Thread by @TrentTelenko

This is going to be a mechanized logistics thread dealing with a frustration I am having with Western intelligence & OSINT analysis of Russian logistics.

We are going to start with this picture to calibrate on what real mechanized logistical infrastructure looks like.

1/22

The previous Goggle satellite photo clip and this one are of a Walmart Distribution Center in New Braunfels, Texas.

The previous tweet showed the center's hundred of trailer loading bays and this photo shows a pair of forklifts next to a small building as the same facility.
2/22

This is a US Army M777 Battalion motor pool at Fort Hood, Texas from Google maps (left).

There are several FMTV trucks in the central isle that are equipped with HIAB material handling equipment cranes.

(See the graphic right)

3/22

If you look closely at the end of the FMTV cargo beds & the shadows cast in the previous tweet they will pop out.

Below is a commercial off the shelf telehandler in US Army colors.

4/22

This old RGV aerial photo of the SpaceX Boca Chica launch site has two maybe three telehandlers lower left and one at right.

The RGV folks picture shows are a wonderful calibration tool as far as providing overhead views of modern mechanized logistics equipment in action.

5/22

Now that your eyes have been calibrated to modern mechanized logistics...how strange does this Russian military warehouse infrastructure look?

Only three loading docks/bays in the warehouse & unfilled?

Where are the forklifts, telehandlers & the cranes?

(H/T @defmon)

6/22

These pre-war photos in this tweet of Russian logistical infrastructure have that same strange non-mechanized logistical infrastructure "look."

7/22

https://twitter.com/little7bear/status/1043968963858911233

And these recent photos you again see the same strange non-mechanized Russian warehousing/supply logistical infrastructure in these photos.

There are no loading docks/bays, forklifts, telehandlers or MHE cranes.

(H/T @NLwartracker)
8/22

The Twitter OSINT community is very skilled with picking out things like distinct cranes or Russian engineer crane trucks.

See @Tatarigami_UA below as an example.

https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1615365270477983744

8/22

Western style mechanized logistical infrastructure is missed.

See in the large dashed unloading box below there is a green diagonal line from the end of a truck in the upper corner that is unmistakably a HIAB style MHE crane.

9/22

https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1615365269064409088

Again, see this photo as a reference calibration for your eyes.

10/22

I've done several internet searches with text strings like 'Ukrainian crane truck rental' or 'Ukraine HIAB crane truck' and among other things I've gotten this photo of a Neptune ASCM reload truck with a HIAB crane on the end.

11/22

The Ukrainian Army went hard into mechanized logistics after 2014 for new equipment, but their old Soviet bases and trucks were built to non-mechanized standards.

Everyone trained in image analysis of Soviet style logistics has never really looked at modern mechanized
12/22

... logistical infrastructure like that Walmart Distribution Center.

Western trained Russian Army image analysts don't know how mechanized logistics is supposed work and where in a modern army that it works because they have only studied the Russians!

13/22

This has all sort of knock on effects.

FM 100-2-3 shows that Soviet & Russian Artillery logistics was such a 'low collection priority,' even in the US Army, that there was literally no one who ever did a unit TO&E of Soviet/Russian artillery to see how many forklifts

14/22

... were in an artillery or truck transport regiment since 1943.

When the Lockheed Martin WARSIM software development team went to US TMs/FMs, the OPFOR World Equipment Guide and AMSAA for Russian log-data, it was INA (Item not Available).

15/22

https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1616923315951620097

WARSIM is a logistical training tool for both brigade & division battle commanders & battle staffs, plus provides multi-level security allowing U.S. Secret, U.S. Top Secret, and U.S. Secret Releasable to Foreign National participation in exercises.
16/22
defensedaily.com/lockheed-marti…

Both @WarintheFuture & @MarkHertling have trained on this piece of software.

The logistics portion of the program is through, is very well done, and is integrated with LOGFED...for US logistics.

There is no Russian logistical model in the software.

17/22

According to one of the Lockmart software development team people I know, the US Army program managers for WARSIM didn't have the data they needed to model the Russians logistics nor the budget to get the intelligence community to pay attention.

18/22

Since the mission was to train US commanders & staff, within budget, what WARSIM didn't do is constrain OPFOR logistics in the same way it did US logistics.

OPFOR got a pass.

It was a good decision, in my opinion.

19/22

However, the upshot is that if US Army WARSIM players tried to replicate Ukraine's real-world performance of GMLRS striking Russian logistics.

WARSIM could not do it.

Simply because it doesn't have real world, granular, Russian logistical constraints built into it.

20/22

I'm told it would not be too hard to port US logistical constraints to the WARSIM OPFOR players to mimic Chinese mechanized logistics for GMLRS strikes.

But as written, WARSIM will never be able to replicate what Ukraine has done to Russia with GMLRS.

21/22

The failure of Western Intelligence to pick up the lack of Russian mechanized logistics is a "Worse than Pearl Harbor" class intelligence screw up it will take decades to unscrew.

WARSIM is the least of it.

22/22