Trent Telenko Profile picture
Aug 23, 2024 16 tweets 7 min read Read on X
Pay attention to the RuAF heavy equipment transporters (HET) in this video - 13 - carrying tracked vehicles and one front end loader backhoe.

RuAF tracked vehicles can't make long road marches w/o 60%(+) breakdowns & track wear.

Russo-Ukrainian War operational level🧵
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HET's & Flatbed train cars rolling stock are how the RuAF moves tracked vehicles to operational and strategic distances.

Soviet practice was to have a large HET fleet in Western Russia to move the 2nd strategic echelon of ground forces to invade NATO.

2/
The Soviet Red Army anticipated NATO would down a lot of railway bridges, plus a HET were also useful for moving lots of artillery ammo tonnage as well as vehicles.

Henry Schlottman' Nov 2022 substack lays out a 300 km road march sees 60% to 70% of

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web.archive.org/web/2023012605…
This is a WW2 US Army tank transporter/HET being used to move ammo & supplies rather than a tank.
...Russian tanks & AFV's fall out for maintenance casualties.

The Russians like to use trains to 100km from the front and HET's are used from there to just outside artillery range of the front lines.

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A major issue for the RuAF is that units like the 7th Guards Air Assault Division is moving from Kherson all the way to Kursk _BY_TRUCK_.

It is about 900 km by road, moving outside GMLRS range, to the Northern border of occupied Luhansk.

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From there to Kursk Oblast to the Northern border of Luhansk OBlast is - my guess - ~700 km.

That is a 1,600 km road march for between 1,500 and 2,000 vehicles.

The tracked vehicles would all be going by HET because of that 60%-to-70% break down ever 300 km travel...

6/
...that they experience.

The problem for the RuAF is their wheeled AFV's (BTR/MRAP/BRDM), tactical trucks & HETS simply aren't up to a sustained 1,600 km road march mostly on ill-maintained occupied Ukrainian roads.

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7th Guards Air Assault Division contract RuAF soldiers with three months experience driving manual stick shift transmission tactical trucks, HETS and wheeled AFV's are not going to be driven well.

There will have to be a major maintenance evolution arriving and shaking out...
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...before they can be ready to attack.

Think a minimum of 7 days before the logistical tail can fully recover and is ready to support artillery heavy combat operations.

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The problem is Putin has not allowed that level of professional logistics since RuAF withdrew across the Dnipro from Western Kherson.

Only the 7th Guards HET carried AFV's that were operational when they were loaded will be capable of attacking upon arrival.

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Putin will order those 7th Guards AFV's to attack immediately without logistical support.

The dodgy state of RuAF preventive maintenance on AFV in combat means 20%-to-30% will fail to cover 100km from the HET drop off point.

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Putin will demand attacks from the 7th Guards with whatever is immediately available, AKA speed not mass, and RuAF generals will obey.

So penny packet groups of 7th Guards AFV's will trickle into AFU positions with no logistical and inadequate fire support.😈

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It's almost as if the AFU General Staff had planned the Kursk Operation to cause RuAF to use up all its fuel in occupied Ukraine, destroy fuel depots en route, run down RuAF entire truck fleet enmass, & pull ground units as far as possible from Kherson

13/
...& Zaporizhzhia.🤔

Just like AFU General Staff seems to have planned out the logistical collapse of the Russian railway system in Kursk we are seeing now.

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My take on all of this is we are looking at a planned sequence of operational level military-logistical shaping operations for further AFU offensives.

I've got some popcorn laid in for what I think is coming next.

15/15 End
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More from @TrentTelenko

Aug 28
Remember all the professionally incompetent yo-yo naval officers & hangers on claiming FPV drones were not a threat to naval warships in 2023 WHEN I TOLD THEM THEY WOULD BE?

Reality just kicked them one and all in the 'nads...

...HARD⬇️

1/2
I told these professionally incompetent US navalists accounts on X/Twitter in 2023 that both containerized drones and FPV drones were a deadly threat to every naval vessel on the water they were ignoring to their crew's peril.

2/
Those professionally incompetent yo-yo US navalists accounts didn't listen because of their Dunning-Kruger group think delusions.

They refused to accept the reality that surprise FPV attacks happen because the enemy always gets a vote...FIRST!

This is where I laugh at them⬇️
3/3
Read 4 tweets
Aug 23
We need to have a talk about Russian military corruption and its effects on the Russo-Ukrainian War.

It's kind of like these sun-rotted missile truck tires that make my reputation on Twitter.

Corruption happens slowly, then all at once.

Corruption🧵
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The Russian Army issued a "live off the land" order in early March 2022 resulted in lots of Russian enlisted stealing outside the line of sight of Russian junior officers.

This hollowed out discipline the RuAF "Professional Volunteers" in early 2022.

2/
Given the visuals of the base level corruption of Russian society in terms of oil income disparity.

A lot of "Russia Strong" yo-yo's just shrug and say, "so what, Russia won wars when it was corrupt."

3/
Read 21 tweets
Aug 21
At a production rate of 100 FP-1 drones a day. Fire Point will make 13,200 FP-1 one way attack (OWA) drone by 1 Jan 2026.

By itself.

Every other Ukrainian OWA drone maker is in addition to that 13,200 number.

1/2
If the FP-1 really is 60% of Ukrainian OWA drone production. (Rather than just recent launches)

0.6 (x) = 13,200
x = 13,200/0.6
x = 22,000

Ukraine is on track to make 22,000 OWA drones in the last 132 days of 2025. 👀


2/
22,000 Ukrainian OWA drones in 132 days certainly is a strategic bombing threat of the first order.

Even if Russia downs 80% of them.

That is 4,400 Ukrainian OWA drone hits in Russia in the next 132 days or 33 and 1/3 precision guided drone hits on Russia per day to 2026.
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Read 4 tweets
Aug 21
More information has come out on the FP-5 Flamingo which gives insights io both the systems and production engineering involved for low cost production.

I'm going to use the WW2 F6F Hellcat & M4 Sherman as examples of Ukrainian FP-5 design choices.

Engineering🧵
1/
The FP-5 GLCM production photos released today shows what looks like a combination of carbon fiber composite, molded thermoplastics, and sheet metal.

Cruciform tail controls are all moving.

Wings are attached before launch like a 1960s USAF MGM-1 Matador.
2/ Image
The FP-5 Transporter Erector Launch (TEL) trailer looks like a new custom build.

Iryna Terekh, head of production at Fire Point, stated to the AP that "Fire Point is producing roughly one Flamingo per day, and by October they hope to build capacity to make seven per day."

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Read 16 tweets
Aug 19
I've gotten a lot of comments on this thread here and via DM. I'm going to share one from a Cold War gray beard on the engine that powers the FP-5.

"FP-5 is around 4 x Tomahawk in mass.

FP-5 Engine🧵
...With a similar configuration, drag will not be dominated by lift induced wing drag but will form drag which is typical for 500 knots air speed jets and missiles with low aspect ratio wings.

2/
...So a rule of thumb estimate is that you will need around 4 x the thrust of a Tomahawk F107-WR-402 700 lbf (3.1 kN) engine for an FP-5 Flamingo GLCM.

3/
Read 7 tweets
Aug 19
Slowly, with a lot of notice, Trump is morphing into Pres. Biden

This territorial concession malarkey is exactly what the Biden Administration was playing games with in Nov 2021 via an op-ed by Samuel Charap of RAND in the Nov 19, 2021 Politico.

1/
That Op-Ed advocated, in effect, that the US abandon Ukraine to Russia in exchange for other concessions by Russia, greenlighting Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

It was understood in Nov. 2021 era DC that Charap...


2/rand.org/pubs/commentar…
...was Jake Sullivan's totem animal for surfacing ideas of "de-escalation" with Russia.

Former Estonian President Ilves and Prof Stephan Blank utterly shredded the Charap/Sullivan thought balloon.

Seeing Trump revive that Charap/Sullivan thought ballon now is sickening🤮

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Read 4 tweets

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