Trent Telenko Profile picture
May 16, 2022 9 tweets 3 min read Read on X
This is a pretty important question I'll try and answer.👇

Thread🧵

1/
The lethal effects of artillery were not put on a really scientific basis until WW2.

There were lots of reasons for this involving money & politics I won't go into.

When the operational analysts to their first bite. They made charts like this mapping fragment impacts.
2/
The previous chart wasn't accurate because because it mapped a static detonation.

Analysts knew these maps were wrong because of damage inflicted in WW2.

It took early vacuum tube digital computers in the 1950's to accurately model how velocity altered that frag-pattern.
3/
What analysts were trying to achieve was a consistent modeling of airburst frag-patterns to kill infantry in trenches.

Then this information was fed into engineering shell designs to get the metallurgy & design of shells
4/
...such that they consistently made fragments of the right size/velocity to kill infantry over larger areas.

Starting in the 1970's through early 2000's this technological avenue was abandoned for the deployment of cluster munitions.
5/
The movement to ban cluster weapons lead to a push to replace lots of little bombs with more efficient fragmentation with 40 years better computer technology, explosives & metallurgy.

This Rheinmetall infographic shows what that means in terms of shell lethality.
6/
PBX4 IM is a insensitive plastic explosive that fragments steel more efficiently than TNT.

# Pre-Frag means the number of engineered fragments the shell produces. Now read the infographic bottom line from left to right.
7/
Russian 152mm shells have not ridden the increased lethality technological development train because Russia kept artillery cluster munitions.

The M795 155mm shell has. And it much more lethal on a shell for shell basis than a Russian 152mm shell because it did.

8/
There is a price to be paid for US M795 shell being both more lethal in its fragmentation and safer to use because of the explosives.

It costs more than a Russian 152mm shell.

There are reasons why the defense budget costs more for fewer weapons.

This is one of them.
9/End

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More from @TrentTelenko

Apr 9
Drones are truly the "King of Battle" in the Russo-Ukrainian War.

The reality of drones as bona fide persistent overhead PGMs has not sunken in yet for Senior Western military ground force leaders.

1/
In the skies over Afghanistan, air power migrated to persistent killbox interdiction model with B-1 and B-52 as orbiting platforms to get engagement cycle times under 5 minutes for laser & GPS guided bombs.

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Drones in Ukraine are producing similar persistent killbox interdiction effects, but are a tier down the firepower food chain, three tiers down in cost and five in terms of retail granularity, AKA hunting individual soldiers as targets.

3/
Read 6 tweets
Apr 9
This harsh 'over leveraged reality' is reflected in the US defense industrial base consolidation in the contractor & gov't sectors.

The reality of the simultaneous transition from four level to two level maintenance was the systematic deskilling of US military maintainers...

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...and logisticians required to operate a global supply chain of military equipment.

This shift was a geographic and technological artifact of the Post-Cold War world where DHL/FedEx/UPS operated wide body cargo jets...

2/
...from the USA & Europe allowing same-day and next day shipping with electronic inventory systems tracking weapons systems modules.

As long as there were enough modules/sub-systems for "plug & play" to cover usage, 2-level maintenance works.

3/
Read 11 tweets
Apr 9
The Russian state budget (per @Prune602 Blue Sky posts) was built around crude oil prices at $70 a barrel.

Today's crude oil trading price is $55 a barrel.

Russia is getting 78.6% of the foreign exchange it budgeted for and the NWF is tapped out of Western foreign currency.

1/
Russian NWF as of April 2025:

"The liquid portion of the Russian National Welfare Fund holds:

👉 164.3876 Billion Yuan (+0.1017  billion)
👉 168.2714 tons of gold (-6.3553 tons)
👉 1.6716 Billion Rubles (+0.422 billion)

And that’s it."

(Totals for March via @Prune602 )

2/
There are harsh economic reasons Russian missiles and drones are all now heavily favor Chinese sourced commercial off the shelf electronics.

The effects of Russian wartime disinvestment in industrial/transportation infrastructure is on top of this.

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Apr 8
No⬇️

>>are we advancing fast enough?

US Army would have to shut down and merge part or all of the Field Artillery, Air Defense, Aviation, Military Intelligence and Signals branches into a new drone branch to organizationally adapt to drones.

1/
Any role a small drone can do, a drone will do, because it is cheaper with a large commercial industry supporting it.

Artillery and missiles are military only technology requiring a large and ongoing investment that only wars and mobilization for wars can fund.

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Missiles are built on the boost-glide model that aims for speed over all things.

Drones are persistently and continuously powered as well as relatively slow.  So they can react to last minute target maneuvers and pursue into cover. 

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Read 6 tweets
Apr 6
Russian railway repair trains derailing was one of the major phase change events I've been looking for in the story of the collapse via the capital rundown of the Russian railways engines & rolling stock.

Russian Rail system collapse🧵
1/
H/T @Prune602
kommersant.ru/doc/7637861Image
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In particular, the downstream from the cut off of Western cassette rail bearings that last ~2 million km % (5.25 years of normal service) in April 2022 from Russian engines and rolling stock should be showing up in increased derailments.

2/
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What I posted Aug 7, 2024 still holds.

The Russian rail system collapse sequence is as follows:

1st trains on remote Russian rail lines derail.

2nd more Russian trains on lines closer to Moscow derail.
3/
Read 12 tweets
Apr 5
Ukraine has fielded a new counter to Russian radio jamming proof fiber optic guided (FOG) drones.

After a Russian FOG FPV drone impacts, the Ukrainians are attaching a device to light up the fiber optic thread
1/
...to provide a lighted 'bread crumb' trail to the Russian drone operators.

Ukrainian drones then back track the lit-up thread to kill the operators.

2/
The kicker is that, compared to the old US FOG-M missile technology of the 1980's and 1990's, Russian 2025 era FOG-drone launchers are immobile.

This is because the Ukrainian "Truck denial zone" with radio link FPV drones is now 10 km and growing.
3/ Image
Read 9 tweets

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