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.
1/
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.
8/
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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.
10/
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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.

13/
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 2
This manpower sweep problem is actually a lot worse for the Russians than Western military intelligence is capable of giving credit.

It takes a Russian labor gang about 3 hours to load 16 tons of wooden boxes w/o a convenient box car to truck line up. (below upper right)

🧵
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Because the Russian Army doesn't use pallets, forklifts, telehandlers nor D-rings anywhere in their supply chain to strap down pallet loads.

You need massive numbers of conscripts to load and unload from train cars to trucks & vice versa.

See⬇️
2/
This has a whole lot of knock on effects in how the non-mechanized Russian supply system works in the age of GMLRS & drones.

You see here a commercial to tactical truck swap of wooden boxes in the Russian Army operational/strategic depths.

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Read 8 tweets
Jun 2
This:

>>This is essentially a complete tactical bomber cell in a box, sized for a small mobile drone team operating at brigade level or below. It is not a strategic deep-strike weapon, and it is not pretending to be one.

...is "Federalized airpower."
Here are two key concepts for you --

1. Federalized Airpower - local ground unit as opposed to theater air commander asset

2. Kill Chains.

#1 has to do with every ground unit from platoon up owning a bit of airpower (a small UAV) outside central air command.
2/
#2 has to do with the ability of that UAV to call/deal lethal firepower for ground units w/o or w/little regard to superiors.

This drone kit is one of those subtle military technology developments that is in fact a game changer that brings those two ideas into reality.

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Jun 2
I've spent the last few hours reposting my 2022 to date take down's of Alex Vershinin's "Truck beer math" (from the Nov. 2021 War on the Rocks article "Feeding the Bear") which I used to review this Tochnyi article⬇️

TLDR: Tochnyi screwed up & used Vershinin's disproven work.
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Specifically this bit stating Russian trucks did three trips a day because they spent one hour loading and one hour unloading trucks.

That is, like Alex Vershinin, they assumed mechanized logistics loading times with pallets & forklifts⬇️

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This is Alex Vershinin's truck "Beer Math" for comparison.

It assumes 45 miles vice 50 km, but both show the same mirror imaging of Western mechanized logistics on Red/Russian Army non-mechanized logistics.

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Read 12 tweets
May 29
Oh My!

The electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) of these jammer mountings has got to suck.

How many "nulls" this jammer throws (AKA where no jamming energy transmits) will be substantial.

1/
I did a thread on this in 2024 when the first turtle tank jammers appeared.

2/
The basics of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) studies of antenna mounting have been around since 1944.

3/
Read 5 tweets
May 29
This is a development I have been expecting, once the AI truck hunting drones started hitting the main roads in occupied Ukraine.

Mining roads by air & rocket was late Cold War NATO doctrine after all.

1/
Deploying lots of anti-tank and anti-personnel land mines with Gator cluster munitions dispensers was one of the major themes of the 1980's Follow On Forces Attack (FOFA) doctrine.

The doctrine was highly effective, hence Ukraine using it in 2026.

2/
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The major issue with Gator is it ran a fowl the never sufficiently cursed out Ottawa Treaty banning AP land mines.

Despite the USA never having signing the treaty.

It generates international NGO lawfare accusations of "War Crimes" every time the USA uses the munition.

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Read 5 tweets
May 29
Regarding this:

>>The intensification of strikes against Russian 🇷🇺 logistics (150 vehicles, 30 trains, 400 warehouses) is a real game-changer in the war.

The 30 trains represent far more logistical tonnage than the trucks.

1/
Carrying capability 🧵
A Russian train with 30 box cars/wagons carries 1,800 to 2040 metric tons of cargo.

Per @grok Truck Equivalents for ~2,040 tons of cargo:

3-axle Kamaz tactical truck only (at ~13 t each): ~157 trucks (2,040 ÷ 13 ≈ 157). Range: 136–204 trucks depending on 10–15 t

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4-axle Kamaz tactical truck only (at ~20 t each): ~102 trucks (2,040 ÷ 20 = 102). Range: ~82–127 trucks for 16–25 t

Mixed fleet (e.g., half 3-axle at 13 t, half 4-axle at 20 t): Roughly 120–140 trucks total

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Read 7 tweets

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