Thread by @TrentTelenko

Missile container thread 🧵note the wooden boxes used to move Russian Kornet large vehicle anti-tank missiles.

You can learn a lot about real history versus 'narratives' by paying attention to them.

This thread will demonstrate why that is.

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https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1518969628902539264

Now compare what you are seeing to this DoD video of missile containers I used in a previous thread:

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https://twitter.com/DeptofDefense/status/1518359584942997504

The US missile containers you saw in the video are the product of decades of improvement in mechanized logistics, human factors & experience with failed container technology.

Now the packaging technology teachable moment, TOW missile edition.

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The US TOW anti-tank missile went into service in 1970.

It was packaged in a wooden crate like you see with the Kornet.

However, its wood crate packaging technology was applied in such a way as to make it work with mechanized logistics.

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The early manual for the TOW, TM-55-1425-470-15-1, is online and you can look up the special packaging instructions (SPI) showing this fact.

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liberatedmanuals.com/TM-55-1425-470…

Both in palletized shipment form.

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And a SPI for unpalletized shipment was included because there was still a lot more unpalletized shipping/transportation in the 1970's than the 2020's.

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Military missile packaging changed a whole lot because of the bad experiences of 1990-1991 Operation Desert Shield.

Note for Twitter historians:

Read the institutional logistical histories, it's where all the good stuff is which explains command decisions are hidden.
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When the 82nd Airborne Division deployed to Saudi Arabia in August 1990. They brought all their TOW missile stocks in those wooden boxes up thread.

Problem: Saudi Arabia in August hits 130 deg. Fahrenheit (54 C) in the shade.

The TOW missiles weren't in the shade.

Opps

9/

Being assault infantry, the 82nd Airborne didn't take care to properly protect their TOW rounds from the heat. They had only so much they could carry on the planes, thus no tarps for ammo.

After about 4-to-6 weeks their entire stock of TOW missiles were unserviceable.
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Tarps that should have been used thusly per US Army Army Armament. Munitions & Chemical Command instructions.

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A whole lot of things fell out of this assault infantry-short term thinking misadventure by the paratroopers.

This event combined with the friendly fire incidences of the 82nd Airborne in 1989's "Operation Just Cause" in Panama destroyed the "Airborne Mafia" in the US Army.

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It also resulted in the Correspondent embed program.

I cannot begin to tell you how much US Army officers of General Norman Schwarzkopf utterly despised the media as a result of Vietnam.

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Schwarzkopf, and people like my father who served under Schwarzkopf in the 8th Inf Division in Germany, saw reporters as the enemy with a capital "E."

This Mike Wallace/Peter Jenning exchange at a Fred Friendly seminar sealed the deal...
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...for US Military officers of the Vietnam generation are concerned.

Where the 82nd Airborne comes in is that they did a firepower demonstration for the press early in Desert Shield & most of the TOW's they launched misfired.

Period 82nd video👇
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There was a whole lot of "Nothing to see here" in the aftermath, but it was clear to me that the media got the story at the time.

Hence the embed program, despite the Fred Friendly seminar impact on officers like Schwarzkopf.

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It's a reason the 82nd didn't get an airborne drop & was sent on the left flank of Desert Storm with the French.

And its also why Schwarzkopf got all the A-10's he demanded despite the USAF's 1st post Cold War attempt to dispose of the A-10 Warthog.
17/

AMCCOM could not say outright what happened to the TOW missiles, reasons. But it did leave a radioactive insider message as to what happened for the guilty.

BTW, remember those TOW missile crates up thread?

Check this out & the see the misdirecting text.

18/

These are the post Desert Storm TOW missile containers that replaced the wood crates.

Note all the ridges built in so no matter how you stacked them. There would always be air circulation between the crates as well a insulation inside.

This is called "Stupid proofing."

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You need to do a lot of "Stupid proofing" for assault infantry like paratroopers & marines.

And this is a 2020's era missile container with a nice little hollow step at the bottom which does the same air circulation trick for less money.

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Now to the lessons of the thread.

Missiles are extremely vulnerable to poor storage practices, misadventure, design defects, electronic countermeasures plus the shear stupidity & procurement corruption revealed by war.
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Complete load outs of missiles can & will go down simultaneously, turning "speed bump" light infantry into "Road Kill" versus tanks.

BTW, we are actually seeing a missile design defect with the NLAW in Ukraine...not enough battery for the cold.
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https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1518279263597862913

One of the problems that analysts have with the tank versus missile debate is their inability to look at the system problems with missiles.

Missiles are horribly vulnerable to tactics & countermeasures in a way tanks are not, on top of logistic issues
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Missiles are a binary on/off form of combat power.

Tank's combat power degrades much more gracefully against a full range of threats and still brings a great deal to the battle while partially operational.

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An M-60A3 TTS with reactive armor and a soft kill active protection system that detects approaching missiles or laser rangefinders and automatically pops multispectral smoke is still a robust battlefield capability versus a Javelin seeker or Stugna-P that can't see or put a
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...a laser through hot smoke.

An NLAW would require something like a Trophy hard kill APS.

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A soft kill APS costs 2 to 3 times a single Javelin and provides robust protection when it's on because of the IR-only seeker.

To defeat it, Javelin will have to go to a multispectral seeker vastly increasing the cost of future missile buys and obsoleting the entire
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...current Javelin investment.

And the new seeker is going to be more vulnerable to design issues, storage/use misadventure & corruption at a higher cost.

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Plus, no one has made the infantryman harder to destroy the way the tank has been & will be in the future.

As a weapons system, a good fire control system with a fast, reliable & cheap well aimed shell is simply better suited to delivering sustained firepower than a crew
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...served missile system.

If you are going to evaluate the missile as something that makes the tank obsolete.

It has to be fully evaluated as a system of systems like the tank has been.

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My guess as to why a retired after 33 years DCMA quality guy can see this when defense analysts can't boils down seeing/living the whole military logistics system supporting weapons systems from birth, service through to the scraping.

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That and the fact old DCMA Quality guys have been around long enough to see where the missile failure bodies were buried.

32/End.