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

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Trent Telenko

Trent Telenko Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @TrentTelenko

Jul 31
"Russian exceptionalism"⬇️

The Russians see themselves as immune to the consequences of their own actions.

The previous case studies in this were the Nazis and Imperial Japanese in WW2.

1/
Both polities had monumental hubris, the conviction that all was permitted, and that they were invincible.

The committed Nazis still believed they were winning in March-April 1945.

Japanese 'Yamato-damashii' beliefs took nukes to break.

2/ Image
Image
This Russian exceptionalist belief in the immunity to the consequences of their own actions is also why the Russians continue their insane suicidal assaults.

3/3 Image
Read 4 tweets
Jul 29
What is interesting for me is that the pre-2022 Western intelligence assessments of the Russian Army credited it with lots of tactical pipelines to move fuel.

Those would be far more useful in moving water than trucks...yet...where are they?

1/
These pipelines seem to have fallen into that same logistical 'assume they exist but don't' black hole as Russian truck D-rings & pallets, tactical truck trailers, and Russia's "superior" tooth to tail ratio that acts more like 1863 Union Army where...

2/
..."every soldier is a logistical manual laborer when not in combat".

Water is heavy. Pipelines are more efficient that trucks. Yet all we are seeing is Russian water trucks?

Who stole the Russian Army tactical pipelines? Or were they nothing but disinformation?

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Jul 29
Russia is showing signs of being at "end run production."

It has run out of serious motor transport & even the smallest scale we are seeing kludged together trailers to make ends meet.

Note also: Water bottles & potatoes are the high priority transport items⬇️

End run🧵
1/
While we are getting Western intelligence assessments that continue to point out Russia's vast increases in production of military materiel, especially tanks, IFVs and APCs (from the same people who claimed Russia would over run Ukraine in 3-to-5 days)

2/
...claiming Russia is "obviously winning."

We are at the same time seeing economic signs of Russian "End Run Production."

The Russian wartime economy is functioning hand to mouth with oil sales revenues because all of the foreign exchange reserves are spent or frozen.

3/
Read 11 tweets
Jul 27
Given what happened to DoD procurement after the 2nd Clinton Adm. annihilation of military specifications, which killed the configuration mgt, systems engineering & production engineering disciplines in defense contractors.

I shudder to see what DOGE's AI will do.

Mil-spec🧵
1/
I've written about this issue for seven years starting on the Chicagoboyz weblog with a post titled:

"The 737 MAX and the Death of MIL-STD-499A SYSTEM ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
March 24th, 2019"

2/
In 2020 I was talking how the decay of systems engineering skills are affecting US Navy nuclear sub safe programs due to the lack of good systems engineering talent in Defense contractors.

3/
Read 14 tweets
Jul 24
So, the Thai Army is now ahead of the US Army in using heavy multi-copter drones?

This underscores the vulnerability of the West to drones due to its bureaucratically bloated and infinitely slow military procurement systems.

1/
The snail like pace of Western military procurement versus the Ukrainian fielding of an all-aspect stealth shaped OWA drone in less than a couple of years is very noticeable.

2/
Read 4 tweets
Jul 22
On the morning of 20 July 2025, a AFGSC airman at Minot AFB took his M18, still inside it's issued holster; and placed it on a desk.

It then went off, struck him in chest, and killed him

AFGSC issued a halt order on 21 July 2025 for use of M17/18 Modular Handgun System.

1/ Image
As an ex-DoD procurement official, that letter is a procurement killing hammer.

This is going to hit SIG Sauer like a moderate sized asteroid in terms of DCMA corrective actions requests or "CAR."

2/ Image
This AFGSC halt use order letter will be grounds for a level three corrective action request (CAR).

A DCMA level III CAR is defined as follows:

"A Level III Corrective Action Request (CAR) issued by the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) is a serious action taken when there are significant contractual nonconformities.

It is directed to the supplier's top management and is just one step below the possibility of contract suspension or termination.

This type of CAR serves as a management tool to address critical issues that need immediate attention."

3/Image
Read 11 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(