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Trent Telenko Profile picture
@TrentTelenko
Jul 6, 2022 • 21 tweets • 8 min read • Read on X
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 16
In 2005, the Strategypage -dot- com web site had the following on the downing of an F-117 over Serbia.

These tactic are the heart of Ukrainian IADS doctrine.
---
How to Take Down an F-117

November 21, 2005: The Serbian battery commander, whose missiles downed an American F-16, and, most impressively, an F-117, in 1999, has retired, as a colonel, and revealed many of the techniques he used to achieve all this. Colonel Dani Zoltan, in 1999, commanded the 3rd battery of the 250th Missile Brigade. He had search and control radars, as well as a TV tracking unit.

1/Image
The battery had four quad launchers for the 21 foot long, 880 pound SA-3 missiles. The SA-3 entered service in 1961 and, while it had undergone some upgrades, was considered a minor threat to NATO aircraft. Zoltan was an example of how an imaginative and energetic leader can make a big difference. While Zoltan’s peers and superiors were pretty demoralized with the electronic countermeasures NATO (especially American) aircraft used to support their bombing missions, he believed he could still turn his ancient missiles into lethal weapons

2/Image
The list of measures he took, and the results he got, should be warning to any who believe that superior technology alone will provide a decisive edge in combat. People still make a big difference. In addition to shooting down two aircraft, Zoltan’s battery caused dozens of others to abort their bombing missions to escape his unexpectedly accurate missiles. This is how he did it.

3/Image
Read 15 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Apr 15
Lots of US military officers like to believe Ukraine is identical in most ways to Saddam's Iraq & some are foolish enough to say so publicly.

It'd just not true in terms of Ukrainian IADS leadership, equipment, organization, training and doctrine.

1/
The #2 of PSU in Feb 2022 had been imbedded in Serbian air defense in 1999 during Operation Allied Force.

Where Col Zoltan Dani SA-3 Goa unit not only defeated USAF SEAD doctrine from 24 Mar to 10 June 1999 with good training & tactics.

Zoltan also bagged an F-117.

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Ukraine spent 23 years duplicating Zoltani's emissions control and mobility doctrine for it's IADS.

Additionally in 2014-2015, the PSU IADS operated under the Russian long range MLRS/TBM park directed by UAV's that were cued by EW-Sigint for a year.

Minimally the Ukrainians
3/
Read 11 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Apr 14
The problem for this USN-Taiwan "hellscape strategy" is it's obsolete given that the Chinese have access to Russia's newest generation of FPV interceptor drones to counter it, via using China's "5 times bigger than the rest of the world combined" drone industry & sea militia.

1/ Image
US Flag ranks and their senior staffs' refuse to acknowledge the disintermediation of drones mil-tech.

All you need is a game controller/radio or a smartphone controller & a waiter tray stand.

Then you are launching a FPV drone with 70% the lethality of a Javelin ATGM
2/ Image
The Drone paradigm shift for Flag rank ground officers is like Horse Cavalry from 1913 to the WW1 1918 battlefield - cold.

For Flag Rank naval officers, it is like going from the 1922 battleship line to 1950's jet carrier battle group.

USN senior leaders have more problems.
3/
Read 6 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Apr 13
One of the 'benefits' of being a 33 year 3 month vet of the US military procurement enterprise is you are around when the bodies are buried, directly or through people you know.

Such was the case with US Army anti-drone procurement.

Portrait of US Army procurement failure🧵
1/
This is an email correspondent of mine talking about US Army anti-drone kit testing, prior to 2010, about a competition between two anti-drone contractors --

"The toughest part of detecting drones is figuring out if they're drones or birds.
2/
That was actually the big 'step' they managed.

But, no, the directed pulse did not interfere with their radar. And the test they did they took down seven drones in less than seven seconds at range.
3/ Image
Read 18 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Apr 13
This is a failure of US Army leadership of the same class as the withdrawal from Kabul.

And it's not two year failure. It is an eight year failure. The information was available.

If money is interest, US Army Flag ranks were not interested.

1/
ISIS was using small drones on the 82nd Airborne in Mosul Iraq in 2017.

Pablo Chovil wrote an article for War on the Rocks about his combat experience under ISIS small drone attacks.

2/ Image
About the time Pablo Chovil's article, I was briefing DCMA officials about how a sub-national militant organization printed a 13 drone swarm for less than the cost of a single Hellfire missile and disabled seven jet strike fighters and a helicopter gunship of the VKS.
3/3 Image
Read 4 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Apr 12
Gosh, the level of prevarication regarding the Constellation frigate that is broadcast via NavSea and its supporters rivals the F-35.

For instance, let's examine the claim that Aegis BL 10 software, like on Burke class DDG, means FFG-62 has 2025 Aegis capability.

Just...No.
1/ Image
A Flight III Burke has the SPY-6(V)1 radar with four active electronically steered antennas (AESA) with 37 RMA radiating elements per face, or 147 RMA elements covering 360 degrees of azimuth.

It has over 6-times the radiated power of the previous generation Aegis radar.

2/ Image
Image
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The FFG-62 Constellation has three EASR SPY-6(V)2 radars originally designed for amphibious assault ships and Nimitz-class carriers.

Per the Raytheon SPY-6 Radar website...

3/
Read 10 tweets

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