Thread by @TrentTelenko

Since everyone is talking about this 'controlled leak' to NY Time of US intelligence that Russia is buying DPRK artillery munitions.

It's time for a logistics thread 🧵

This is conditionally good news for Ukraine, not for the possible Russian

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nytimes.com/2022/09/05/us/…

...artillery munitions shortage that it has people on Twitter speculating about.

Rather, what is fortunate for Ukraine is what it portends, casualty wise, for Russian rocket artillery troops trying to use DPRK artillery rockets.

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The most important paragraph from the NY Times report is this one @DAlperovitch highlighted:

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https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1566969053394206725

This is when I get to use the Die Hard movie line "Welcome to the Party, Pal" to the CIA to getting around to something in September 2022 that I called out in April 2022. Which was apparent in the 2015 Russian rocketing of Kramatorsk.

web.archive.org/web/2017022219…
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The rocketing of Kramatorsk, Ukraine was one of the events that was featured in EXPLOSIVE WEAPON EFFECTS: FINAL REPORT by the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD).

It is a "must have" resource for the Russo-Ukrainian War...
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https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1517959118887215111

...along with the Halo Trust Handbook of Foreign Fuzes.

You are no sort of analyst of the Russo-Ukrainian War without both of these NGO documents resident on your electronic devices of choice.
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Those two resources were the basis of what I said back in April 2022 here:

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https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1517959109131350018

And here:

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https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1517959113640132608

And enabled me to find this US State Department resource I've also used in previous🧵 titled "DANGEROUS DEPOTS: The Growing Humanitarian Problem Posed by Ageing and Poorly Maintained Munitions Storage Sites Around the World."
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2001-2009.state.gov/t/pm/rls/fs/10…

The overwhelming majority of the munition explosions on that State Department list involved Ex-Soviet & Ex-Warsaw Pact artillery munitions.

The punchline for all of this?

Old DPRK artillery munitions are far more dangerous than Ex-Soviet munitions.
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This is something easily demonstrated with the YŎNP’YŎNG-DO INCIDENT, of Nov 23, 2010 (H/T @LIM49Spartan).

The folks running the 38north -dot- org site put together a very nice report that among other things detailed the performance of

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38north.org/wp-content/upl…

...DPRK rockets.

The following text is from that report:

"In the Yeonpyeong Island Incident of November 23, 2010 the North Koreans fired 170 copies of the Russian 122mm Grad rocket at the South Korean island. Fired at relatively short range, only 80 rockets...
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...hit the island while 90 landed in the water. The 80 rockets that hit the island suffered a 25% dud rate. Thus 110 out of 170 rockets were completely wasted. And this was a premeditated attack that presumably used the best crews and highest quality ammunition available.
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... The rockets were fired in a pair of time on target salvos coinciding with scheduled South Korean maneuvers on the island, so that SK Marines were caught in the open, but casualties were only 2 SK Marines killed, 2 civilians killed, 18 wounded."

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Having 110 of 170 rockets fall short or fail to detonate is a ~64% failure rate on the very best DPRK 122mm artillery rockets it horrid.

The double punch line to that number set is
1. It happened 11 years ago &
2. It doesn't count rockets that misfired and never left
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... the launchers.

This is where things get interesting. When you look up standard pattern DPRK 122mm rocket launchers, they come with 40 rockets each.

Divide 170 rockets by 40 and you get 4.25 launchers, AKA 30 122mm rockets misfired...
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odin.tradoc.army.mil/mediawiki/inde…

...assuming the DPRK used five BM-21 class launchers.

The kicker?

The standard BM-21 122mm rocket battery is six launchers. This makes the misfire # 70 rockets...
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...which seems high to me.

Newer domestically produced DPRK 122mm launcher using smaller local truck chassis only carried 30 122mm rockets each.

Since the Yeonpyeong Island Incident was a "show" put on for/by the latest Kim. Let's assume six of these.
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Six time 30 is 180 rockets, of which 170 launched, 90 fell short, and 60 of the 80 that hit the island actually detonated.

So we have:
90 of 180 fell short of the island
80 of 180 reached the island
60 of 180 detonated on the Island
10 of 180 misfired on the launchers
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The very best 122mm DPRK rockets fired on the newest launchers with the best crews had the following:

33.3% successful island impact rate**
50% fall short rate
5.5% misfire rate.

** This is far bigger than rated circular error probability, AKA wildly inaccurate.
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DPRK 122mm rockets are a terror weapon...

...for Russian logistical and rocket artillery troops.

Russian standard 122mm rockets are too long to fit sideways in a standard Russian railway car. Thus the standard loading causes them to roll down...
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https://twitter.com/HN_Schlottman/status/1541968266255540226

...stacks of 122mm rockets.

Running thousands of 35-to-45 year old, badly stored, DPRK 122mm rockets down the Trans-Siberian railway will be marked by detonating trains, depots & BM-21 launchers.

22/22 End