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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.

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

Eastern Ukraine, Crimea & Russia...?

Not so much.
4/ Image
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/

Image
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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.

10/ Image
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)

11/ Image
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 31
"Russian exceptionalism"⬇️

The Russians see themselves as immune to the consequences of their own actions.

The previous case studies in this were the Nazis and Imperial Japanese in WW2.

1/
Both polities had monumental hubris, the conviction that all was permitted, and that they were invincible.

The committed Nazis still believed they were winning in March-April 1945.

Japanese 'Yamato-damashii' beliefs took nukes to break.

2/ Image
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This Russian exceptionalist belief in the immunity to the consequences of their own actions is also why the Russians continue their insane suicidal assaults.

3/3 Image
Read 4 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jul 29
What is interesting for me is that the pre-2022 Western intelligence assessments of the Russian Army credited it with lots of tactical pipelines to move fuel.

Those would be far more useful in moving water than trucks...yet...where are they?

1/
These pipelines seem to have fallen into that same logistical 'assume they exist but don't' black hole as Russian truck D-rings & pallets, tactical truck trailers, and Russia's "superior" tooth to tail ratio that acts more like 1863 Union Army where...

2/
..."every soldier is a logistical manual laborer when not in combat".

Water is heavy. Pipelines are more efficient that trucks. Yet all we are seeing is Russian water trucks?

Who stole the Russian Army tactical pipelines? Or were they nothing but disinformation?

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jul 29
Russia is showing signs of being at "end run production."

It has run out of serious motor transport & even the smallest scale we are seeing kludged together trailers to make ends meet.

Note also: Water bottles & potatoes are the high priority transport items⬇️

End run🧵
1/
While we are getting Western intelligence assessments that continue to point out Russia's vast increases in production of military materiel, especially tanks, IFVs and APCs (from the same people who claimed Russia would over run Ukraine in 3-to-5 days)

2/
...claiming Russia is "obviously winning."

We are at the same time seeing economic signs of Russian "End Run Production."

The Russian wartime economy is functioning hand to mouth with oil sales revenues because all of the foreign exchange reserves are spent or frozen.

3/
Read 11 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jul 27
Given what happened to DoD procurement after the 2nd Clinton Adm. annihilation of military specifications, which killed the configuration mgt, systems engineering & production engineering disciplines in defense contractors.

I shudder to see what DOGE's AI will do.

Mil-spec🧵
1/
I've written about this issue for seven years starting on the Chicagoboyz weblog with a post titled:

"The 737 MAX and the Death of MIL-STD-499A SYSTEM ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
March 24th, 2019"

2/
In 2020 I was talking how the decay of systems engineering skills are affecting US Navy nuclear sub safe programs due to the lack of good systems engineering talent in Defense contractors.

3/
Read 14 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jul 24
So, the Thai Army is now ahead of the US Army in using heavy multi-copter drones?

This underscores the vulnerability of the West to drones due to its bureaucratically bloated and infinitely slow military procurement systems.

1/
The snail like pace of Western military procurement versus the Ukrainian fielding of an all-aspect stealth shaped OWA drone in less than a couple of years is very noticeable.

2/
We are here.⬇️

3/3 End
Read 4 tweets
Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jul 22
On the morning of 20 July 2025, a AFGSC airman at Minot AFB took his M18, still inside it's issued holster; and placed it on a desk.

It then went off, struck him in chest, and killed him

AFGSC issued a halt order on 21 July 2025 for use of M17/18 Modular Handgun System.

1/ Image
As an ex-DoD procurement official, that letter is a procurement killing hammer.

This is going to hit SIG Sauer like a moderate sized asteroid in terms of DCMA corrective actions requests or "CAR."

2/ Image
This AFGSC halt use order letter will be grounds for a level three corrective action request (CAR).

A DCMA level III CAR is defined as follows:

"A Level III Corrective Action Request (CAR) issued by the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) is a serious action taken when there are significant contractual nonconformities.

It is directed to the supplier's top management and is just one step below the possibility of contract suspension or termination.

This type of CAR serves as a management tool to address critical issues that need immediate attention."

3/Image
Read 11 tweets

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