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Trent Telenko Profile picture
@TrentTelenko
Nov 26, 2023 • 13 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
Scrolly
What you are seeing here in these Black Sea storm are wind fields causing a mass casualty event with Russian VKS rotary wing aircraft in Crimea, S. Ukraine & S. Russia.⬇️

Any rotary wing craft w/o a hanger & unable to fly out before the storm will be heavily

Storm damage🧵
1/
...damaged.

The historical example here is the 1989 Mother's Day Microburst that destroyed the US Army helicopter fleet at Fort Hood.

A microburst disabled 2/3 of all the AH-64A Apaches in the world with that one weather event.
2/
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Plus one hundred other US Army helicopters were damaged as well.

The winds in this Black Sea storm are 26 meters/sec, or lightly under 65 miles an hour sustained winds.

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The old Soviet Union put all of its hardened aircraft shelters in Western Ukraine facing NATO.

Eastern Ukraine, Crimea & Russia...?

Not so much.
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So we are going to be seeing a lot of Russian VKS helicopters rotors looking like this sort of wind storm driven modern art.

And that is only the beginning of the logistical problems the Russians are going to have from this storm.

5/

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Semi-tractor trailers have a really hard time in high winds.

The Youtube video below gives you a good idea what Black Sea storm winds are now doing to Russian Semi-tractor trailer rigs on roads from Crimea & Rostov-on the Don.

6/
There are a lot of Semi-tractor trailers cycling out of Crimea from both Krasnoperekopsk and Dhzankoy resulting in huge miles/kilometers long traffic jams.

Imagine what this storm is going to those rigs right now.
7/
Crimea has lost at least 1/4 of its power and Rostov-on-Don is suffering a huge geography focusing storm surge that will beach a large number of fuel barges RuAF forces depend upon.

Russian landing craft operating from Yevpatoriya northwards are facing 9 meter (30 ft) waves.

8/ Image
And as @CovertShores has pointed out, the booms covering Sevastopol and the Kerch Straits Bridge are also eating those same 9 meter waves.

Both targets will be naked for Ukrainian boat-drones immediately after the storm abates.

9/
With neither operable booms on the water, nor operational helicopters in the air, Russian fleet and bridge infrastructure will be uniquely vulnerable to Ukrainian boat-drone interdiction efforts for a week to 10 days, minimum.

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And clearing the Black Sea "Snowmageddon" Storm-overturned Russian semi-tractor trailers piling up right now on Russian ground lines of communications to the Russian Army in Ukraine will take several several days.

(Note: US Semi-truck used for illustration)

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I'm thinking now that this Ukrainian attack against Russian power for their electric railways in Donetsk, slowing supplies to Avdiivka, included the weather report on this
Black Sea Storm to leverage Ukraine's "Death of a Thousand Cuts".

12/12 End
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More from @TrentTelenko

Trent Telenko Profile picture
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
Trent Telenko Profile picture
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
Trent Telenko Profile picture
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.
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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.

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Read 4 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
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
Trent Telenko Profile picture
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.

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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.

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Read 5 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
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

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