area denial (A2AD) on a stick.

3/
Read 5 tweets
May 23
This is another reminder that Peer-to-Peer drone warfare is all about attrition loss curves.

Ukraine's drones has made the roads of occupied southern Ukraine into an "anti-access area denial" (A2AD) kill zones for Russian trucks.
1/ Image
Ukraine has achieved "Drone air superiority" over those roads rivaling WW2's Summer 1944 Allied air superiority over German occupied Normandy.

As a result, the Russian truck fleet is taking unsustainable attrition, particularly of its fuel tanker fleet.
2/ Image
Image
Image
This AFU fuel interdiction campaign is causing panic:

"Fuel shortages are beginning in Sevastopol. This is the beginning of the consequences of the enemy's systematic strikes on oil refineries and tanker trucks along the land corridor to Crimea."
3/
Read 5 tweets
May 22
If true, it looks like Russian truck fuel logistics has completely fallen part on the Rostov-Dzhankoy highway.

This has a lot of strategic geo-political implications.

A2AD & Truck Logistics 🧵

1/
Given few/no trains, these are the Russian truck logistical facts of life:

1. At ~300 miles/480 km, tactical truck's only payload is fuel for a return trip**

2/ Image
2. A 56 mile/90 km radius from a supply point allows three trips a day with refueling & mechanized logistics to load & unload a truck

3/ Image
Read 19 tweets
May 21
Texas has seven unique advantages in terms of infrastructure, political culture, and resource geography that make it uniquely suited to be the next industrial heartland of the USA.

The seven industrial development advantages of Texas 🧵
1/
They are as follows:

1. About 94% of land in Texas is privately held. This vastly limits what the Federal, State and local governments can do to in terms of regulations and NIMBY games.

2/ Image
2. Texas is mostly flat. Texas hill country is small beer compared to the Appalachian and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges. This compounds with #1 for industrial development.

3. Texas has a lot of water compared to the US west & sea access.

3/ Image
Image
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Read 7 tweets
May 20
I am still trying to see the military relevance of the MV-75 Cheyenne II.

Especially when 3rd rate powers like Iran have Qaem-118” (Ghaem-118) / “Misagh-358” jet engine powered, loitering, surface to air munitions.

1/4
The MV-75 Cheyenne II can't outrun a jet powered munition.

These things. ⬇️

2/4

None of the standard US Suppression of Enemy air Defense (SEAD) radar sensor detection practices work on a “Misagh-358.”

3/4
Read 5 tweets

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