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Trent Telenko Profile picture
@TrentTelenko
May 26, 2022 • 7 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
Scrolly
Getting MLRS guided rockets in either M142 HIMARS wheeled or M270 tracked launchers represents a phase shift increase in artillery capability for Ukraine.👇

MLRS Technology Thread🧵
1/
American Guided MLRS artillery rockets are a combat proven precision guided weapon (thousands fired) with a 200lb (90.7kg) insensitive explosive warhead equipped with multi option fuzing that is set electronically.

They use GPS & inertial guidance for 3 meter accuracy.
2/
Both the US move away from cluster munitions & the 30 year rocket age have seen early MLRS unguided rockets disposed of.

And while pilot quantities of GMLRS were built with cluster munitions in the early 2000's. Most (>99%) GMLRS built have unitary warheads.
3/
To restore lost lethality of cluster munitions against radars, towed artillery & missile launchers in peer combat, a modified version of GMLRS has been given a much improved fragmentation warhead.

This "Alternate Warhead" will be available for GMLRS ammo shipments to Ukraine.
4/
Given the bad memories of losing soldiers to unexploded M26 rocket cluster munitions in 1991's Desert Storm operations. The US Army spend a lot of money to make the GMLRS fuze as reliable as possible, in addition to being multi-option.

It functioned 74/75 times in testing.
5/
It is accurate to say that the arrival of GMLRS missiles, and their launchers in numbers similar to the M777, in Ukraine's hands will overwhelm both Russian artillery and the railway logistics it in the Donbas.

The USA has over 40,000 GMLRS missiles available in stock.

6/
This is the Lockheed-Martin video celebrating the 50,000th GMLRS produced.

The recent lot 14 production award was for 9,500 GMLRS unitary and alternative-warhead (AW) rockets and over 300 low-cost reduced-range training rockets.

7/End

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More from @TrentTelenko

Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jan 22
Stephen Blank has always had a clear US policy view of Russia:

"Moreover, Putin and his circle consistently advance two intertwined claims:

1. Ukraine is inherently Russian;

2. this war steps from NATO’s alleged attempt to turn

1/
 euromaidanpress.com/2025/01/22/tru…
...its supposed vassal state Ukraine into a member against Russia’s will.

Though some self-proclaimed experts still peddle this nonsense, this war’s true purpose is unmistakable:

2/
...the restoration of the Russian empire, without which Putin’s power – and that of his likely successors – cannot persist."

I'll add the following:

The arrival & mass production of Chairman Xi's Corvus Mulberry barges (pictured below behind a Chinese car ferry⬇️)...

3/ Image
Read 7 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jan 20
400 Houthi aerial drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles were fired at/near USN ships since Oct 2023

120 SM-2 & 80 SM-6 missiles, 160 five-inch main guns rounds, plus a combined 20 Evolved Sea Sparrow and SM-3 missiles engaged them.

Drone War Cost Trades 🧵
1/ Image
Tyler Rogoway has reported the following missile costs:

SM-2 Block IIIC - $2,530,000 per missile.
SM-6 - $4,270,000 per missile.
Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) RIM-162 Block II - $1,490,000 per missile.
SM-3 -$12,510,000 for the Block IB, and $28,700,000 for the Block IIA
2/ Image
So:

120 SM-2 * $2.53 million = $303.6 million
80 SM-6 * $4.27 million = $341.6 million
12 ESSM (guess) = $17.88 million
6 SM-3 IB (guess) * $12.51 million = $75 million
2 SM-3 IIA (guess) * $28.7 million = $57.4 million

3/ Image
Image
Image
Read 16 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jan 17
The fire and forget millimeter wave (MMW) radar guidance AGM-114L "Hellfire Longbow" being referred in the War Zone post as "a new anti-drone armament" for the LCS actually ceased production in 2005 and reaches end of life in 2025.

1/
One of the reasons the AGM-114L was dropped from the US Army M-Shorad is the US Army didn't want to pay money to recertify the AGM-114L inventory...

2/
...with the AGM-179 Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) equipped with dual-mode Semi-Active Laser (SAL) and millimeter wave (MMW) radar seeker just entering production.

3/
Read 6 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jan 16
It is a bad week to be Russia.

Qatar, one of the biggest LNG exporter, just announced it's new six MTPA (million tonnes per annum) nitrogen fertilizer plant.

The chemical process involved is natural gas->ammonia -> urea for a
1/
 dohanews.co/qatar-set-to-b…
...vertically integrated facility.

This new Qatar facility means Middle Eastern fertilizer industrial plants have now displaced Russia on the world fertilizer market.

2/
This makes Russia falling out of the world Ag-sector fertilizer supply chain a non-event going forward.

The Qatari sheiks made a good move here to capture value up the supply chain from energy.

Plus, Urea and Ammonia store far better than liquified natural gas.

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jan 15
I disagree with the thoughts in this post for multiple reasons.⬇️

1st, Ukraine made a systematic effort in Oct 2024 to take out multiple Russian alcohol distilleries.

So distilleries are on the AFU strategic bombing list.

1/
2nd, there are a lot of things that alcohol is a chemical feedstock for that Russia desperately needs to make.

I've talked about synthetic rubber for tires in another thread.


2/
A short list of Russian industrial alcohol uses include:

o It's used as an industrial solvent.
o It's used as a precursor for numerous plastics.
o It's used as a precursor for some explosives.

3/
Read 5 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jan 15
Ukraine struck another Russian alcohol plant?

I'm beginning to think the Russians have been using alcohol to make butadiene based synthetic rubber.

My WW2 US mobilization resources say grain produced alcohol was the primary chemical feedstock for the synthetic rubber

1/
...in US tires until August 1944.

The process was invented by a Russian, Via wikipedia:

"The Russian chemist Sergei Vasilyevich Lebedev was the first to polymerize butadiene in 1910....

2/
...In 1926 he invented a process for manufacturing butadiene from ethanol, and in 1928, developed a method for producing polybutadiene using sodium as a catalyst.

The government of the Soviet Union strove to use polybutadiene as an alternative to natural rubber ...

3/
Read 6 tweets

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