Trent Telenko Profile picture
Mar 24, 2022 22 tweets 7 min read Read on X
Alright folks, this is a logistical 🧵on pallets, cranes, ISO containers, and what we are _NOT_ seeing on Russian Trucks in Ukraine

Below is really good background tweet 🧵on the importance of pallets as a logistical productivity tool, since we are not seeing them in Ukraine
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and we should be seeing a whole lot of them.

Instead, we are seeing the Russian Army use two man carry break bulk boxes of mortar & artillery ammunition like this.

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Pallets are fundamental to the mechanized movement of goods in a modern economy or military.

See:
"According to an article in a 1931 railway trade magazine, three days were required to unload a boxcar containing 13,000 cases of unpalletized canned goods. When the same
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...amount of goods was loaded into the boxcar on pallets or skids, the identical task took only four hours."

Point blank, the Russian Army trucks seem to be Soviet Union in the early 1930's in terms of pallet logistical efficiency.

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poorboypallet.com/fun-facts/f/di…
Look at this Russian operational truck loss from @UAWeapons It is clear the Russians 'get' palletizing artillery rockets.

But what is missing in these photos?

Hint: mechanized logistical infrastructure has a "look" you don't see here.

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There are no D-rings to tie down that huge rocket pallet.

That is why the TOS thermobaric rocket pallet shifted off that truck & destroyed the wooden truck bed in the process.

There is something else missing on this & every other Russian truck.

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Where are the material handling cranes on Russian trucks?

Rocket launchers can pick up palletized rocket pods with their launcher (See US Army HIMARS example below) off the ground.

Not so much from a tall tactical truck bed.

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The biggest peculiarity is there are no cranes in Ukraine, and I mean that literally.

I've yet to see a single KAMAZ, URAL or ZIL cargo truck with a built in material handling crane. The US Army has 10%-15% of its 5-ton trucks fitted with cranes to help move

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...ammunition or other heavy objects.

The M1084 5-ton std & M1086 5-ton long wheelbase FMTV trucks have cranes to speed the unloading of MLRS rocket pods and artillery ammunition pallets for shells & propellent at ammunition supply points.

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Which brings up the missing Russian all terrain fork lifts.

I wrote a long tweet thread in Nov 2021 on the poisonous WW2 interservice politics in the Pacific over the logistical supply chain there involving forklifts.
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The gist of that thread was a War Dept. logistics troubleshooter showed up in the Pacific to unsnarl War Dept. supply chains and had the trouble both snarled & shot back at him.

That being Adm Nimitz & his staff disallowing the Army its concrete in it's supply ship manifests
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...to build forklift capable warehouses in the age before all terrain forklifts were invented.

Then as now senior US Navy leaders are plug ignorant & proud of it when it comes to the realities of building & operating maritime infrastructure to support naval operations.

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This 1940's era 'type A' USN micromanagement of Army concrete contributed to the artillery shell shortage that slowed the Okinawa campaign, resulting in a great deal of avoidable kamikaze damage.

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Fanbois of Nimitz can rest easy because Putin & his generals in ukraine have far exceeded anything the WW2 Central Pacific command clique ever did by way of screwing up the transportation military supplies by corruption.

Whatever monies that were supposed to go for Russian
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...Army truck cranes went to line someone's Flag rank pockets.

The reason the US Army adds cranes to its trucks is to make the entire truck fleet more productive in moving cargo with fewer vehicles. Cranes reduce the loading time per truck so more of a vehicle's work day

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...is spent on the road than standing still.

Rough order, at the 90 mile/145 km distance Russian trucks can make three round trips. US Army trucks will be able to make four, because of their crane reduced load/unload times.

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Or, the pre-war truck efficiency assumptions on how long Russian trucks load and unload are very wrong because of built-in Western assumptions on levels of Russian mechanized logistics.

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US Army has had its Palletized Load System (PLS) trucks since 1993, having produced over 8,000 to date, and half of them were bought with cranes. There is nothing like it in the Russian truck fleet in Ukraine These PLS trucks are the US Army's primary MLRS rocket transports.
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The ports of St Petersburg and Vladivostok are heavily containerized as are the Russian railroads since they transship Chinese containers to Europe.

One of my maritime shipping contacts sent this to me when I asked him about the penetration of ISO containers in the Russian
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economy:

"Containers are used almost exclusively for commercial offload in the ports. They are rarely transported into the interior. Maersk just ran a story about heading back into Russia to grab 50k containers. That is mainly those in and around the ports."
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There are huge economic multiplier effects that come to economies from full intermodal transportation.

Russians don't have them.

That means Russia's non-oil economy is much smaller than Western economists give it credit for.

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I wonder how big a Ponzi game Putin's Russian economy is playing with German banks?

22/End

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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🧵
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Lanchester Smiles🧵

en.defence-ua.com/news/ukrainian…
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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)
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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🧵
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ISO container fuel tanks can be shipped in via Iran and fix this damage in weeks.

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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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