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Trent Telenko Profile picture
Trent Telenko
@TrentTelenko
Married father of four great kids, Retired US DoD Civil Servant, Section 22 Special Interest Group list admin, Chicagoboyz-dot-net history blogger
478 subscribers
May 31 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
This is not new.⬇️

Enemies of the West have been using cellphone networks against Western militaries since the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

The Houthi are currently targeting ships in the Red Sea using the cell network they control to ping smart phones of ship crews.
1/ I did a thread on the exploitation of cell networks for drone targeting on December 2023.

2/
May 30 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I have been beating up on the Field Artillery crowd on X for literally years over the rapid firepower growth curve of drones compared to tube artillery.

Drones do cluster munitions far more accurately than tube artillery.

1/ Drones have more bang than a 155mm shell for a couple of years.

2/
May 23 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
We have seen an evolution from 7-inch to 10-inch and now to 15-inch propeller drone designs for FPV's since 2023 in the Russo-Ukrainian War.

The question going forward is the choice of fiber optic guided or radio links.

Drone CRPA🧵
1/ The cost of putting serious radio link electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) on an FPV drone using a CRPA is way high.

Grok has an adequate estimate on what Chinese CRPA's cost.

2/
 grok.com/share/c2hhcmQt…Image
May 22 • 5 tweets • 4 min read
Guns rule in the age of drones, but the "muffin top" Burke class DDG's are so top heavy with the SLQ-32(V)7 Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) installation that the idea of adding 76mm or 57mm autocannons is insane from the metacentric height POV.

1/ Image
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Image What to do?

You can proliferate light precision guided weapon mounts. Which can be the 21st century version of the 20mm oerlikon.

A Burke needs multiple Hydra and APKWS 70mm semi-active laser guided rocket mounts on the centerline and both broadsides.

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May 21 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
I've been posting about the inertia of Russian civil infrastructure industrial disinvestment for some time regarding Russian railways and it's foreign bearings.

The key tell going forward is triage.

This western part problem also applies to Russian Coal fired power plants
1/ Image ...and we are seeing triage there now that will apply to Russian railways later.

Non-Russian core populations areas of Russia have been cut off from modernization and restoration of thermal power plants due to a lack of Western parts.

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May 21 • 23 tweets • 7 min read
While this @Tatarigami_UA 🧵concentrates on the modernization of pieces of the Russian military-industrial base as a cautionary tale.

It leaves a throw away line about economic collapse that leaves out the reality of Russian industrial/infrastructure disinvestment which will
1/ ...continue for years even if the fighting stops tomorrow.

The rundown of Russian stocks of western railway bearing will continue for years because the specialty steel supply chain feeding western bearing manufacturers has shut down unused capacity after 3-years of war.

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May 19 • 8 tweets • 5 min read
We need to place this highly innovative Chinese artillery shell to drone precision guidance kit in its military-technical perspective.

China has taken the late 1960's US idea of a laser bomb now kit and the late 1980's Australian Kerkanya glide wing and tail kit and
put...
1/ Image
Image
Image ...them on 152/155mm artillery shells as a drone munitions.

Boeing took the Australian Kerkanya DSTO GTV technology demonstrator and later made the JDAM-ER.

China took the Paveway & JDAM-ER kit ideas and mashed them together for a much cheaper
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May 18 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Brian Iselin on medium -dot- com has a very nice final article in a series of three on how the loss of oil income is killing Russian shell production.

This is a figure from that article:

1/3 Image This opening paragraph is killer:

"Russia’s military machine doesn’t run on patriotism. It runs on petrodollars. Look at this chart and understand what you’re seeing: the death spiral of an empire, measured in dollars per barrel.

2/3
May 18 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This @GrandpaRoy2 translation 🧵by a Russian blogger transmits his lament that RuAF flag ranks and big contractors keep seeing FPV drones as a temporary fad awaiting a technological magic bullet that will restore mobility to the battlefield.
1/ Yet the real issue is the civilian electronic of FPV drones are so cheap and effective that salvaged RPG grenades turn them into swarms of weapons as deadly as ATGM's, but far more maneuverable.

Swarms of FPV's are 21st century machine guns for 20th century tanks & SP guns.
2/
May 17 • 27 tweets • 5 min read
The following text 🧵 is from Strategypage -=dot- com:

"Procurement: Economic Industrial Decline For Russia
May 8, 2025: The Ukraine war disrupted Russian manufacturing activity as production shifted to military needs. The large number of Russian men mobilized for the war...
1/ ...caused labor shortages. Then there were over a million Russian men lost, killed, disabled, deserted or fled the country to avoid military service.

The labor shortage is made worse by the lack of high school and university graduates with technical training.

2/
May 16 • 23 tweets • 3 min read
The following is an article from the Strategypage -dot- com web page

"Leadership: How to End A Corrupt War

May 14, 2025: Since 2024 more and more Ukrainian generals and military analysts have been predicting the collapse of the Russian military by mid-2025.
1/ Now their Russian counterparts are agreeing that the end is near. One Russian general was so dismayed at this that he killed himself. Increasingly Russian men are not just evading military service, but helping those in the military to walk away.

2/
May 13 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Finally!

Accounts watching the Russo-Ukrainian War have been utterly confused as to why Ukraine and Russia simply refused to use barbed wire.

1/ This is from June of 2024

2/
May 13 • 15 tweets • 6 min read
This Ukrainian video shared by @bayraktar_1love makes clear it wasn't US Patriots on German mobile launchers that nailed a Backfire bomber and a pair of A-50 AEW radar planes.

It was a Ukrainian 1960's era S-200 (Nato SA-5) SAM.

A Victory Lap🧵
1/ What that video showed was the remote control feature for the S-200's 5P72 launchers.

This Soviet PVO scheme allowed S-200 batteries to put the 5P72 launcher near the front lines and keep the 5N62 Square Pair illuminating target radar 100 km behind it,

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May 11 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Actually, I disagree with @wretchardthecat below.

The question to be asking is "which military power is it more cost effective to have a cease fire?"

Strangely enough, a 30 day ceasefire favors Ukraine far more than Russia, because drones.

1/ The most important grand strategy scale decision of this conflict has been Ukraine's move to mass produce multi-copter drones, Propeller assault (OWA) drones, jet drone-missiles and increasing numbers of military spare parts via masses of 3D/AM printers.

2/
May 11 • 17 tweets • 6 min read
I have a copy of Solly Zuckerman's book mentioned in the thread below and I can confirm it's applicability to the Russo-Ukrainian War for the Ukrainian cause.

1/ To date, no strategic bombing campaign has been analyzed by serious historians as to how the targeting decisions for the various strategic bombing campaigns against Germany, Japan, North Korea, and North Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia were done.

2/
May 6 • 18 tweets • 9 min read
This is Grok analysis of one of my X threads is a good example of why farming out your thinking/analysis to AI is a really bad idea.

Grok accurately reflects a highly flawed US National Security consensus about small drones.😱

A Grok vs Drone Reality🧵

x.com/i/grok/share/B… Grok focused on Ukrainian drone capabilities to the exclusion of actual fielded Chinese drone capability and literally eight decades old aviation technology like conformal fuel tanks which have also been applied to cruise missiles in the Chinese technological base for 20 years
2/ Image
May 4 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I cannot begin to tell you how heartened I am by this development in Ukrainian combat barrier doctrine.

1/ Compare the picture above to my complaints about Ukrainian fighting doctrine in the Summer of 2024.

2/
May 1 • 17 tweets • 7 min read
1560 dead Russian mortars and artillery tubes was 2/3 done by drones per ISW.

Drones are the primary counter-battery system on 21st century battlefields.

US Army field artillery branch OTOH is showing up to the counter-battery indirect firefight with knives, AKA the M109A6.

1/ The M109A6 Paladin 155mm/L39 caliber self-propelled gun is the T-62MV obr. 2022 of the artillery world.

The gun is inferior to every other major power's fielded SPG world wide.

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Apr 27 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Just...Reapers are not flying "Deep ISR" over Yemen.

They are dying due to a lack of electronic warfare equipment over Yemen.

I believe @noclador is overlooking the event @RyanO_ChosenCoy is calling out - The fall of Assad's Syria.

1/3 Image Ukraine's HUR sent two drone teams with 150 drones to Syria in in June 2024 to support the Turkish supported Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

2/3
Apr 26 • 19 tweets • 7 min read
I see this F-35 procurement problems post is getting traction thanks to @elonmusk .

Let's add the F-35 problem list with bolts AKA fasteners.

1/
 F-35 Fastener Corruption🧵 Image I cannot begin to tell you all how fishy this passage from that article is:

"In addition to the F-35 production line at Ft. Worth, Texas, the commingling of the two types of bolts was also discovered at the Italian F-35

2/ Image
Apr 26 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Well designed Cope cages work against FPVs.

Why the West, and particularly the US Army, is in deep denial over that reality is rooted in the US Army's denial that the FPV anti-tank drone is replacing the ATGM for cost/performance reasons.

1/ The Ukrainian missile crews salvaging brand new $20K Stugna ATGM to make more FPV drones underlines the battlefield kinematic superiority of multi-copter drones to boost-glide ATGM.

2/