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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 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

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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.

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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.

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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
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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.

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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.

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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.

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 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

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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.

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Apr 26 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
This Ukrainian video underlines the fact that drones have replaced ballistic artillery shells and rockets as the primary counter-battery weapon on the modern 21st century battlefield.

And it takes 1944-1945 era Imperial Japanese Cave Warfare tactics to survive them.

1/ For 2025 US Army Field Artillery Staff officers, this is a list of US Army publications detailing those tactics:

1. Intelligence Bulletin Vol.III, No.9 (May 1945); Cover, Pages 17-25 "The Bamban Hills" [Japanese Cave fortifications overlooking Clark Field in the Philippines during World War II]

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Apr 22 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The Ukrainian "refresh rate" on it's drone EW systems has been about two weeks since late 2023

What the Russians said right here is that it took a month to set up this attack⬇️

Ukraine & QRCP🧵
1/3 In the late 1960's to 1973 Arab-Israeli War US EW contractors could meet a two week cycle time with "quick reaction capability program" to bypass normal procurement procedures and speed urgently needed electronic systems to the battlefield.

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Apr 20 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The mass production of China's "Corvus Mulberry" tank landing barges proceeds apace in a shipyard also building freighters for a Taiwanese shipping firm.

Taiwanese capitalists are literally paying the Chinese shipyard that is building the means CCP will use to invade Taiwan!
1/ The US Navy doesn't have the tankers, salvage ships, tugs, fire boats & destroyer tenders to attempt running China's drone & anti-ship missile gauntlet when the CCP invades Taiwan.

China collapsing from a 3-4 year US naval blockade will disgorge Taiwan from the CCP's grip.
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Apr 20 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The mass production of China's "Corvu Mulberry" tank landing barges proceeds apace in a shipyard also building freighters for a Taiwanese shipping firm.

Taiwanese capitalists are literally paying the Chinese shipyard that are building the means CCP will use to invade them.

1/ Will someone please explain to me why the US Navy should impale it's carrier battle groups on Chinese anti-ship hypersonic, ballistic and cruise missiles to rescue Taiwan from this foolishness?

Distant naval blockade will collapse China's economy for far fewer US lives.
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Apr 19 • 14 tweets • 7 min read
It turns out that, in addition to "TAF-10" USMC SCR-270 radars, the USMC 90mm Heavy AA Battalion SCR-584 radars saw quite a few of the Japanese Balloon Radar Decoys at Okinawa in/near Hagushi Beach, Yonton & Kadena air fields.

WW2 Radar Decoy🧵
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Image The Marine AA troops didn't know what they were, but their descriptions match known aerodynamic templates for them.  

The balloon decoy tended to fall through different levels of wind direction & updrafts.  So the decoy often went in different directions than the ground wind.
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Apr 19 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
There was a lot more electromagnetic deception in WW2 than is in US Military histories.

The silence on such matters is jarring.

This text report (left) is from USS Pennsylvania in June 1944 during the Mariannes campaign describing the decoys drawn by Section 22 (right).

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Image The one of the previous drawing is of a captured decoy from Roi island in March 1944. 

Roi was subject to several IJN air raids using this decoy, as USS New Mexico reported its effects 14 Feb 1944, later reported in a Section 22 Current Statement dated 3 April 1944.
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Apr 18 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
There is an tragi-comic story behind this Russian foreign ministry claim.

The Russian use the term "direct participation" because of a lie by Chancellor Scholz a year ago when he claimed the computer system used to program the Taurus missiles...
1/ ...was a huge supercomputer in Germany that could not be replicated for Ukraine.

But German computer scientists found an article that described the 20 year old computer system used by Taurus.

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Apr 17 • 18 tweets • 7 min read
The CO of the top scoring Buk [Nato designation SA-11 Gadfly] battery in the PSU did an interview ~2 years ago (early 2023).

He said they used their own Mavic drones to check that their camouflage and

Zoltan Dani & A2/AD doctrine🧵
1/ Image ...that their battery concealment was good enough to fool Russian drones.

So, the PSU does a drone quality assurance check on its camo during the "hide" phase of the hide-shoot-scoot cycle, AKA you have to survive in order to have the opportunity to shoot enough to become the highest scoring SAM battery.


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Apr 16 • 15 tweets • 7 min read
In 2005, the Strategypage -dot- com web site had the following on the downing of an F-117 over Serbia.

These tactic are the heart of Ukrainian IADS doctrine.
---
How to Take Down an F-117

November 21, 2005: The Serbian battery commander, whose missiles downed an American F-16, and, most impressively, an F-117, in 1999, has retired, as a colonel, and revealed many of the techniques he used to achieve all this. Colonel Dani Zoltan, in 1999, commanded the 3rd battery of the 250th Missile Brigade. He had search and control radars, as well as a TV tracking unit.

1/Image The battery had four quad launchers for the 21 foot long, 880 pound SA-3 missiles. The SA-3 entered service in 1961 and, while it had undergone some upgrades, was considered a minor threat to NATO aircraft. Zoltan was an example of how an imaginative and energetic leader can make a big difference. While Zoltan’s peers and superiors were pretty demoralized with the electronic countermeasures NATO (especially American) aircraft used to support their bombing missions, he believed he could still turn his ancient missiles into lethal weapons

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Apr 15 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
Lots of US military officers like to believe Ukraine is identical in most ways to Saddam's Iraq & some are foolish enough to say so publicly.

It'd just not true in terms of Ukrainian IADS leadership, equipment, organization, training and doctrine.

1/ The #2 of PSU in Feb 2022 had been imbedded in Serbian air defense in 1999 during Operation Allied Force.

Where Col Zoltan Dani SA-3 Goa unit not only defeated USAF SEAD doctrine from 24 Mar to 10 June 1999 with good training & tactics.

Zoltan also bagged an F-117.

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Apr 14 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
The problem for this USN-Taiwan "hellscape strategy" is it's obsolete given that the Chinese have access to Russia's newest generation of FPV interceptor drones to counter it, via using China's "5 times bigger than the rest of the world combined" drone industry & sea militia.

1/ Image US Flag ranks and their senior staffs' refuse to acknowledge the disintermediation of drones mil-tech.

All you need is a game controller/radio or a smartphone controller & a waiter tray stand.

Then you are launching a FPV drone with 70% the lethality of a Javelin ATGM
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