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.
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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"
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.
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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.
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The Russian Army has no pallets, no forklifts nor any ISO containers.
This is what Russian Army artillery ammunition supply points look like.👇
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.
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
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...a bit on what 'infrastructure damage' means is required.
When people on Twitter think of destroying bridges in Ukraine, they think like this👇
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/
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.
Both polities had monumental hubris, the conviction that all was permitted, and that they were invincible.
The committed Nazis still believed they were winning in March-April 1945.
Japanese 'Yamato-damashii' beliefs took nukes to break.
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This Russian exceptionalist belief in the immunity to the consequences of their own actions is also why the Russians continue their insane suicidal assaults.
What is interesting for me is that the pre-2022 Western intelligence assessments of the Russian Army credited it with lots of tactical pipelines to move fuel.
Those would be far more useful in moving water than trucks...yet...where are they?
These pipelines seem to have fallen into that same logistical 'assume they exist but don't' black hole as Russian truck D-rings & pallets, tactical truck trailers, and Russia's "superior" tooth to tail ratio that acts more like 1863 Union Army where...
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..."every soldier is a logistical manual laborer when not in combat".
Water is heavy. Pipelines are more efficient that trucks. Yet all we are seeing is Russian water trucks?
Who stole the Russian Army tactical pipelines? Or were they nothing but disinformation?
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While we are getting Western intelligence assessments that continue to point out Russia's vast increases in production of military materiel, especially tanks, IFVs and APCs (from the same people who claimed Russia would over run Ukraine in 3-to-5 days)
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...claiming Russia is "obviously winning."
We are at the same time seeing economic signs of Russian "End Run Production."
The Russian wartime economy is functioning hand to mouth with oil sales revenues because all of the foreign exchange reserves are spent or frozen.
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Given what happened to DoD procurement after the 2nd Clinton Adm. annihilation of military specifications, which killed the configuration mgt, systems engineering & production engineering disciplines in defense contractors.
I've written about this issue for seven years starting on the Chicagoboyz weblog with a post titled:
"The 737 MAX and the Death of MIL-STD-499A SYSTEM ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
March 24th, 2019"
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In 2020 I was talking how the decay of systems engineering skills are affecting US Navy nuclear sub safe programs due to the lack of good systems engineering talent in Defense contractors.
The snail like pace of Western military procurement versus the Ukrainian fielding of an all-aspect stealth shaped OWA drone in less than a couple of years is very noticeable.
On the morning of 20 July 2025, a AFGSC airman at Minot AFB took his M18, still inside it's issued holster; and placed it on a desk.
It then went off, struck him in chest, and killed him
AFGSC issued a halt order on 21 July 2025 for use of M17/18 Modular Handgun System.
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As an ex-DoD procurement official, that letter is a procurement killing hammer.
This is going to hit SIG Sauer like a moderate sized asteroid in terms of DCMA corrective actions requests or "CAR."
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This AFGSC halt use order letter will be grounds for a level three corrective action request (CAR).
A DCMA level III CAR is defined as follows:
"A Level III Corrective Action Request (CAR) issued by the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) is a serious action taken when there are significant contractual nonconformities.
It is directed to the supplier's top management and is just one step below the possibility of contract suspension or termination.
This type of CAR serves as a management tool to address critical issues that need immediate attention."