Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Trent Telenko Profile picture
@TrentTelenko
Jul 6, 2022 • 21 tweets • 8 min read • Read on X
Scrolly
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

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Trent Telenko

Trent Telenko Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @TrentTelenko

Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jan 16
This is a useful survey as far as it goes...but it is missing the key factor in the Iranian Revolution.

That is, _Food_Insecurity_.

Food insecurity is as much a cause of the Iranian Revolution as Regime hatred.

Iranian Revolution Food Insecurity🧵
1/
The predominant effect of a 1.4 million rial to the dollar hyperinflation combined with Regime Security Force public lockdown is the Iranian lower class has been set up to starve.

The lower class cannot go to work to get money to buy food.


2/
Nor can Iran's lower class budget the money it has to plan what food it can buy week to week because of inflation.

Iran's hyperinflation has gone on long enough that the Iranian lower class has traded everything it can barter, already, for food.



3/ Image
Read 5 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jan 14
We really need to talk about the huge opportunity that Mullah financial corruption has given the Trump Administration to crash Iran's financial system with E-bombs, AKA non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse.

Wiping the financial records of failing Mullah banks in a revolution...

1/ Image
Image
Image
...makes them very difficult to restore.

And surfacing those back up records makes them vulnerable to follow up E-bomb strikes.

Plus, how are the IRGC & Basij going to get paid?

2/
No one in their right mind thinks the IRGC & Basij will work for free, fighting a revolution without pay.

Mullah controlled bank electronics are needed to meet payroll.

The old USAF ALCM cruise missile was outfitted with the "CHAMP" E-Bomb for zorching enemy electronics.

3/ Image
Read 10 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jan 12
If you haven't read the substack article linked below, do so immediately and consider this:

When you stack secure & uninterrupted digital text communications to Mullah Regime corruption and currency hyperinflation...

...the Mullah Regime is doomed. It's a matter of when, not if.

1/
What jumped out for me about @shanaka86 substack article was the implications of secure digital text communications for the Maoist model of Revolutionary warfare.

See the @grok summary of Mao's 4-level revolutionary model below. ⬇️

2/ Image
Maoist Level 1 & 2 warfare has never had the secure digital text communications Starlink provides.

This means a whole heck of a lot and shoots decades of counter-insurgency doctrine about controlling/blocking guerilla communications in the head.

3/ Image
Read 14 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jan 10
Okay folks, we have to say at this point what is driving the uprising in Iran isn't the strength of the protests.

It is the WEAKNESS OF THE IRANIAN STATE. Basij commander Shoushtari's killing is the neon sign of Mullah-ocracy weakness. It had to be an inside job, reasons.

This means we need to talk about Russia's LAST PLANE OUT OF TEHRAN. 🧵
1/Image
Just as US military evacuations of Saigon and Kabul required securing the embassy & airport for evacuation.

Perhaps as soon as 48 hours from now, the Russian VDV will have to secure the Tehran airport to evacuate not only Iranian Mullah gold, but lots of Russian intel & technical experts.
2/Image
The Fall of Kabul made clear you not only need marines for ground security.

You also needed a USAF operation/maintenance squadron (-) for loading, refueling and operating air traffic control as you can't count on the locals to run the airport as the security situation collapses.
3/Image
Image
Image
Image
Read 9 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jan 10
This:

>>Casualties are high on both sides

...argues that we are looking at a Regime Security Forces corruption-based THUG SHORTAGE.

In 2022 the IRGC & Basij had fire superiority & numbers to control situations when lethal force was used.

Now they are taking significant casualties.

1/
Where are the IRGC heavy weapons?

Where are the IRGC technicals with heavy machine guns to mow down crowds of protestors?

We should be seeing thousands of protestors shot, given the mobs seen on Tehran streets.

We are hearing numbers like ~217 in six Tehran hospitals.

2/ Image
Image
Just look how dense that protestor crowd is.

Just imagine the horror that one 12.7mm or 14.5 mm heavy machine gun technical could do to this crowd, given a willing IRGC crew.

3/
Read 12 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jan 8
A lot of people have been spouting off that the failure of Air Defense in Venezuela means Chinese air defense is 💩.

Just...no. S-300's arrived in the Fall of 2025.

That isn't enough time to train competent operators, be they Cuban, Venezuelan, Russian or Chinese.
1/
Job training for a PATRIOT fire control enhanced operator requires 10 weeks of Basic Combat Training and 20 weeks of Advanced Individual Training with on-the-job instruction.

Russian S-300 are far worse than Patriot in terms of human interface & "plug and play" maintenance.
2/ Image
Image
Image
They were literally designed to be operated by drafted Ukrainian university educated STEM students.

The Maduro regime didn't trust anyone from the Venezuelan middle class to operate the oil industry, let alone Russian and Chinese air defense equipment.

3/ Image
Read 7 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

Send Email!

:(