The defence-blog -dot- com website reported a very important observation on the production quality of current Russian Shahed production.
It's individual quality is declining, _Hard_.
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Russian End Run Production 🧵
It's individual quality is declining, _Hard_.
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Russian End Run Production 🧵
From the article:
“The Russians have adapted these drones to their needs, but due to a lack of components and efforts to reduce costs, their quality has declined,” Kulchytsky explained.
Earlier iterations of Shahed drones contained numerous foreign-made components,
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“The Russians have adapted these drones to their needs, but due to a lack of components and efforts to reduce costs, their quality has declined,” Kulchytsky explained.
Earlier iterations of Shahed drones contained numerous foreign-made components,
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...including Japanese-manufactured bearings and precision-built servo drive rods.
However, recent versions have shown a transition to simplified bearings and direct rod assemblies, indicating a shortage of high-quality components."
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However, recent versions have shown a transition to simplified bearings and direct rod assemblies, indicating a shortage of high-quality components."
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What stands out from the article is the shortage of bearing and flywheels of the original Iranian design.
Again from the article:
"The deterioration of Russian drone quality underscores the effectiveness of international efforts to restrict
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Again from the article:
"The deterioration of Russian drone quality underscores the effectiveness of international efforts to restrict
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...the supply of high-tech components to Russia. Ukrainian experts are systematically analyzing components found in recovered drones and sharing this information with international partners.
“We see results from this effort,” Kulchytsky noted.
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“We see results from this effort,” Kulchytsky noted.
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“The lack of bearings and the simplifications in design reflect a lack of access to critical components, likely due to international sanctions and restrictions.”"
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Design simplification is something the Russians did ruthlessly with it's T-34 tank in WW2, but it still relied upon Western Lend Lease in terms of aluminium ingots to make the T-34 engine, vacuum tubes to make the T-34 radio, and waterproof telephone wire for its intercom.
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The Russian lack of high quality bearings has me thinking of the industrial position of Germany as of early 1945:
End run industrial production as stocks of imported strategic materials and intermediate industrial goods run out.
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End run industrial production as stocks of imported strategic materials and intermediate industrial goods run out.
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Other than with a few hard core Western academic historians of WW2, the idea of end run industrial production in a long term war of attrition has faded from the cognizance of Western national security elites.
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https://x.com/TrentTelenko/status/1831081845095891132
The biggest single thing the Western Allies strategic bombing campaign in Europe did was force the dispersal of German war production that the follow up Feb-Mar 1945 transportation campaign used to collapse the Nazi economy.
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Ukraine's strategic bombing of Russia by drone and missiles has been consistently hitting the chemical feedstock supply chain of Russian explosives and propellant for shells & rockets as well as its specialty steel and electronics production.
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The mass Russian import of DPRK artillery barrels & munitions, plus its inability to make the steel for bearings for Shaheds, show Ukraine's strategic bombing are working in the end run industrial production sense.
These developments make Frederick Lanchester smile.
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These developments make Frederick Lanchester smile.
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@threadreaderapp unroll please
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