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Trent Telenko Profile picture
@TrentTelenko
Jul 6, 2022 • 21 tweets • 8 min read • Read on X
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I haven't talked truck logistics in a while. This thread 🧵will revisit truck logistics of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

1. What we thought we knew.
2. The logistical truth on the ground.
3. And how Ukraine's new HIMARS/GMLRS weapons are kicking over the logistical table.

1/
What we thought we knew came from the outstanding November 2021 piece by Alex Vershinn titled:

"FEEDING THE BEAR: A CLOSER LOOK AT RUSSIAN ARMY LOGISTICS AND THE FAIT ACCOMPLI"

2/
 warontherocks.com/2021/11/feedin…
The passage I've clipped here was the heart of the November 2021 advanced Western understanding of Russian logistics.

The problem with the passage below is everything Alex Vershinn stated as a 'beer math' model of Russian truck logistics is horribly wrong.

3/ Image
Alex Vershinn, like every other Western logistician, was blindsided by the 80 year/four generation Western intelligence failure to notice the Russian Army doesn't use mechanized logistics 'enhancers' to move its ammo & supplies.

4/ ImageImageImage
The Russian Army has no pallets, no forklifts nor any ISO containers.

This is what Russian Army artillery ammunition supply points look like.👇

5/
I've done several threads on this issue.

This thread is from 24 March 2022.

6/
And this one is from March 27th 2022 discussing the logistical advantages of Western & Chinese pallet capable supply trucks versus the Russian's complete lack.

7/
Alex Vershinn's assumption that six hours of work day will fill & empty three truckloads of supplies in a 24 hour work day needs to be divided by 3 or 4 due to the lack of pallets & all terrain forklifts

Moving ammo packaged thus by hand takes longer👇
8/
I've talked to Ukrainian soldiers in the @walter_report Twitter space & it is taking a whole day to do one round trip resupply run to a range of 90 km, not 90 miles.

While Alex Vershinn mentioned in passing that damage to infrastructure invalidated his 'beer math,' expanding
9/
...a bit on what 'infrastructure damage' means is required.

When people on Twitter think of destroying bridges in Ukraine, they think like this👇

10/
This Maxar video of the infamous "64 km convoy" north of Kyiv in mud season shows lots of little places where creeks or water drainage culverts go under the roads.

Any one of those blown up, see photo, require longer truck by-pass logistical routes.
11/
 Image
Infrastructure destroyed by Russian artillery plus the utter lack of mechanized logistics yields much different truck logistics 'beer math.'

1. 90 km on Ukrainian artillery ravaged roads is minimally a 2 hour drive one way or 4 hours on the road round trip.

12/
2. Since Russian trucks need to be loaded by hand, you are looking at least 3 hours to load & a further 3 hours to unload.

3. Add in needed break times for the drivers, etc. & 1 Russian tactical truck can do 1 supply run a day to between 60% & 75% the radius of action

14/
3. con't ...that 'FEEDING THE BEAR' beer math laid out, call it 30% of Vershinn's logistic capability model.

This has huge implications given the Ukrainian artillery depot interdiction campaign.

See @TheBaseLeg Russian Artillery Depot Strike thread👇
15/
And see the @COUPSURE Russian Artillery Depot Strike thread here:👇

16/
According to the US Army Chief of Staff, the latest versions of US GMLRS that Ukrainian HIMARS fire reach out to at least 85 km to hit within the various OSINT circular error probabilities of 3-to-7 meters.


17/
Effectively, GMLRS will push Russian tactical trucks outside their sustained one-day, round trip, supply range.

This means Russia is going to have to rely far more on railways than it has to date.

And the Russians have been relying more and more on railways.
18/
The easiest way to get around reduced truck supply lift is to 'bomb up' your tanks, AFV's and artillery at railway siding.

See the T-72 getting resupplied next to a train

19/
Or simply base, resupply & fire your longest ranged & most logistically intensive rocket artillery from railway siding.

See👇

20/
Once Ukraine works through the most critical artillery depots on it's list (map).

It will use all its newly acquired deep strike assets to slam Russian ammo supply trains like in those retweets.

21/ Image
Russian ammo trains in range of GMLRS are a whole lot easier to find & strike than tactical trucks.

Plus, when detonated, extensive train clearance & EOD removal will have to happen before the rail lines line can be used again.

GMLRS means Russian logistics is hosed.
22/End Image

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More from @TrentTelenko

Trent Telenko Profile picture
Apr 1
This fact:

"Oil revenue collapsed to roughly 5% of the national budget, down from 32% the prior year. Taxes increased over 60%. Food prices climbed at least 50%. ATMs across major cities are running out of cash."

Underlines a major point of mine. 🧵

1/
Since Clausewitz, the West recognized "war as an extension of politics."

The corollary of that is "politics is an extension of money."

Iran doesn't have any money, thanks to hyper-inflation and now an 84% reduction in oil revenue.

2/ Image
The failed January 2026 Iranian uprising kicked off because hyperinflation caused massive food insecurity that required the mass murder of 30,000 (+) Iranian protestors to suppress.

The 12-day war and the current one have made Iranian hyper-inflation far worse.

3/
Read 6 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Mar 31
Not for US aircraft. ⬇⬇️

Hardened aircraft shelters are against the secular budget religion of US flying service flag ranks.

Not that other Western air forces are any better.

1/
The Chief of Air Staff RAAF 12 months ago gave a lecture trashing HAS as a bad idea and how "dispersal is better."

Dispersal didn't help USAF E-3G's in Saudi Arabia because they had nowhere to disperse too.

Places like Italy are politically off limits.
2/ Image
The RAAF CoS appeared to believe that every HAS was like the cheapest Iraqi HAS that we could crack with a single BLU-109/B, not the serious HAS needing multiple BLU-109/B down the same hole.

All of China's HAS built since 1991 are of the 2nd variety or are 'super-hardened' deep tunnels.

3/3Image
Image
Image
Read 4 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Mar 29
War is a question of interests, not legality. Iran with, it's support of the October 7th attack, kicked off an existential war with Israel for the latter to prevent Iran from getting the A-bomb.

Israel won't survive as a nation after three Hiroshima class nukes...

Iran War🧵
1/
- riding ballistic warheads in a saturation missile attack - slam into its major cities.

The Trump Administration agreed with Israel on Iranian nukes both in the 12-day war and with the current war.

2/
The Iranian use of a space launcher as an ICBM against Diego Garcia made the current Iran war an existential one for the USA, given the EMP threat Iran represents to the unhardened American power grid.

Imagine the population of the American west - especially Las Vegas! -
3/
Read 9 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Mar 27
How the mighty RAND has fallen.

Anyone claiming Iran will survive long term without explaining how Iran recovers from currency hyperinflation IN THE MIDDLE OF A WAR marks themselves as incompetent yo-yo's.

1/3
bylinesupplement.com/p/why-the-iran…
Hand waving, "They will use ForEx from oil and barter instead of the rial" is ignoring what happened during January 2026.

I dare anyone to do a word search at that link for the text strings "hyperinflation," "Rial" or "foreign exchange."

None are present.

2/
The Iran questions at hand are as follows:
1. Will the Regime fall via a controlled air campaign driven collapse, or
2. After a protracted Syria style civil war with 6 or 7 figure #'s murdered by IRGC thugs, &
3. Will Iran destroy the Gulf's power & H2O supply while dying?

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Mar 26
The Mullah Regime of Iran is in very deep trouble. Any critical thinker can see that.

What I find remarkable is how many people who should know better are so blinded by their hostility to Netanyahu and Trump that they ignore the military context and the domestic context inside Iran.

1/Image
The outcome of this war was decided before it began. The January 2026 uprisings occurred because the Iranian currency had collapsed and the economy was collapsing.

This was due to a massive increase in American economic warfare starting right at the beginning of the second Trump administration. Inflation was over 100% a year in January 2026.
2/
The war has made this much worse. Hyper-inflation has now set in and that has only one ending. IMO Iran’s economy and mullah regime will totally collapse in 4-5 months, even if the war ends immediately.

Even if oil exports last until then, hyperinflation means the oil industry workers will go out on strike and the regime protection forces must seek other jobs to feed their families. The latter has already started to happen.
3/Image
Read 15 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Mar 21
Nothing says hyperinflation like a ten million currency unit banknote.

The US and Western nations need to be three weeks into planning for relief and stability operations to prevent mass starvation in Iran after the Mullah Regime goes down.

After the Mullah's🧵
1/
The horrid impending humanitarian disaster reality for Iran is the current regime is a dead man walking because of hyperinflation.

Iran lacks the administrative ability to replace the current hyperinflated currency in the traditional manner...

2/
...of a three day closing of the banks and handing out new note for old.

In addition, the close down of the internet for security reasons combined with the striking of Iranian bank data centers means there are no operable credit or debit cards.

3/
Read 12 tweets

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