There has been a lot of posts about Russian concrete bunkers being placed in Kherson on both the left & right bank of the Dnipro river.
In this 🧵we will examine Russia's "Concrete theater" against some hard reality taken from this US Army Engineer branch technical report.
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In this 🧵we will examine Russia's "Concrete theater" against some hard reality taken from this US Army Engineer branch technical report.
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1st there are these converted by the Russians precast concrete culverts turned pillboxes
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https://twitter.com/IntelArrow/status/1547487183661137920
Then with this left hand passing car-cam view video we see the newer & thicker 'lego blockhouse' design.
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https://twitter.com/Aryan_warlord/status/1586593736191987712
And this @RALee85 right lane car-cam view of the same generation of concrete pillbox.
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https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1587426043484323847
And how these pillboxes are being deployed in Kherson.
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https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1587756317686513672
And finally this pillbox line dropped in Nova Kakhovka.
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https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1588210478387527682
Now for some reality.
This picture is a still from one of the earlier videos showing the actual concrete thickness through the firing slit cut into it.
My retweet below gives you the performance of a 40 mm HEDP grenade versus steel & concrete.
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This picture is a still from one of the earlier videos showing the actual concrete thickness through the firing slit cut into it.
My retweet below gives you the performance of a 40 mm HEDP grenade versus steel & concrete.
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https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1586881180397346817
This is an inside view of the same culvert bunker.
https://twitter.com/COUPSURE/status/1563993343058743296
And now see this @UAWeapons tweet showing that 40 mm grenade being used by a Ukrainian drone to destroy a Russian BTR.
The concrete roof of that Russian culvert in turned pillbox in that still is less protective than this BTR's roof.
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The concrete roof of that Russian culvert in turned pillbox in that still is less protective than this BTR's roof.
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https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1585316127982305282
Now for comparison, this is a standard Vietnam era precast concrete security bunker the US Army Engineer branch technical report shown in an incomplete form.
I chose this comparison because the concrete is relatively thin...
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I chose this comparison because the concrete is relatively thin...
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...and because it was incomplete.
This is how this particular bunker was tricked out both to stand-off detonate mortar shells, RPG grenades or recoilless rifle rounds and reduce concrete chips from small arms & machineguns.
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This is how this particular bunker was tricked out both to stand-off detonate mortar shells, RPG grenades or recoilless rifle rounds and reduce concrete chips from small arms & machineguns.
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Now, let's look at a still of the 2nd Russian precast concrete pillbox design video from @RALee85 .
You can see from the door and roof block that what the Russian Army went for in this design was concrete thick enough stop a 40 mm HEDP grenade.
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You can see from the door and roof block that what the Russian Army went for in this design was concrete thick enough stop a 40 mm HEDP grenade.
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The US Army of the late 1970's would refer to that design as a "Concrete log design."
That is, thick rectangular logs of concrete would be assembled together with steel reinforcement and concrete mortar to build pillbox shapes of almost any size.
Again, the US Army
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That is, thick rectangular logs of concrete would be assembled together with steel reinforcement and concrete mortar to build pillbox shapes of almost any size.
Again, the US Army
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...reinforced them with sandbags and placed much of the structure underground.
This made them 152/155m shell proof, plus made it incredibly difficult for RPG-7's to put a grenade through the firing port without being highly vulnerable to pillbox machinegun fire.
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This made them 152/155m shell proof, plus made it incredibly difficult for RPG-7's to put a grenade through the firing port without being highly vulnerable to pillbox machinegun fire.
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This is simply NOT how the Russians are installing the 2nd generation prefab concrete pillbox designs.
A 152/155m shell hit or modern RPG will crack these prefab bunkers like eggs.
After looking at the previous photo clip, you know this is as militarily stupid as it looks.
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A 152/155m shell hit or modern RPG will crack these prefab bunkers like eggs.
After looking at the previous photo clip, you know this is as militarily stupid as it looks.
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The Russian Army of Nov 2022 has neither shovels nor sandbags to improve its bunkers.
Now let's look at at competently built 21st century AFU concrete bunker construction & emplacement looks like from the inside in this Russian video.
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Now let's look at at competently built 21st century AFU concrete bunker construction & emplacement looks like from the inside in this Russian video.
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https://twitter.com/viper202020/status/1522261604368207872
Note in this photo of an AFU concrete bunker that it has 'slat armor' to stop large caliber HEAT warheads from RPG's, missiles or AFV's cannon from properly fuzing.
And its steel shutters keep out thermobaric blast from a TOS-1 rocket when closed.
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And its steel shutters keep out thermobaric blast from a TOS-1 rocket when closed.
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Russia's prefab concrete bunkers being emplaced in 2022 Ukraine are inferior in execution to US Army prefab bunkers of late 1970's vintage.
And they are purest "Concrete Theater" tombs for Russia's Mobik cannon fodder compared to the bunkers AFU occupied on 24 Feb 2022.
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And they are purest "Concrete Theater" tombs for Russia's Mobik cannon fodder compared to the bunkers AFU occupied on 24 Feb 2022.
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