Trent Telenko Profile picture
Nov 22, 2022 15 tweets 7 min read Read on X
On Nov 19th I did a thread on the Przewdow missile strike making the case it wasn't a Ukrainian missile and I mentioned a radar & electronic warfare angle I didn't address.

This 🧵will do just that.
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The thing about being one of the few people who have researched General MacArthur's Section 22 radar hunters is you learn all the old tricks with mechanically rotating antenna radars like that on the 1977 vintage E-3 Sentry AWACS APY-1.

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A radar design fielded in 1977 is a lot closer to 1945 than 2022.

Both phased arrays and mechanically scanned antennas were 36 (+) years old when the APY-1 was fielded 45 years ago.

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The primary weakness of a mechanically rotated radar antenna is dwell time. The radar beam is only looking the right way a fraction of every revolution.

This fact can be exploited for both gain intelligence on radar, like the USMC did at Okinawa in 1945, or to spoof direction
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...finding on a radar with active decoys by imitating the detection beam of a rotating radar antenna (see photo).

The Westinghouse APY-1 was designed & implemented in the early 1970's during the shift from discrete transistor devices to integrated circuit chips that enabled

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...the use programmable software for consistent pulse doppler detection.

It was also given a radar beam shape with very small 'side lobes' to defeat 1960's jamming.

See:
428-MN-9705 Defensive Electronic Countermeasures (1962)
NARA I.D. #75132

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The pulse doppler effect the APY-1 exploits is an artifact of the reflection of energy waves from an object to calculate speed. An approaching object compresses sound or radio waves. A departing object stretches them.

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And an object going perpendicular to a radar beam is undetectable by pulse doppler techniques.

The APY-1 radar on the E-3 Sentry had to be programed with a relatively high pulse doppler floor because of how fast Germans drove their cars on autobahns.
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The Soviet and now Russian military has known all of what I've laid out for the APY-1 radar for 40 odd years.

You can't classify radar physics, rotating antennas or German autobahn car speeds.

9/
All of the previous tweets were a build up to this map of a possible 5V55K missile shot trajectory from Belarus.

Simply flying parallel to the border is going to reduce the doppler shift an APY-1 or APY-2 (same radar w/sea search) on an E-3 Sentry.
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The dogleg you see at the end is plotted over a Ukrainian SAM base using the 5N63 FLAP LID to direct it.

That velocity bleeding turn would have generated a large doppler return from the 5V55V nose seeker antenna for the APY-1 to track & also resulted in a smaller crater.

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The S-300 can launch the 5V55K missile in the 4.5 seconds of every six when the APY-1 isn't looking and then command it to fly s-curve trajectories when the E-3 radar beam is looking to reduce the detectable doppler shift.

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The Track Via Missile command uplink of the Patriot connected to a late Cold War era electronic warfare system could pull this off versus an AWACS type plane with a rotating antenna.

US Military just never thought of it because it had plenty laser and now GPS guided bombs.
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The Russians in the 21st Century with their TVM missile uplinks -- and empty guided bomb and tactical ballistic missile inventories in the middle of this war -- certainly can.

Different militaries having the same technology can and do use that technology very differently.

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This was one of the biggest lessons of watching Imperial Japanese radar development in WW2 through Section 22's reports.

It was an important lesson suppressed by the Joint Chiefs after WW2 and not relearned in the 80 odd years since then.


14/14 End.

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More from @TrentTelenko

Jun 18
We have just seen over Moscow today - with Ukrainian drones - the Russo-Ukrainian War's version of the RAF’s first 1,000-bomber raid of World War II, codenamed Operation Millennium, which took place on the night of May 30–31, 1942.

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Operation Millennium, marked the first tactical deployment of the RAF "bomber stream".

That is, the tactic of flying a dense, tightly timed formation along a narrow corridor to overwhelm German radar networks and anti-aircraft defenses of the Kammhuber line.
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When I look at the design of the air defense rings around Moscow.🧐⬇️

I can't help but think Ukraine used a 2026 "Drone Stream' to saturate one sector of these ring defenses like the RAF did to the Kammhuber line.

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Jun 18
Since you asked...we need to talk about Russian truck logistics in the age of destroyed at will by Ukrainian drones Russian refineries.

Russian industrial infrastructure reflects the Soviet WW2 "one big vertically integrated factory" experience.

Soviet industrial legacy🧵
1/
The Soviets built their industrial plants to minimize transportation impact on its railway system, and later, it's trucking.

This 2013 time stamped Jon Parshall presentation on WW2 US vs German Vs Soviet tank industries underlines this Soviet reality

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In the 1950's and 1960's the CIA and Strategic Air Command (SAC) Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) targeting planners discovered this quirk of the Soviet centralized economy.

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Read 12 tweets
Jun 18
The negative air defense reality of a 2,700km range one-way attack drone cannot be overstated for Russia or the USA.

Let us consider for a moment a Cuban "OWA-Drone Crisis" akin to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Drone threat 🧵
1/
Via a question to @grok of Cities of 500K(+) in OWA Drone range:

"Distances are approximate great-circle (straight-line/air) from Havana or central Cuba; actual drone paths could vary due to routing, wind, altitude, & launch site (e.g., closer to Florida from western Cuba)
2/
All listed cities are well under 2,700 km.Florida and Southeast (easiest reach)

Miami, FL (~370 km / 230 miles) — Well within range.

Jacksonville, FL (~1,000–1,100 km) — Within range.

Tampa/St. Petersburg area (metro >500k in cities/urban) — ~400–500 km.

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Read 14 tweets
Jun 14
Fearless prediction: N. Ireland will be 90%(+) migrant free in 3 months.

It is now clear to me that what we are seeing in N. Ireland is a sectarian pogrom.

One which will in 3 months be utterly successful in driving out 90%(+)...

N.I. "Troubles Pogrom"🧵
1/
...of the migrants the UK government has placed there. Then Liverpool will be next.

The UK government utterly failed to stop mutual Catholic/Protestant pogroms in the late 1960's early 1970's troubles.  When half N. Irish population was nominally...

2/
...on-side with UK/N.I. law enforcement. The situation is far worse now.

Currently the vast majority of white middle and working classes in Northern Ireland are on-side with the anti-migrant pogrom...

3/
Read 19 tweets
Jun 13
The problem with this analysis is it leaves out the drone & power projection capabilities of the PLA and Taiwan's highly vulnerable off shore islands.

PLA & PLAN parachute, heliborne & marine landing forces can take all of those small islands as a coup de main for drone, SAM & MLRS bases.
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The ability of Taiwan to operate it's HIMARS is tied directly to it's ability to deny China drone air superiority inside Taiwanese air space.

China can throw 1 million OWA drones to suppress Taiwanese air defenses to take those off shore islands.

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The PLA holding the Pescadores, Green and Orchard islands as launch platforms for HQ-9 SAM's, heavy MLRS rockets and Hornet class truck hunting drones means it can overwatch & reduce Taiwanese beach defenses, all while denying air space to ROCAF fighters.

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Read 4 tweets
Jun 11
Russia faces a logistical dilemma in occupied Ukraine for which it has no good solutions.

Crimea is a de facto island fed by road and rail bridges Ukraine can now destroy at will, and Russia cannot stop.

And Ukraine is destroying those bridges.

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Russia's air defense has suffered a nearly complete "Lanchester Square Collapse" proximate with the Ukrainian mass deployment of both 150 km range AI truck hunting drones and bridge busting FP-2 OWA drones.

Map H/T United24media
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Any route Russian trucks take to Crimea will result in parking lots near replacement pontoon bridging for both those kinds of drones to exploit.

"Trucks that mass together...die together.

3/3
Read 4 tweets

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