Hundreds of American HARM anti-radiation and GMLRS missiles have been fired by Ukraine at Russian Buk, S-300 & S-400 batteries in occupied territories for over two years.
Russia has systematically stripped Syria and it's national air defenses to feed into the high tech meat grinder that is occupied Ukraine because of it's below replacement rate air defense missile system production.
Russia has been borrowing from its national air defense "Peter" to pay the occupied territories logistical "Paul" to replace the losses from the 18(+) months long Ukrainian PSU suppression of air defense (SEAD) campaign.
While Ukraine has been adapting to Shahed-136 assault drone attacks with it's mobile anti-aircraft gun and shoulder fired missile territorial defense groups, jamming and 5,000 plus smartphone sonic sensor network.
9/
Ukraine has also been analyzing Russian Shahed attacks and feeding them to an element inside the Ukrainian military like the Standoff Munitions Activity Center (SMAC) at Barksdale AFB.
SMAC does evasive radar routing for integrated cross-service standoff munition attack profiles for all the US Military services when facing high end "Anti-Access Area Defense (A2AD) threats.
I did a 🧵on them in March 2022 on Pres Trump's 2018 Syrian missile strikes.
The combination of low Russian improved road network density and AFU drone mission planning software means Ukrainian propeller cruise missiles/assault drone streams can be routed away from improved roads.
The next Russian mud season will be...interesting...for Russia.👿
15/
I did an open source 🧵almost 4 years ago in Oct 2020 on X/Twitter explaining much of this.
In 2024, we are two complete drone-computer technology generations from the Azeri-Armenian War.
Ukraine's propelled cruise missile/assault drone strategic bombing campaign is now in the process of teaching the world what those two generations of advancement means on Russia's industrial and logistical infrastructure.
"Escalation Management" be damned.
17/17 End
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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/
This Russian exceptionalist belief in the immunity to the consequences of their own actions is also why the Russians continue their insane suicidal assaults.
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?
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
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/
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'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.
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.
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/
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/
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."