Trent Telenko Profile picture
Aug 5, 2024 14 tweets 5 min read Read on X
It looks like the Russian railway's western cassette roller bearing wear out & capability collapse I've said was coming for a couple of years...

...is now arriving.

Assuming this report is true⬇️

1/
In simple terms, we are in August 2024 after this bearing wear out prediction for February 2024.⬇️

This is something I've been expecting to see since September 2022.⬇️

The life of installed 5 million km Western roller bearings are ending for more and more Russian locomotives and rolling stock.

The Russian pattern of the most neglected...

2/
...track meeting the most neglected engines & rolling stock will cause more & more derailments starting in the arctic, then the Far East.

Then derailments in the Caucuses, moving towards Moscow/St Petersburg.

Finally, we would see derailments of the repair trains.

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In Oct 2022 Russia had 10,000 freight cars out of service, with 200,000 more railway freight cars at risk of bearing wear out after a few of years of Western sanctions

4/
Every January the Russian government owned railway monopoly cycles a large fraction of the engines offline for periodic maintenance and it takes 2-to-3 months to recover full capacity.

Look what happened for the 2024 bottom red trend line.⬇️ (H/T @Prune602)

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The count down to Russian railway collapse from a lack of replacement Western railway cassette bearings in railway car trucks was straight forward math, unless you believe in "Russia Strong ™️" or "Escalation Management™️" ideological delusions.🙄

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If you believe in either delusion, then no amount of empirical evidence has any meaning.

The rejection of the empirical is the antecedent condition for either delusion.

If you accept empirical evidence, you cannot become invested in either

7/
..."Russia Strong™️" or "Escalation Management™️".

The empirical view is rooted in ground truths, like sun rotted tires, & the delusional is rooted in wishful thinking.

And these twin delusions mean the West is failing to plan for a Russian railway collapse.


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Western governments failing to plan for Russian transportation collapse & defeat, so as to manage the transition to a stable post-war world, will put post-Putin Russia on the slippery slope to the hell

9/
...of becoming a continent spanning Lebanese Civil War with loose bugs, loose nukes & novachuk gas equipped sprayer drones.

It may not be possible to avoid this Russian meltdown collapse, but failing to plan for the possibility, is planning to fail when it arrives.

10/
The economic repercussions of Russian energy & food suddenly just falling out the world economy from this pending "railway transportation collapse apocalypse" beggars the imagination.

Even @PeterZeihan pales at the thought.

11/
Western national security and economic policy makers ought to be putting together crisis teams to evaluate the implications for both the world economy and for obtaining an armistice.

Using access to railway cassette bearings as a leaver...

12/
...to obtain the two most important concessions -- Pre-2014 Ukrainian borders & getting back Ukraine's kidnapped populations -- that will make a lasting cessation of hostilities possible.

But they won't.

They believe in "Russia Strong™️" or "Escalation Management™️".

13/13 End

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More from @TrentTelenko

Jun 11
Russia faces a logistical dilemma in occupied Ukraine for which it has no good solutions.

Crimea is a de facto island fed by road and rail bridges Ukraine can now destroy at will, and Russia cannot stop.

And Ukraine is destroying those bridges.

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Russia's air defense has suffered a nearly complete "Lanchester Square Collapse" proximate with the Ukrainian mass deployment of both 150 km range AI truck hunting drones and bridge busting FP-2 OWA drones.

Map H/T United24media
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Any route Russian trucks take to Crimea will result in parking lots near replacement pontoon bridging for both those kinds of drones to exploit.

"Trucks that mass together...die together.

3/3
Read 4 tweets
Jun 10
Saving Space Access From Kessler Syndrome

Elon Musk’s plan for XAI satellite data centers, and all use of space for any purpose, faces inevitable collapse until a solution emerges for the problem of Kessler Syndrome (see Wikipedia). 🧵

1/
This will occur when enough collisions of small orbital debris pieces from old dead satellites hits the steadily increasing number of new satellites until the whole thing spirals into mass collisions.

Kessler Syndrome computes that this will destroy all existing

2/ Image
Image
...communications, navigation, observation and research satellites in low/medium orbit, and prevent all further satellites launched, for 40+ years, until enough pieces fall out of orbit into the Earth’s atmosphere.

3/
Read 13 tweets
Jun 9
Do you remember all the 2023 US Navalist accounts o X that screamed at @johnkonrad and I about pointing out the containerized anti-ship OWA drone threat to the US fleet.

Welcome to 2026 Ukrainian anti-ship OWA drone threat, you US Navalist yo-yo's. ⬇️

1/2
"Operation Spiderweb with Chinese characteristics" is coming for you all, and we have the receipts.

We need a whole lot of air defense guns everywhere to stop drones that you guys still refuse to fund.

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For fun and reference of guns versus missile air defense, this YouTube test scenario pits 100 Shahed-136 one-way attack drones against the historic US Navy Task Force 38.1 from 1944.


3/3
Read 4 tweets
Jun 3
Just...no. The 8th AF fudged its accuracy numbers.

It excluded "gross error" bombing runs beyond 3,000 feet from the target. Which were above 10% of all 1944 bombing runs.

Below, the inner circle is what a 1944 1,000 foot (304m) CEP in WW2 looked like when dropped from 400(+) four engine heavy bombers.
1/Image
Using this document:

THE UNITED STATES STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY
Bombing Accuracy, USAAF Heavy and Medium Bombers in the ETO
MILITARY ANALYSIS DIVISION
First Edition 3 November 1945
Second Edition January 1947

You find both mission failures & gross errors were "excluded data"
2/ Image
And that both increased altitude and the number of combat boxes involved made CEP worse.

3/ Image
Read 12 tweets
Jun 3
There are sound photographic reasons I'm talking about Russia's domestic fuel tanker supply distribution chain breaking down.

Dead tanker trucks can't move fuel.

Plus additional tanker trucks diverted & moving from 🇷🇺 to 🇺🇦 can't deliver fuel domestically either.

Fuel🧵
1/
For additional photographic proof of 🇷🇺 tanker truck supply distribution breaking down, see here in Belgorod:


2/
And see here elsewhere in Crimea:



3/
Read 8 tweets
Jun 2
This manpower sweep problem is actually a lot worse for the Russians than Western military intelligence is capable of giving credit.

It takes a Russian labor gang about 3 hours to load 16 tons of wooden boxes w/o a convenient box car to truck line up. (below upper right)

🧵
1/ Image
Image
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Because the Russian Army doesn't use pallets, forklifts, telehandlers nor D-rings anywhere in their supply chain to strap down pallet loads.

You need massive numbers of conscripts to load and unload from train cars to trucks & vice versa.

See⬇️
2/
This has a whole lot of knock on effects in how the non-mechanized Russian supply system works in the age of GMLRS & drones.

You see here a commercial to tactical truck swap of wooden boxes in the Russian Army operational/strategic depths.

3/ Image
Read 8 tweets

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