Trent Telenko Profile picture
Aug 9, 2024 15 tweets 7 min read Read on X
The Russian Army railway logistics are now in worse shape than when Wagner's revolt over ran Rostov on Don's railway marshaling yard.

Per @Schizointel

>>Ukraine now has physical access and control over the
>>Lgov-Belgorod line
>>Lgov-Vorozbha line

Summer 1940 redux🧵
1/
The two key railway marshalling yards for the Russian Army in occupied Ukraine are in Belgorod and Rostov on Don.

And Belgorod railway marshalling yard just got cut off from the north.

Rerouting train traffic like this hasn't happened in Russia since 1941.

2/
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This Reddit map of AFU advances indicates the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), upper right, may soon be isolated from the Russian power grid to points south.

Given the Rostov on Don NPP lost one of two reactors to a maintenance casualty.

3/
reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVi…
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The stability of the Russian power grid is going to be affected with that much baseline nuclear power going off line.

Given 70% of Russian railway engines are electrically powered. This is a huge honking deal...

...a loss of RuAF strategic mobility kind of deal.

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And the situation is it is getting worse as Russian civilians are bugging out en mass as refugees from Kursk Oblast.

RuAF doesn't have many fuel tanker trucks because the Russian Army always projects power from railheads.

5/
This is why there was the 40 mile convoy to Kyiv that ran out of fuel in Feb 2022.

Like Texas evacuating Houston in 2005 with Hurricane Rita, Russian civilians are creating a fuel desert where the RuAF needs to go.

6/
npr.org/sections/thetw…
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Given the number of confirmed AFU brigades involved in the Kursk operation, and the complete lack of a Russian strategic ground forces reserve anywhere.

It is looking far more like @secretsqrl123 idea strategic envelopment of Belgorod than mine of a strategic raid.

7/
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The much reported AFU woes in the Donbas were the result of mostly 2nd line units being put into the front lines behind a "Ghost Army" strategic deception while the elite units were being quietly prepared for the Kursk/Belgorod axis envelopment.

8/ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Army
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A Ukrainian drone swarm of OWA Drone/propeller cruise missiles have destroyed the VKS munitions stocks at Lipetsk airfield.

This takes the VKS off the table as a strong operational reserve on the Kursk/Belgorod axis.



9/



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Meanwhile, AFU ground forces are making amphibious raid demonstrations at the Kinburn Spit to try and freeze RuAF ground units in Kherson from redeployment.

10/

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RuAF desperation on the Kursk/Belgorod axis is such they are sending the following:

- MT-LB w/a 9K55 Grad-1 multiple rocket launcher
- MT-LB w/a twin 2M-3 25 mm naval gun,
- MT-LB w/a ZU-23-2 gun, & an
- MT-LB w/a MT-12 Rapira 100 mm AT-gun.
11/
mil.in.ua/en/news/mt-lb-…

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This MT-LB "Franken-Grad" just screams of a deep attrition of RuAF trucks available to mount 122mm rocket launchers on them.

An AFU thrust into Belgorod would allow it a pivot to the East to envelop the RuAF incursion into Kharkiv.

12/
The Kursk incursion forces the RuAF to spread their inadequate local reserves and covers the Western flank of an AFU thrust into Belgorod.

Pocketing 100K RuAF troops at Belgorod, with 14 brigades behind RuAF's strategic northern right flank, with no strategic reserve
13/
...looks like N. France in the summer of 1940.

I'm not saying Belgorod will be successfully enveloped by AFU, or that Russia will fall 6 weeks afterwards if it is.

I will say General Guderian is smiling.

14/14 End Image
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More from @TrentTelenko

Jul 18
This:

"Russian aircraft manufacturers have failed to create analogues of foreign bearings and electronic components for aircraft, said Anatoly Gaydansky, CEO of Aerocomposite."

Also applies to railway cassette bearings for Russian wagons and locomotives.

Russian Railway🧵
1/ Image
Low friction roller bearings are a major technological strength of the West. 

They are the difference between Rolls Royce jet engines lasting thousands of hours and Russian or Chinese jet engines lasting half as long.

Rail roller bearings are different in their application

2/
...but the computer control software for SKF & Amsted co-production machine tooling that Russia used is proprietary. That software left Russia in April/May 2022.

Russian rail system has been doing the whole 'just in time' inventory game

3/
Read 12 tweets
Jul 16
The following is a serialized post from Strategypage -dot- com on the disastrously bad US Navy leadership decisions on fleet maintenance & where they have left US National Security.

"Surface Forces: USN Maintenance Mess

1/
July 11, 2025: The U.S. Navy is no longer able to maintain or repair its ships. In an earlier economy move, all the navy ship repair and maintenance facilities were sold off. The worst aspect of this was the loss of skilled shipyard workers. ...

2/
... The older ones were retiring and the navy did little to recruit and train replacements. Now, as the United States strives to expand its navy and repair and upgrade current ships, it finds that the resources are lacking. There are no easy solutions.

3/
Read 14 tweets
Jul 16
Well now, the reality of Russian casualty ratios from drones and 💩casualty evacuation in the Russo-Ukrainian War begins to emerge.

'Some people' 🙄 have been talking about this for literally years and how it has gotten worse over time.

1/
This is what I said in April 2022 when the "professional" Russian Army was around and FPV drones weren't.

2/
This is what I was posting in December 2023.

3/
Read 7 tweets
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
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
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.
1/2 Image
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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

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