Trent Telenko Profile picture
Jun 19, 2024 9 tweets 4 min read Read on X
This is Ukrainian FPV drone air superiority...arriving.

It is also represents the complete technological obsolescence of the USMC/US Army C-UAS, M-LIDS & M-SHORAD programs.

1/
Assuming an FPV interceptor is a $1000 a shot because of improved kinematic performance & specialized light weight fragmentation warhead.

Everything you see in photographs below is obsolete from a cost effectiveness perspective.

2/
FPV drones are "disintermediated" from any ground or vehicular infrastructure.

Any flat piece of ground or even a human hand to launch them will do.

3/
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At $1,000 an FPV Interceptor, you could afford to equip every infantry squad with a few the way disposable rocket launchers are.

And Ukrainian FPV interceptors may cost a great deal less.

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The American Coyote Block II C-UAS interceptors cost $126,000 each.

If you are trying to knock down a Bayraktar TB-2 MALE type drone, it's a workable solution.

As an Orlan-10 killer, you can buy 126 Ukrainian FPV interceptors for a single Coyote Block II.

5/ Image
Ukrainian FPV interceptors don't need a specialized M-LIDS launch truck with a unique battlefield visual/EM signature.

Four guys in a pickup, with carry cases with FPV
& mothership drones, plus Gis Arta type tablets talking to AFU's smartphone
6/

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...acoustic sensor network generally locating the Orlan-10 by engine noise for the FPV to look can do the same job.

So what if MAYBE only 10% of the FPV interceptors hit right now hit.

7/
Ukraine is building 100,000 small drones a month.

The US military is talking 700 Coyote interceptors _A_YEAR_.

This nightmare of rapid technological change making US procurement irrelevant is what General John Murray of the U.S. Army Future Command has warned of.

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More from @TrentTelenko

Apr 29
This passage:

"Lebanese security forces reportedly seized 1 truck last June carrying 5,000 explosive drones..."

...is the heart of why I say that the US Army & USMC ground troops will bleed heavily in their first real drone war.

Drone War🧵
Each of those 5,000 Hezbollah drones is individually far more lethal than a dumb 155mm shell, and a 5-ton truck can carry only 176 of them.

Each of those 5,000 drone can kill a truck carrying those 176 shells.

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You simply can't hide from drones like you can from a shell.

It will follow you inside hard cover with a thermobaric warhead.

There is no safe space on the battlefield unless you build one with fishing nets and drone jammers.
3/ Image
Read 6 tweets
Apr 29
I'm tempted to say the difference between military flag ranks who are competent at 2026 peer to peer warfare, and those who are not, is the understanding and application of attritional loss curves to combat loss rates, electronic warfare and logistics.

Professional military education (PME)🧵
1/Image
The set of curves I had an AI produce for me above have been used for air warfare many times starting at the end of WW2, in the USSBS after WW2 and by many classic RAND airpower studies from the 1950's to 1980's.

2/ Image
All post 9/11/2001 Western flag ranks are counter-insurgency (COIN) trained & experienced.

They have no gut feel at all to statistical attrition models at all.

These "COIN-head" flags may prove to be highly resistant to changing this. Which is required to deal with drones.
2/Image
Read 14 tweets
Apr 27
The effectiveness of drones is directly affected by the electronic warfare competence of the drone users.

The fact that the US Army defenestrated every EW practitioner in the 2000's and has compete "EW virgins" as flag rank leadership means it will fail with mass casualties in its first major drone war combat.
1/3
A US Army serious about drone warfare would:

- Rebuild the full EW enterprise with organic division-level EW battalions and real exercises.

- Embed EW jamming into all combat branches (not MI-only).

- Shift to gun/autocannon dominant combined-arms counter-drone doctrine.

2/3
- Require FAA drone pilot + Ham radio licenses for flag ranks to build drone domain literacy.

None of these four reforms will happen until after US Army soldiers are deep in both defeat and buckets of blood.

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Apr 26
It is extremely unlikely that this shooter acted alone given the following:

1. Reports are the guns were cached disassembled in a black bag, in a room outside the secured Secret Service perimeter.

2. The room the guns were cached in didn't have television surveillance.

🧵
1/
3. The shooter arrived at the hotel the day before the event.😯

4. TSA rules require firearms to be transported in checked baggage, unloaded, and locked in a hard-sided container, declared to the airline at check-in.

2/
5. Local DC law requires firearms in vehicles to be inaccessible from the passenger compartment and unloaded.

6. Washington DC is not a "safe passage" jurisdiction for non-residents without a license. The shooter lacked this license.

3/
Read 10 tweets
Apr 14
USN flag ranks & their staffers have been fighting the idea of distant economic blockade of China tooth an nail as a response to China invading Taiwan for 30 years.

They really don't want a recent precedent of a successful blockade...

1/3
...to prevent their Carrier fleet Pickett's charge into the South China Sea.

Specifically distant blockade as a strategy against China makes having/regaining 100 Cold War era

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...frigates and destroyer tenders supporting them on distant blockade stations outside the 2nd Island chain, "budget relevant" for a military strategy of conducting three years of blockade enforcement.

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Read 4 tweets
Apr 14
The high death rate of Russian troops due to a lack of casualty evacuation was highly visible in March-September 2022.

I've documented this consistently, repeatedly and at great technical depth.

Russia Strong "slopaganda" has buried it over and over.

1/
I was calling out two dead for every three Russian wounded in Sept 2022 as the more realistic Russian casualty ratio in Ukraine because it was taking more than 24 hours to get to the equivalent of a battalion aid station.

2/3
I asked @grok to summarize my receipts on Russian casualty ratios since February 2022, which are clipped below:

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Read 4 tweets

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