Thread by @TrentTelenko

This is an extraordinarily important observation on Russian Army logistics.👇

Powered & towed barges have always been the go-to logistical tool for military powers without air superiority/in a contested air environment.

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https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1559618257123942402

General Douglas MacArthur's air power in New Guinea ran on towed fuel barges from 1942-1944, when Japanese aipower blocked normal coastal tanker movement.

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German Marinefährprahm (MFP), "naval ferry barge", or "F-lighter" types A thru D were used in the Danube plus the Mediterranean, Adriatic, North, Baltic & Black Seas for German logistical movements under Allied air superiority.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marinef%C…
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River barge traffic fed the German war machine in the 1944 Normandy campaign, in large part because it wasn't a priority target on the Allied transportation campaign strike list.

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The Imperial Japanese Army & Navy made extensive uses of both un-powered and motorized barges to resupply under crushing Allied air superiority.

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The Russian Army used barges extensively with trains in "The Great Patriotic War," so their use in the current Russo-Ukrainian War is certain.

These barges were escorted or armed, see:

The Volga Flotilla Russian River Gunboats
worldnavalships.com/forums/thread.…

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See also this Russian barges in WW2 wiki entry:

Dnieper Flotilla
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnieper_F…
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And this entry.

Soviet Riverine Gunboats and Monitors
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naval-encyclopedia.com/ww2/soviet/riv…

The logistics of the Russo-Ukrainian War is proving to be an extended WW2 military history final exam for a lot of Western intelligence officers & analysts.

These folks already have an "incomplete" for WW2 mechanized logistics.

Let's see how well they will do with barges.🙄

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Hopefully modern Western analysts will do better with Russian barge traffic than the ones in SHAEF during the Normandy campaign.

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