Trent Telenko Profile picture
Mar 16, 2022 7 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Alright, let's do a Ukraine War truck maintenance and design choices🧵

Look closely at the destroyed Russian trucks in this @RALee85 video.

Look at the wood debris on the road & the lack of truck beds on the burned out trucks. There is a reason for what you are seeing.
1/
That reason is more visible with this still from an earlier video @RALee85 posted.

The majority of the Russian truck's cargo bed is made of wood planks.

This truck was hit by a small mortar shell that blew apart the wood. twisted down & severed the steel frame holding them.
2/ Image
The choice of a wooden truck bed was one made for cost reasons.

Wood is cheaper than steel.

Plus if your industrial quality tolerances are bad, it is easier to cut a wood plank to match than make another steel frame with the right fit.
3/
The US Army builds it trucks and trailers with sheet steel beds for durability, world wide deployability and long, usable, life-cycle reasons.

The US Army uses its trucks a lot in lieu of the Railways.

So it puts them to really hard use over a 20 year service life.
4/ Image
This emphasis on durability at a higher costs per truck means things in combat, good things for the crew & US Army.

Wood shatters and becomes high velocity fragments when subjected to blast effects.

Steel doesn't. It bends.
5/ ImageImage
The trucks Russian uses generally operate at colder northern latitudes where wood is a good cost-design trade off.

America covers more north-south latitudes than Russia & the US Army has no clue where a President will send them next. So metal truck beds are the design choice
6/ Image
Vehicle design is always a trade off of performance features for unit cost.

Vehicles appropriate for one nation's military won't be for another.

The problem for Russian conscripts in Ukraine is the cheaper Russian truck bed design choice is helping to kill them.

7/end

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More from @TrentTelenko

Apr 1
I cannot underline enough how drones have changed warfare from WW2 based on this 🧵 numbers:

75% of all RuAF Casualties are from drones
20% are from Artillery
4% are from small arms

RuAF WIA time to medical treatment past AFU drones: 14.5 hours (3 x normal CASEVAC)

Drone🧵
1/ Image
In WW2 according to US Army Medical department statistics, the US Army ground forces in NW Europe and the Mediterranean took 65% of their casualties from Artillery.

In 2025, Russia is taking 75% from drones.

2/ Image
Image
Drones are now more lethal in Ukraine than artillery was in the WW2, the most artillery heavy war in human history to date.

Drones have replaced, and then some, tube artillery, rockets and mortars as the indirect fire "King of Battle."

3/ Image
Read 12 tweets
Mar 23
Strategypage -dot- com has a new article out on the decline of Russian that civil infrastructure that makes Frederick Lanchester smile.

Russian Civil Infrastructure Attrition🧵

1/ Image
Text from the article:

"Russia wants to end the Ukraine War via negotiations with the United States. This will work if done from a position of strength. The current Russian situation is weak and getting weaker.

2/
...Russian forces in Ukraine are stalled and too weak to launch another offensive, even a small one.

It will get worse. The Russian economy is starting to collapse in some or many areas because of disinvestment.

3/
Read 8 tweets
Mar 8
Just...no.

This is the "Russia Strong" narrative pushed by those unknowingly spreading Russian Reflexive Control infowar propaganda, as here.

Russia is _Not_ Strong🧵

1/
The semiconductor industrial base is the foundation of 21st century economic & military power.

The USSR only ever produced single detector element technology like Long Wavelength Infrared (LWIR) Infrared Line Scan (IRLS) or scanning infrared Search and Track (IRST) like those on the MiG-29 Fulcrum A.

2/Image
The USSR never produced any of the classic nodding or spinning mirror LWIR Forward Looking Infrared (FLIRs) sensors that the US introduced during the Vietnam war.

In fact there is no evidence Russia was able to sustain any of the large Soviet semiconductor industry.

3/
Read 10 tweets
Feb 19
The vast majority of US military aid to Ukraine was in fact spent inside the USA to replace vastly overpriced by the Biden Adm. National Guard & Air Guard surplus weapons.

Spending aid money buying Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) to replace NG surplus Humvees

Infowar🧵
1/
...was just one of the aid grifts @JakeSullivan46 NSC crew played to pretend they were helping Ukraine while not offending Russia & buying US Defense contractor kit.

Pres. Trump is literally parroting Russian reflexive control scripts from Biden Adm.

2/
This should not be a surprise as I've pounded on the fact for 2 years that Russia has mapped & fed to each specific US tribal & professional demographic the data to eat up messages/memes Russia wants those groups to believe.

Calling Ukraine's...

3/
Read 7 tweets
Feb 9
This @sambendett thread here makes Russia seem like a poor kid looking through a candy store window at the "candy" of Ukrainian ground resupply drones.

1/
We still don't see D-rings on Russian UGV's to hold down pallets lifted by all terrain forklifts and telehandlers.

[Hey, @TimothyDooner! Rate this strap work⬇️]

2/
Image
I mean, seriously, Russia is now introducing a camel transport corps because the Russian startups and big defense contractors cannot produce supply UGV's at scale to deliver potable water to front line troops.

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Feb 9
This 🧵by @GrandpaRoy2 demonstrating the increasing battlefield obsolescence of tube artillery in the face of fiber optic fiber guided FPV drones is a useful jumping off point the following:

66% of RuAF AFV's & equipment killed in Jan 2025 were victims of drones

Drone tech🧵
1/ Image
Back in November 2024 I did a long thread on how drones were an "effectiveness revolution" on the battlefield and we would see drones displacing other battlefield weapons because of it.

2/
Drones are a cost effectiveness revolution compared to conventional weapons.

3/ Image
Read 12 tweets

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