Trent Telenko Profile picture
Dec 31, 2022 12 tweets 5 min read Read on X
This is an important series of photos demonstrating a Russian S-300 missile converted to land attack with an enhanced high explosive blast as opposed to a anti-aircraft fragmentation warhead.

Battle Damage Assessment 🧵

1/12
Where are the high speed metal fragment strikes in this photo?

Heck, you have mostly intact wooden debris that the blast generated from the building, which fell into the crater.

2/12
This is what a properly functioning S-300 fragmentation warhead looks like when detonating at night.

3/12
This is what the ~300lb 5ZH92 fragmentation warhead for 5V55K S-300 missile looks like when it fails to detonate, along with an infographic of where the warhead is located in the missile.

4/11
These are what high velocity airburst artillery fragmentation hits looks like on a brick building.

5/12
And these are what the a similar Soviet technology warhead fragments of a Buk missile fragmentation warhead look like and how they damaged Flight MH17's wreckage.

Note the consistent pre-fragmentation of a Buk warhead for anti-aircraft effect.
6/12
The ceilings & inside walls of this Ukrainian police station opposite the windows should have dozens of uniform sized high velocity fragment strikes, given the short distance from the impact crater.

It's what a 5ZH92 warhead is designed to do.

7/12
The scorch/soot marks on the previous brick wall and on the cars below are consistent with an 'enhanced blast,' AKA FAE, AKA thermobaric warhead...

...NOT a standard ~300lb 5ZH92 fragmentation warhead for 5V55K S-300 missile.

8/12
This constitutes a warhead upgrade from previous Russian land attack modified S-300 missile strikes.

9/12
Given the small size of the S-300 missile impact crater compared to others seen in Ukraine for the Mach 6.7 at engine burn out 5V55 missiles.

We are looking at an extended range semi-ballistic missile shot.

10/12
One of the Cold War gray beards I correspond with places that range at about ~150 km.

Assuming I tagged the correct Lyman (not a given).

The S-300 launcher that did that strike could be in any Russian or Russian occupied Ukrainian territory in the blue circle below.

11/12
This is Exhibit A of why a unconstrained 300km ranged ATACMS missile in Ukraine's arsenal would help defend Ukraine's civilian population from Russian missile strikes.

Like Russian artillery depots were pushed back by GMLRS 80 km.

ATACMS would push S-300 back 280 km.
12/12 End

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Trent Telenko

Trent Telenko Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @TrentTelenko

Jul 10
This Ukrainian fiber optic FPV drone attack underlines that 20th century style tactical truck based logistics are obsolete in the age of mass, cheap, 50 km FPV drones.

Drones costing less than $2,000 are killing trucks costing over $150,000.

US military versus Drones🧵
1/
The issue of Western truck production versus drone production is stark

Ukraine in 2025 is making ~12,000 FPV and grenade dropping class small drones a month.

The peak annual US Army FMTV production was in 2005 for a total of 8,168 trucks.

Those trucks are 20 years old.

2/ Image
21st Century truck logistics in the age of 50 km unjammable fiber optic guided FPV drones requires systematic combat service support engineering to build vehicle "net tunnels" to protect from powered and persistent drones.

3/

Read 6 tweets
Jul 2
Injection molding requires an industrial scale, and above all, _reliable_, supply chain to be more efficient that 3D printing.

This is in a lot of 3D/AM industrial guru papers on the transition from low thousands a year production to the tens of thousands scale.

1/
Injection molding gets you a lot of one thing cheaply. Think lots of fiber optic guided FPV drones, which are immune to radio jamming.

3D/AM allows a lot of modifications to meet the changing requirements of war. Think rapidly evolving Ukrainian interceptor drone designs.

2/
The issue for Ukraine versus Russia is Ukraine has to more widely disperse its industrial base because Russia has a bigger cruise and 500 km(+) ballistic missile production base.

Ukraine's need to disperse production and evolve drones means 3D/AM is a better industrial fit.

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Jul 1
Ukrainian mass production of FPV interceptor drones has reduced the cost per shot from $7,200 to $5,800.

The US Coyte II drone interceptor runs to $100K a shot.

The cost difference was the Big/Expensive/Few platform & missile cult was in charge of developing the Coyote II.
1/2 Image
Image
Image
The Coyote I was a propeller interceptor like the Ukrainian FPV's, but it wasn't "enough" for the higher end drone threat like the TB-2 Bayraktar.

2/ Image
So the US military abandoned kinetic solutions the lower end drone threat.

And it has to pretend that high power microwave weapons and jamming will be the answer to fiber optic guided FPV's at weed height and grenade dropping drones behind tree lines.

3/3 Image
Image
Image
Read 4 tweets
Jun 27
The F-35 Big/Expensive/Few Platform & Missile cult is in deep denial of this battlefield reality.

Air superiority below 2,000 feet/600 meters has been lost by crewed aircraft.

F-35's are irrelevant for the Mavic drone threat, save as a budget threat to the C-UAS procurement.
1/
The arrival of the Ukrainian Gogol-M, a 20-foot span fixed-wing aerial drone mothership, with over a 200km radius of action while carrying a payload of two 30km ranged attack drones under its wings, underlines the impact of low level airspace as a drone "avenue of approach."
2/
The Gogol-M flys low and slow, below ground based radar coverage like a helicopter.

It opens up headquarters, ground & air logistics in the operational depths to artificial intelligence aided FPV drone attacks.

3/ Image
Read 9 tweets
Jun 27
This is the main example of one of the most unprofessional delusions held by the US Navalist wing of the F-35 Big/Expensive/Few platform and missile cult.

Russian fiber optic FPV's have a range of 50km - over the horizon!

1/
This means things as the Russians make these FPV's from Chinese commercial drone components in six figure and soon 7 figure (millions!) numbers.

This has huge implications for the impending Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

2/ Image
Image
Image
When China invades Taiwan, the 1st move will be occupying the small islands around Formosa (left) and making them drone, GMLRS & HQ9 SAM bases.

50 km circles around all those small islands cover almost all the invasion beaches (map right) with PLA 50km fiber optic FPV's.

3/ Image
Image
Read 5 tweets
Jun 24
It isn't just a matter of pre-2023 sniper tactics being obsolete.

Every patrolling tactic taught by the US Army Infantry and Ranger schools are obsolete when you can "just send a drone. "

1/3
Drones simply don't have ground line of sight issues like soldiers do.

Drones can see in more of the electromagnetic spectrum than humans.

And the US Army refuses to buy enough small drones (1 m +) to train their troops to survive on the drone dominated battlefield.🤢🤮

2/3
"Just send a drone" is the proper tactic for almost everything a 21st century infantryman does from patrolling, raiding enemy positions, sniping and setting up forward observation posts.

3/3
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(