Trent Telenko Profile picture
Mar 21, 2022 11 tweets 6 min read Read on X
This is a truck logistics history🧵that will point back to my "Russian truck fleet is junk in 6-to-8 weeks from operational attrition" startment.

These KamAZ trucks are the newest generation available to Russia.
kamazexport.com
1/
This is a ZIL-131HV truck.

Production of all versions of the ZIL military truck at the Moscow plant ended in 1990.

It is 2022. You are seeing a lot of these in Ukraine.👇
2/
autoweekvirtualgreencarshow.com/the-best-sovie…
You see a couple of dead ZIL trucks with this dead Russian Object 640 Black Eagle tank prototype in these Ukrainian battle damage assessment photos.
3/
reddit.com/r/TankPorn/com…
A 32-to-40 year old, 150 HP engined, Zil truck in a Russian military with no tradition of NCO preventive maintenance is a marginal "bookkeeping" asset at best.

4/
Every war or military conflict since trucks were invented has seen far more trucks go down to operational attrition than combat.

It is easy, one internet search away, real life facts like this that tell me those screaming for "Data" are trolls playing "denial games" w/history
5/
All a good preventive maintenance program with lots of spare parts can do in combat is slow this process down.

The WW2 Red Ball Express ended when the truck fleet fell apart.
6/
historynet.com/red-ball-expre…
The 90 hp Studebaker, Dodge & Chevy trucks of the Red Ball Express had every spare part 1940's Detroit could make over 2-years sitting for them in England.

7/
The 150hp Zil & 300 hp KamAz Trucks in Ukraine simply don't.

The Zil's are just as overloaded as the Kamaz trucks with 1/2 the horsepower trying to keep up on bad Ukrainian roads.

They are redlined/overheated "Zombie Trucks driving."
8/
There is one other thing the Red Ball Express had that Russian trucks in ukraine do not...a supply of gravel to repair roads.

US Army Corps of Engineers dug gravel pits right off the Normandy beaches to provide the trucks of what became Red Ball Express road repair gravel
9/
... before it was needed.

It is the small details that a logistical staff officer, with a stubby pencil and ledger paper spent hours grinding out in the UK, that made the Red Ball Express' success happen.

And what the trucks of the Russian Army in Ukraine lack today.

10/end
Statement, not startment, darn it!!!

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More from @TrentTelenko

May 11
Actually, I disagree with @wretchardthecat below.

The question to be asking is "which military power is it more cost effective to have a cease fire?"

Strangely enough, a 30 day ceasefire favors Ukraine far more than Russia, because drones.

1/
The most important grand strategy scale decision of this conflict has been Ukraine's move to mass produce multi-copter drones, Propeller assault (OWA) drones, jet drone-missiles and increasing numbers of military spare parts via masses of 3D/AM printers.

2/
Ukraine is making 4 million drones a year including over 30,000 long range OWA drones and 3,000 "Drone-missiles" of three models a year.

That's over
33K small drones
2,500 OWA drones, and
250 Drone-missiles per month.

3/
Read 6 tweets
May 11
I have a copy of Solly Zuckerman's book mentioned in the thread below and I can confirm it's applicability to the Russo-Ukrainian War for the Ukrainian cause.

1/
To date, no strategic bombing campaign has been analyzed by serious historians as to how the targeting decisions for the various strategic bombing campaigns against Germany, Japan, North Korea, and North Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia were done.

2/
To quote the late Pierre Sprey:

"...strategic bombing targeting in every one of those campaigns was done by highly centralized, highly bureaucratized committees--and every one of those committees

3/
Read 17 tweets
May 6
This is Grok analysis of one of my X threads is a good example of why farming out your thinking/analysis to AI is a really bad idea.

Grok accurately reflects a highly flawed US National Security consensus about small drones.😱

A Grok vs Drone Reality🧵

x.com/i/grok/share/B…
Grok focused on Ukrainian drone capabilities to the exclusion of actual fielded Chinese drone capability and literally eight decades old aviation technology like conformal fuel tanks which have also been applied to cruise missiles in the Chinese technological base for 20 years
2/ Image
The Chinese Sunflower-200 is it's clone of the Iranian Shahed-136. It appeared at Russia's Armiya-2023 show and in 2025 combat in Sudan.

The China Defense website says it has a 3.2-meter length, 2.5-meter wingspan, a flight speed of 160-220 km per hour with a maximum take-off weight of 175 kilograms, a combat payload of 40 kilograms and can fly up to 2000 kilometers.
x.com/clashreport/st…
3/Image
Image
Read 18 tweets
May 4
I cannot begin to tell you how heartened I am by this development in Ukrainian combat barrier doctrine.

1/
Compare the picture above to my complaints about Ukrainian fighting doctrine in the Summer of 2024.

2/
Or my B*tching about its lack in the Summer of 2023 for the Russian Army

3/
Read 7 tweets
May 1
1560 dead Russian mortars and artillery tubes was 2/3 done by drones per ISW.

Drones are the primary counter-battery system on 21st century battlefields.

US Army field artillery branch OTOH is showing up to the counter-battery indirect firefight with knives, AKA the M109A6.

1/
The M109A6 Paladin 155mm/L39 caliber self-propelled gun is the T-62MV obr. 2022 of the artillery world.

The gun is inferior to every other major power's fielded SPG world wide.

2/ Image
Image
The computerized fire direction system of the US Army Artillery is a overly centralized, decades old Star/mini-computer architecture, which has an electromagnetic signature so bright that it can be detected bouncing off the surface of the moon

3/ Image
Image
Image
Read 17 tweets
Apr 27
Just...Reapers are not flying "Deep ISR" over Yemen.

They are dying due to a lack of electronic warfare equipment over Yemen.

I believe @noclador is overlooking the event @RyanO_ChosenCoy is calling out - The fall of Assad's Syria.

1/3 Image
Ukraine's HUR sent two drone teams with 150 drones to Syria in in June 2024 to support the Turkish supported Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

2/3
By December 2024, Assad's regime fell because it could not counter Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) small drone airpower that Ukraine provided.

@RyanO_ChosenCoy is saying 25 such HUR teams with 80K drones would do in the Houthi from its lack of counter UAS capability.

See Grok⬇️
3/3 Image
Read 4 tweets

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