Trent Telenko Profile picture
Mar 10, 2022 21 tweets 8 min read Read on X
This is a quick thread on Russian plans, maps, and trucks.🧵

We are going to start with Ukraine & explain.
1/
Most people have no clue as to how truely large Ukraine is. So, to cure that, I have gone to the thetruesize.com appin order to educate people.

In this case by laying the US state of Texas over Ukraine. The Texas-Louisiana border to El Paso is roughly the distance
2/
between Ukraine's Russian & Polish borders.

The distance of Kyiv from the Belarus border to be about that of the Oklahoma border to Dallas, Texas.

The tip of Crimea to the Ukraine-Belarus border is roughly from Brownsville Tx to the Red River border w/Oklahoma.
3/
Driving from Texarkana on the N.E. tip of Texas to El Paso at the western tip is 814 miles & 12 hours 13 min. non-stop on US interstates with a 75 mph speed limit

There was no way the Russian trucks like this were going to make it from Belarus to Kyiv
4/
...let alone cross Ukraine North-to-South or East -to-West. What was the Russian General Staff thinking?

Well, we know because the Ukrainians captured the plans from a Russian Naval Infantry Colonel.

See:
5/
Putin's generals thought it would take 3 days to overthrow the Ukraine government and 12 more days for the 190,000 troops to occupy the entire country of 43 million people, twice that of Texas.

That is one Russian conscript per 266 Ukrainians & 3.1 sq. km
6/
This plan assumed the Ukrainian military would put up a token resistance and the newly installed Puppet government would arrange the surrender of Ukraine's army of 250,000 men and 45,000 man territorial defense force without any weapons or soldiers going insurgent.
7/
Nor do those armed Ukrainian numbers include the six annual conscript classes that filled up that 250,000 man army in the eight years of fighting in the Donbas.

Assuming 1/2 of 250,000 x six, that is 730,000 combat veterans who would take great exception to Russia's puppet
8/
Assuming only a perfect plan for the Ukrainian Army, territorials plus Russians faced only 150,000 of those conscript classes. Russian & puppet forces would only outnumber them 3.2 to one in a popular insurgency.

That isn't enough to win.

9/
See these #'s

"However, when facing broadly popular insurgencies, counterinsurgents lost every time they possessed a force ratio advantage of 5-1 or less, failed half the time with odds between 6-1 and 10-1,

10/
smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/manpo…
...but succeeded three-quarters of the time when outnumbering the insurgents by 10-1 or more."

Short form:

Putin lost the moment he decided to invade Ukraine.

Russia has no political or military options to achieve successful war termination.
11/
The only agents in this war with the power to achieve war termination in Ukraine is the Ukrainian people.

Not the Ukrainian government

The people.

Ukraine is engaged in a national people's war against a Kleptocratic potentate.
12/
The Ukrainian people's terms are "We want the Russians gone, all our lands back and even then we will still keep fighting Russia while Putin is in power."

No Ukrainian government can force them to settle for anything less.
13/
Since Putin's 15-day plan has failed & Ukraine's military is fighting. Lets turn to another map that represents the reality on the Ground in Ukraine.

Ukraine is big.

So big that we have a lot of space between conventional armed formations like the WW2 N. African campaign.
14/
There are more armed Ukrainians than Russians in Ukraine.

While the Russians are fighting conventional Ukrainian Army unit for cities and choke points.

The Ukrainian territorials are fulfilling a role much like the colonial militia of the American revolution.

They are

15/
...filling the the space between armed units and destroying Russian Army truck convoys in the 21st century like the Colonial militia destroyed British army foraging parties around Philadelphia in the 18th century & impelled then to retreat or starve.

16/
Now we are going to address the mechanized battle of attrition between Ukraine & Russia.

Long road marches of 300 AFV's see as many as 100 fall out for mechanical defects.

When these are Russian, the fallen out AFV are destroyed, or worse, stolen.
17/
Over and over again.

All Russian operational losses and the repairable half of combat AFV losses are either permanent losses or they become Ukrainian Army GAINS.

/18

President Zelensky claimed on Mar 9, 2022 that more Russian equipment has been captured than Ukrainian equipment lost in the campaign to date, and thus all Ukrainian losses have been covered in operational units by Russian AFV trophies, especially MBTs.

/19
Contrafactual Short form:

Ukraine is winning the vehicular firepower war of attrition with Russia because it has trained & combat experienced reserves from its previous conscript classes to fill those tractor captured Russian AFV's.

Long conventional war favors Ukraine.
20/End
PS.

Yes, the thread turned out to be long, not short.

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More from @TrentTelenko

Jul 23
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/

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The USSBS made a big fat hairy deal about Japanese railway ferry's moving coal from Hokkaido to Honshu.

Ukraine learned that lesson for Crimea⬇️

2/
The top level summary USSBS reports are filled with political agenda.

The lower level reports feeding into those summaries have a lot of really useful economic data that is still applicable today.

Those reports aren't used anywhere near enough by 21st century analysts.

3/
German aircraft factory shop floor
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Read 11 tweets
Jul 22
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.

She didn't.

1/
Lest the heavens fall🧵
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.

2/
I am still in the "Incompetence leading to culpable negligence" camp on the Trump rally shooting.

Culpable negligence that created an opportunity for a nutjob hearing Ross Perot in his tooth fillings to take a shot.

3/
Read 17 tweets
Jul 22
It appears that @JDVance1 public refusal to debate V.P. Harris on the grounds of:

"We don't know who the Democratic Party Presidential nominee will be,"

... is looking very common sense, which is a very uncommon thing to say about any US Senator.🤨🤔

Jacksonian populism🧵
1/
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.

2/ Image
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

...have the virtue of being factually correct.

3/
Read 24 tweets
Jul 21
This is exactly the what the losing side in a war does when undergoing Lanchester Square collapse.⬇️

Just like the way Japanese & German air forces in WW2 collapsed from a lack of skilled replacement pilots and mechanics.

1/
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.

2/ Image
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.

3/ Image
Read 5 tweets
Jul 20
I've really happy with the AFU's increasingly effective drone counter-air efforts and the drone swarm strike Millerovo air base near Rostov-on-Don underlines this improvement.

1/
Lanchester Smiles🧵

en.defence-ua.com/news/ukrainian…
Image
The AFU are learning, refining their tactics, weaponeering, and targeting.

This Millerovo air base strike appears to have involved 2 dozen or more OWA Drones/propeller cruise missiles.

That is about the right number one drone per desired mean point of impact (DMPI).

2/
That is, one drone impact point per Su-34 parking spot and one per fuel tank.

These AFU improvements are something the "Escalation Management™️" and "Russian Strong™️" crowds refuse to see.

(H/T @PStyle0ne1)
3/ Image
Read 23 tweets
Jul 20
Wake me up when Israel systematically destroys electric power generating capability and drops sea mines at the ports in Houthi controlled Yemen.

That is when I'll know the Israeli coalition government is serious in addressing the Houthi threat.

ISO fuel tank blindness🧵
1/
ISO container fuel tanks can be shipped in via Iran and fix this damage in weeks.

2/ Image
The ability to build fuel storage like lego bricks has been around since 1969, when the UK firm Andrews of Aintree Ltd fielded the concept through international transportation regulations.

3/3
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_cont…



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Read 4 tweets

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