Trent Telenko Profile picture
Dec 17, 2024 12 tweets 5 min read Read on X
I've been involved with three US Army FMTV reset programs.

So this newest report from Ukraine's Defense Express on the the repairability problems with Russian AFV's out of their reserves is so much fun to share with you all.

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Defense Express pulled an article from the No. 10 issue of the Russian magazine "Material and Technical Support" on how horrid the vehicles coming out of reserve are plus problems with battle damaged reserve vehicles.

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en.defence-ua.com/analysis/repai…
The 2nd paragraph starts with this:

"The central takeaway from this publication is that the actual repairability of Russian tanks is 3-5 times lower than what is claimed in official manuals. This discrepancy has extended repair times for equipment by at least 15-20%."

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Then it gets worse:

"For instance, fire control systems in T-72 and T-80 tanks have non-interchangeable components. Additionally, there are as many as seven different engine types used in russian armor, further complicating logistics and repairs."

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and worse:

"The magazine also draws attention to how incomplete the armored vehicles arrive from storage bases. Upon receipt, these vehicles require engine replacements, battery charges, and replenishments to the spare parts and tool kits."

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and worse:

"Compounding these issues, numerous malfunctions were reported in communication systems, electrical equipment, and fire control systems. Addressing all these faults required specialists from repair plants, manufacturing plants, and storage bases."

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Although I expect this sentence was utter horse💩-

"As a result, preparing tanks from mothballed reserves for combat operations could take up to 10 days."

I've worked reset with 3116 caterpillar engines and early WTEC one and two transmissions Allison on the FMTV trucks.
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The turnaround time for rebuilding an old power pack with that engine and those transmissions was several weeks to a couple of months.

T-62, T-64 or early T-72 tank power packs out of production for more than 35 years have to be a months long effort.

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army.mil/article/13871/…Image
This passage on Russian kinetic battle damage repair is very interesting:

"The article also provides insight into how different types of damage affect tank functionality. When armor is penetrated, the power plant units, stabilizers, automatic gun loaders, fuel tanks, optical and electro-optical systems, and communications equipment can be destroyed or disabled."
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As is this one on damage from explosive shaped charges:

"When a tank is struck by a shaped-charge projectile, its effects depend on what components lie in the path of the blast. If the affected area contains powder-based propellant charges, detonation and fire may occur. Damage to the engine or transmission system often results in a fire, which can lead to fuel tank explosions and, in some cases, ammunition detonation."

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What this Russian repair article leaves out there are 5 generations of 125mm gun and five different 125mm autoloaders between the T64, T-72 and T-80.

The attrition guru Frederick Lanchester is smiling.

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More from @TrentTelenko

Dec 21
The following is evaluation is based on a number of professional discussions:

This CRPA found in a shot down jet Shaheed is reported to be Russian built. This is highly doubtful as the design and construction style looks far too professional for Russian industry.

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Bluntly - Russians tend towards cheapskate up-front capital manufacturing solutions.

The upshot is injection molded and die cast components are not a common feature in Russian designs as tooling for manufacturing designs is expensive up front,

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...even if the mass production unit costs are lower.

In addition, Western style SMA RF connectors are not a feature of the Soviet technology base.

Nor is the RF coax with a transparent jacket.

3/
Read 5 tweets
Dec 19
Let us be clear what has happened here.

Ukraine has a drone armed merchant raider lose in the Mediterranean hunting Russian shadow tankers.

Upshot: There will be more elsewhere on the world's oceans in the near future effecting maritime trade.

2025 Merchant Armed Raider 🧵
1/
@grok answered the following questions for me:

" Please summarize the pre-World War 1 to 1942 career of merchant armed raiders and compare that data to Ukraine's recent drone attack in the Mediterranean with a drone armed commercial vessel."

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This is @grok's final summary:

"In essence, Ukraine's approach modernizes the raider concept—swapping guns for drones and merchant disguises for stealthy launches— but lacks the historical volume due to the conflict's constraints.

3/
Read 11 tweets
Dec 11
US Ground force flag ranks deny this 2025 reality 🤡⬇️

"The Ukraine war has exposed a large and increasing gap between Western reconnaissance doctrine and modern conventional battlefield reality.
1/3
In Donetsk, reconnaissance operators face constant drone surveillance, electromagnetic degradation, and hyper-local combat conditions that invalidate long-held assumptions about stealth and standoff intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR).

2/3
This article contends that NATO must, with urgency, reform its reconnaissance doctrine, training, and force structure to survive and efficiently operate in a drone-saturated battlefield."

Upton Sinclair reports:
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Read 4 tweets
Dec 9
I said this about the US Navy in 2023 (⬇️)

....and the institutional failures on display in the USS Truman CVBG Red Sea deployment proved me correct in 2025.

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Every competent USN surface officer knows in their gut an anti-aircraft cruiser should not be operating with downed identification friend or foe (IFF) and Link-16 data link with no E-2 Hawkeye AEW support.

2/
news.usni.org/2025/12/04/inv…
Those officers know in their guts that radar skin paints alone from their ship's SPY-1 will be borderline for high tempo engagements...

...but this is not the first time this kind of problem occurred:

3/
twz.com/air/how-uss-ge…
Read 6 tweets
Nov 16
Just...listen...to this video clip with your eyes closed.

The predominant sound isn't artillery.
It isn't assault rifles.

It is the scream of drone rotors coming close, punctuated with the explosion of the drone upon impact.

1/3
That sound drama isn't World War One or any "medium intensity" conflict since 1918.

It is the sound of how 21st century Peer-to-Peer conflict is fought.

A conflict Western ground militaries are obsolescent in equipment to face.

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That Russo-Ukraine War video is a soundscape US Army National Training Centers are too obsolete/incapable of replicating, because US Army flag ranks are allergic to training with high densities of small/cheap/many FPV drones.

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Read 4 tweets
Nov 10
WW2 is calling again with Ukraine developing Drone version of SHORAN.

_SH_ort
_RA_nge
_N_avigation

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SHORAN was a WW2 blind bombing system using two radio stations and an electromechanical computer.

In 1938 an RCA engineer named Stuart William Seeley, while attempting to remove "ghost" signals from an experimental television system, discovered he could measure distances
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...by time differences in radio reception.

Instead of building a radar unit with this discovery, he proposed using this technique for precision ground-based radio beacon navigation bombing aid.

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Read 12 tweets

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