Trent Telenko Profile picture
Feb 22, 2023 18 tweets 7 min read Read on X
My earlier JDAM-ER thread has generated a number of questions which I will be trying to answer in this🧵

The much cheaper JDAM-ER has been around for a while but has been overshadowed by the JSSAM, JASSM-ER, & LRASM in US military service.
1/18
This Australian DST video is the only one I've found on with images of the JDAM-ER testing.

A key take away is that JDAM-ER is in production for the Australian RAAF.⬇️

2/18
This and the next two articles have better range performance charts and plots on the JDAM-ER.

Including contractor supplied plots for the JDAM-ER demonstrator with the Aussie Kerkanya wing kit design.

3/18
ausairpower.net/TE-GTV-Kerkany…
I'm also dropping these articles because the Ukrainian defense media seems to have missed the point on the JDAM-ER.

See these concept of operations images.

ausairpower.net/TE-JDAMPt1.html
4/18
It seems they have no idea what it actually means in Ukraine's fight to liberate it's territory from Russian occupation.

JDAM-ER has been in RAAF service since 2015, as well as being in production, so there is a RAAF tactical library the PSU can use.
5/18
dst.defence.gov.au/innovation/joi…
Only requirement for JDAM and JDAM-ER is to use Mil-Std-1760C connections on a smart pylon.

All the Ukrainian PSU has to do in order to toss bomb waves of JDAM-ER is replicate the AGM-88 HARM missile interface used for it's Mig-29's and Su-27's...

6/18
...on the Su-24 & Su-25 fleets.

American JDAM's to Ukraine was announced many weeks ago but we have not seen any photos. So the initial operating capability & status are unknown.

But doing the JDAM-ER after generic JDAM will be easy-peasy, if it isn't simultaneous.

7/18
From one of the earlier links:

"The Key design objectives for the HdH (Hawker de Havilland now Boeing owned) product are lowest possible mass production cost, zero hardware changes to the existing GBU-31/32/35/38 tailkits, best possible performance, modularity, ease of

8/18
...maintenance and especially shortest possible assembly time in the field. The latter will be critical to user acceptance of the kit, the less time expended and the fewer errors in assembly when deployed in the middle of nowhere, the more popular the kit will be with...
9/18
...its users. The design philosophy is centred on producing a flexible product which can further grow as customers request additions. Should a customer pursue a high wing configuration, improved glide range, or a different wing sweep angle, the basic design is aimed at...

10/18
...accommodating such changes at the lowest incremental cost."

Short form: The Australian JDAM-ER glide kit was designed to be cheap, easy to mass produce, and for ease of installation with the minimum of tools.

11/18
Thus it will be easy for PSU ground crews at converted highway air bases to bolt together the JDAM-ER.

The Su-25, NATO code name Frogfoot, has eight weapons stations you can hang a 500lb GBU-38 JDAM bomb from.

12/18
Rather than a pair of PSU Su-25 flying low like this to get to the front.



13/18
And risk exposure to Russian MANPADS shoulder fired missiles, only to lob a few dozen unguided rockets to doubtful effect.

14/18
They are going to instead be able to lob _16_ GBU-38's with HdH wing kits 10 km behind the front line - out of MANPADS range - into Russian Army positions up to 30km behind the front line.

The PSU gets to deliver USAF style SHOCK & AWE, Baby!
15/18
Does anyone doubt that a couple hundred GBU-38 carefully painted upon these Russian fortifications like this in a week's time would crack them open like a sledge hammer hitting an egg?


16/18
At eight GBU-38 plus glide kits per Su-25, that is 25 sorties.

Four sorties a day for six days plus one more Su-25 sortie on the seventh.

17/18
JDAM-ER death is coming for the Russian Army carried on Ukrainian wings.

Welcome to Ukraine, vatniks.

18/18 End

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More from @TrentTelenko

Jan 24
I'm sorry, but this statistic:

>>Violent crime is falling, with homicides down ~21%. The largest annual drop on record.

...has been heavily polluted by improvements in trauma care, particularly hemostatic (blood clotting) bandages.

US Trauma care & FBI statistics🧵

1/ Image
The statistical comparison in the FBI data from pre-1961 is invalid as the underlying medical systems have so changed as to utterly pollute the "murders per 100,000" data.

Violent crime data pre-1961 and post 1961 are apples to oranges comparisons.

2/
-Trauma care centers (1961),

-Standardized trauma procedures (1978),

-Adoption of military Korea/Vietnam medical emergency treatment & air transport procedures,

-Improved triage (1986)

-And (since 2011) widespread adoption and use of blood clotting bandages...

3/
Read 8 tweets
Jan 24
Chairman Xi suffers from the traditional dictator's trap of believing his own sh*t because he has made it too dangerous for his cronies and underlings to tell him the truth.

He has failed the "Dictator on the Wall Test."

1/
Thanks to that, Chairman Xi's Regime has pretty much no resilience in adversity because it's so kleptocratic and it's all about what the guy in charge can do for his next set of corrupt cronies today.

2/
This 1970's comment about the Shah of Iran is so historically on point in 2026 because it shows how Xi's regime is failing "The dictator on the wall test."

3/ Image
Read 8 tweets
Jan 22
Greenland is badly needed by the USA to engage nuclear armed hypersonic glide vehicles and FOBS from China and Russia aimed at the continental USA.

So-called experts saying Greenland is "unnecessary" are "Cold War thinkers" focused on traditional ICBM threat geometries.
1/ Image
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They are not thinking in terms of the detection geometries required for lofted or depressed trajectory ICBM's, HGV, and/or FOBS.

For those threats, the further forward you can deploy radars and interceptors, the better for detection and intercept.

2/3 Image
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When geometrically minded experts in Australia looked at PLARF depressed trajectory ICBM's, HGV, and FOBS threat set.

They ended up placing a TPY-2 radars on the Cocos Island & Christmas Island ("Greenland for Oz") to generate tracks for SM-3 & THAAD interceptors.
3/3 Image
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Read 4 tweets
Jan 20
This map of 124 Russian railway electric traction stations and the 40K OWA drone fired in 2025 demonstrates the political-military leadership failure of the Zelinskyy government.

Like Stalin's failed winter 1941-1942 counter offensives against Nazi Army Group Center,

🚅🧵
1/
...Ukraine is penny packing OWA drones everywhere to no great effect based on which military "Union" faction was last in the room with President Zelenskyy before a decision

Even Ukraine's vaunted oil offensive is a bare plurality of total drone strikes
2/
The latest @RyanO_ChosenCoy thread detailing the bureaucratic issues of Ukraine's military in targeting Russian logistics makes clear Ukraine's military has inter-service and intra-service union/factional disputes that are positively American in scale.

3/
Read 6 tweets
Jan 19
Untrue⬇️

If the target of a US "rapid strike" was either the Kharg Island oil export facility or Iran's banking/financial system with a combination of explosives and non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse munitions, the Mullahs will fall.

COA🧵 Image
This post is typical of analytical thinking regarding strikes on Iran.

Note the complete lack of either Kharg island or the Iranian financial system on the list.

Regime Security Force as a distinct target set that needs a payroll is missing.

2/
There are two real courses of action (COA) for an American air campaign if Regime Change is the goal.

The Schwerpunkt - political center of gravity - of the Mullah regime is its ability to pay for the use Regime Security Forces & foreign hired mercenaries.

3/ Image
Read 8 tweets
Jan 18
This is one of the 3 major strategic mistakes of the Zelenskyy Government.⬇️

Putin has shown better, more consistent, and more effective leadership in the strategic bombing of Ukrainian electrical infrastructure than Zelinskyy has in striking Russia's railways.

1/
Russia remains uniquely vulnerable to a focused drone strike campaign on it's electrical railway traction step down transformers.

Zelenskyy's leadership not only ignored hitting that unique Russian vulnerability since Feb. 2022.

See the figure below⬇️

2/ Image
To give you an idea of the abject political-military failure of the Zelenskyy government in this regard one has to look at the industrial supply chain for those traction substations.

The Soviet Union had two major transformer factories: Tolyatti and Zaporozhye.

3/
Read 8 tweets

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