This @BA_Friedman criticism of the @TheStudyofWar statement "Russia has operational initiative" is correct.

Putin's insistence on offensive operational tempo is not a substitute for real military initiative.

"Spoiling attacks" need something to spoil.

1/
The recent series of Russian attacks at Vuhledar are the case study on this.

With what assets are the Russians attacking with? Most of their professional army no longer exists. The replacement equipment is mostly de-mothballed 1960s and 1970s junk.

The extinction level
2/
...event that happened to the Russian Army artillery forward observer corps can't be fixed in this war.

That's one of the biggest reasons why the Russians are losing at least a thousand souls a day in the current attacks.

AFU being on the defensive now is utterly

3/
...consistent their "Death of a Thousand Cuts" anti-logistics strategy.

And by that I mean Putin's insistence on Russian Army attacks now is preventing a Russian Army build up of an artillery ammunition reserve against future events.

4/
The future event being the now certain Ukrainian operational level counter attacks in late Spring/Summer 2023 lead by a "Petting Zoo" of late Cold War NATO MBT designs.

There are none so blind as those who do not wish to see.

5/
Putin's Russia is playing the game card of "Push everywhere, something will break" in Ukraine.

The Russian Army, the fools.

6/6 End

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More from @TrentTelenko

Feb 16
I cannot begin to overstate the battlefield shift in the logistical "correlation of forces" this tweet thread represents.⬇️

Ukraine is trading artillery shells 1-to-1 at Bakhmut & half of AFU shells are Western 155mm caliber.

Artillery Shell🧵
1/
The highest single "Russian artillery shells in a day count" that Ukraine has provided in the current war for Russia is 65,000 shells in May 2022 as Siervodonesk & Lysychansk were over run.

AFU was only shooting about 1,000 shells a day at that time.

2/
AFU is currently shooting between 4,000 and 5,000 shells a day in all Ukraine.

The straight up change:

Russia is only shooting one shell a day in Bakhmut for every 13 it was firing in its May 2022 Siervodonesk & Lysychansk offensive.

At _BEST_.

3/
Read 12 tweets
Feb 15
This is a useful thread on artillery shell production by @noclador but it is lacking a human skills process step plus the Russian genocide & ethnic cleansing enabling effects of the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) in Ukraine.

1/9
Artillery Shell🧵
I've done a thread addressing the human skills bottleneck involved with the expansion of artillery shell production.

2/9
Short form, quality control after filling a shell is very dangerous & requires a very special person to acquire the necessary skill set.

This takes time to screen for & train such people, & is the bottleneck in expanding artillery shell production⬇️

3/9
Read 9 tweets
Feb 14
My 30 Jan 2023 predictions of impending massive Russian non-battle casualties from frostbite have been confirmed.

This is from the the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as of 06:00, February 13, published on Facebook.

1/5
ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/366…
"It is also noted that due to the poor provision of winter uniforms, the number of Russian servicemen with signs of frostbite has increased significantly since January. In the healthcare facilities of Horlivka, Donetsk region, the number of patients with such...

2/5
... a diagnosis is up to 30% of all wounded."

This "30% of Russian wounded are frost bitten" percentage is consistent with the US Army January-February 1945 casualties in the Ardennes Campaign for the 1st, 3rd, & 9th Army counterattacks.

3/5
Read 5 tweets
Feb 13
It's funny how WW2 & the 1940's keeps calling the Ukraine War wanting back it's stuff.

Case in point is this report of Russians using radar corner reflectors - like the 1940's picture - tucked under balloons to draw Ukrainian SAM's.

1/6

euromaidanpress.com/2023/02/12/ukr…
That radar corner reflector was attached to a weather balloon at Fort Worth Army Air Base on 07/11/1947, five days after the Roswell, NM, UFO incident.

In this role it is a weather radiosonde used to track the high altitude wind patterns with ground based radars.

2/6
The USA, Britain, Germany & Japan were using balloons in this way to track high altitude winds for military air operations.

Japan took this a few steps further.

They tethered balloon radar decoys to small rocks & islands in the Sough China Sea to Decoy 14th AF SB-24 bombers
3/6
Read 6 tweets
Feb 12
Over the last few days the media and not a few accounts on Twitter have run for the clickbait from this Foreign Policy article.

There is more to war than numbers of systems.

Logistics & Signals🧵

1/
foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/08/ukr…
Click bait number's⬇️

"Ukrainian military estimates Russia already has 1,800 tanks, 3,950 armored vehicles, 2,700 artillery systems, 810 Soviet-era multiple rocket launch systems such as Grad and Smerch, 400 fighter jets, and 300 helicopters ready for the new wave of attacks
2/
And the NY Times even broke out this clickbait map of "The Great Donbas Encirclement" you have seen paid Pro-Russian energy creatures posting for the last year.

3/

Read 23 tweets
Feb 9
Things are getting serious with Russian logistics. (Not a joke)

The Russian Army is actually using cargo trailers with their trucks after 10 months of war.

Seeing two brain cells rubbed together anywhere in RuAF truck logistics amounts to a significant operational change⬇️
1/5
Short form:

Trailers double cargo carried per truck trip at the cost of ~5% slower speed, 6-7% more fuel and higher maintenance burden.

This maintenance burden is amplified if the truck is manual shift with poorly trained driver.

The CIA said late Cold War Soviet Army
2/5
...had a large percentage (more than 50%) of Russian trucks in East Germany matched with trailers.

The Russian Army invasion of Ukraine has been notable for the lack of such trailers.

Insert reasons [here]

I've been watching intently for these trailers for the duration of
3/5
Read 5 tweets

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