Alrighty folks, it is time for another trip in the realm of "Mud and Truck Maintenance."
This thread 🧵 is going to excerpt from the single most important article on Russian Army Logistics in the latest invasion of Ukraine by ALEX VERSHININ.
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warontherocks.com/2021/11/feedin…
This thread 🧵 is going to excerpt from the single most important article on Russian Army Logistics in the latest invasion of Ukraine by ALEX VERSHININ.
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warontherocks.com/2021/11/feedin…
Originally written in November 2021:
"It is possible to calculate how far trucks can operate using simple beer math. Assuming the existing road network can support 45 mph speed...
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"It is possible to calculate how far trucks can operate using simple beer math. Assuming the existing road network can support 45 mph speed...
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...a single truck can make three trips a day at up to a 45-mile range: One hours to load, one hour to drive to the supported unit, one hours to unload, and another hour to return to base. Repeating this cycle three times equals 12 hours total.
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The rest of the day is dedicated to truck maintenance, meals, refueling, weapons cleaning, and sleeping. Increase the distance to 90 miles, and the truck can make two trips daily.
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At 180 miles, the same truck is down to one trip a day. These assumptions won’t work in rough terrain or where there is limited/damaged infrastructure.
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If an army has just enough trucks to sustain itself at a 45-mile distance, then at 90 miles, the throughput will be 33 percent lower. At 180 miles, it will be down by 66 percent."
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And from towards the end of the article:
"The Russian army will be hard-pressed to conduct a ground offensive of more than 90 miles beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union without a logistics pause. For NATO, it means it can worry less about a major Russian invasion
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"The Russian army will be hard-pressed to conduct a ground offensive of more than 90 miles beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union without a logistics pause. For NATO, it means it can worry less about a major Russian invasion
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... of the Baltic states or Poland and a greater focus on exploiting Russian logistic challenges by drawing Russian forces further away from their supply depots and targeting chokepoints in the Russian logistic infrastructure and logistic force in general."
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So, what does that beer math mean?
The Ukrainians are using the late Brigadier Richard Simpkin's "Hammer & anvil" tactics with artillery, airpower & irregulars to throttle Russian supply lines.
US defense analysts Stephan Blank and Phillip Karber were sent to Ukraine dozens
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The Ukrainians are using the late Brigadier Richard Simpkin's "Hammer & anvil" tactics with artillery, airpower & irregulars to throttle Russian supply lines.
US defense analysts Stephan Blank and Phillip Karber were sent to Ukraine dozens
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of times by the Potomac foundation lecturing on NATO tactics to stop a Russian mechanized invasion. I posted links to several of Karber's Donbas lectures here on Twitter.
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Karber & Blank thought their lectures fell on deaf ears.
In hindsight, that was intentional disinformation on the Ukrainians part to make the Russians think they were more corrupt than they really were. (It worked!)
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In hindsight, that was intentional disinformation on the Ukrainians part to make the Russians think they were more corrupt than they really were. (It worked!)
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The Ukrainian military took those lectures to heart and added their own twist via repeated replays of Ukrainian VDV Gen. Zabrodskiy's 2014, deep 400 km, Donbas raid, but had kept it very close to their chests until the Russian invasion.
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