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Trent Telenko Profile picture
Trent Telenko
@TrentTelenko
Divorced father of four great kids, Retired US DoD Civil Servant, Section 22 Special Interest Group list admin, Chicagoboyz-dot-net history blogger
477 subscribers
Dec 11 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
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
Dec 9 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
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.

1/2 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…
Nov 16 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
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.

2/3
Nov 10 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
WW2 is calling again with Ukraine developing Drone version of SHORAN.

_SH_ort
_RA_nge
_N_avigation

1/ 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
2/ Image
Oct 29 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
One the DCMA quality inspectors on my team worked at an EMALS contractor in Texas.

I can't say more than the Chinese tested their EMALS at subsystem level (unlike the USN) with the knowledge the four catapults needed to be independent of each other for operations,

EMALS🧵
1/5 ...based on how the USN f--ked up their EMALS design.

That is, when any single EMALS catapult on the Ford class goes down for any reason. They all can't be used.

2/5
Oct 16 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
While much has been said about US targeting support for these past Ukrainian oil strikes, and future Tomahawk strikes, much of this appears to be "role inflation" and grandstanding by Deep State parties briefing US media.

1/ Ukrainian cyber penetrations of Russian industry provide them with a deep knowledge of the Russian POL / LNG industrial base.

Additionally, we know from numerous Ukrainian disclosures that they are programming One Way Attack Drones and routing flightpaths...

2/
Oct 14 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The inability of Western elites to understand how Putin regime reflexive control propaganda locks everyone there into "WW2 Russian exceptionalism" just boggles the mind.

The Putin Regime lives in a George Orwell 1984-like present, with no past or future.

1/ The Putin Regime always lives in the current moment.

Literally every major Putin decision over the last 20 years was on impulse, AKA this is Russian exceptionalism incarnate.

Consequences _CANNOT_ matter in this 1984-ish culture, ONLY THE NEXT DELUSION. 😱😱

2/
Oct 3 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I've made a point about the Russian killed to wounded ratios a lot.

This is off scale:

"The AFU 7th Rapid Reaction Corps of Ukraine's Air Assault Forces published some stats. In August, Russia suffered 928 KIA and 528 WIA, i.e. 1.76:1,

1/3 and in September, 1,202 KIA and 649 WIA, i.e. 1.85:1.

These numbers strongly exceed any previous campaigns dating back to the Crimean War, and do not include non-combat deaths due to disease or exposure."

2/3
Oct 2 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Gosh, remember all those 2023 US Navalist accounts that denied - DENIED, I tell you - that drones from containerships would ever, ever, be a threat and that I personally was delusional for saying so publicly.

Who looks delusional now 😱⬇️

1/ One in every five US Naval vessels are defenseless to Chinese drones, surprise launched from Chinese merchant & fishing vessels, because the
every CNO since 1989 didn't want USN logistical officers to get a captaincy and compete for flag ranks.

2/
Oct 1 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Phalanx was replaced by the SeaRAM, AKA RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile, on almost all new US combatants for the last ~15 years.

The SeaRAM Wiki states:

"The U.S. Navy plans to purchase a total of about 1,600 RAMs and 115 launchers to equip 74 ships.

1/3 The missile is currently active aboard Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers, Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, Wasp-class amphibious assault ships, America-class amphibious assault ships, San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ships,
2/3
Oct 1 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
There are good reasons Russia is now looking to purchase gasoline from abroad to replace what they can no longer produce and deliver internally.

Russia is in the middle of a refinery damage & overuse failure cascade🧵

1/ Let us start with basics.

This was the pre-Russo-Ukrainian War Russian pipeline infrastructure Russian refineries were attached too.

2/
Oct 1 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
"Western Experts" on X who claim drones are a "Ukraine War unique fad" are complete fools⬇️

"Among the sensitive targets of September 2025:
• 1,895 ‼️ enemy wings of the Orlan, Zala, SuperCam, Lancet types, Molniya kamikaze wing, Shahed, Gerbera.

1/3 • 455 enemy pilot launch points and 738 crew antenna units.
• 150 mobile EW systems and 9 self-propelled EW systems.
• 2,124 self-propelled vehicles (armor, logistics, rocket artillery, auto-moto vehicles, MLRS).

2/3
Sep 28 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The Russian Legioner armored vehicle is an interesting reinvention of the 1940's Red Army BTR-152 or US M3 Scout car.

It says a great deal about the defense industrial infrastructure limitations of the Russian Federation.

1/ Image The three 6x6 BTR-152 photos and drawings and one 4x4 M3 scout car photo will give you an idea of what is available to the 2025 Russian defense industrial base.

2/2 Image
Image
Image
Image
Sep 28 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This is a lesson for the US Navy which will be soundly ignored. ⬇⬇️

The US has generation of counter insurgency or "COIN-centric" Flag officers who have zero experience and training in peer competitor warfare.

1/2 The US Flag rank's "COIN-centric" mindset is why their minds are too inflexible to deal with the rapid technological change represented by drones.

They are 1930's UK "Empire officers" who knew how to "wog bash" and got their heads handed to them by the Germans and Japanese.

2/2
Sep 23 • 18 tweets • 3 min read
The Ukrainian language version of this article has a great deal more on the design philosophy behind the FP-5 Flamingo.

A philosophy is utterly alien to the Big/Expensive/Few Western Flag Ranks & Defense contractors.

Production & Systems engineering🧵
1/ "According to Terekh, the design process for the Flamingo was the same as for other products: the rocket went through filters — can we mass-produce it? Will it be cost-effective? Will it be effective on the battlefield?

2/
Sep 23 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Ukraine just confirmed my analysis of their FP-5 engine supplies:

"Before the start of mass production, Fire Point bought a large stock of old aircraft engines with a residual life of up to 10 hours.

1/4 They can no longer be used on aircraft, but their operating time is sufficient for the necessary tests after repair and the real flight phase – 3.5 hours.

The purchased engines are being repaired and modified:

2/4
Sep 19 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
What most people miss about the Ukrainian oil campaign is that each Russian refinery was built to support certain local & international markets with certain types of crude oil.

This makes the entire Russian energy market "logistically brittle."

Russian Oil Market Logistics🧵
1/ Russia's oil refinery's locations and local/international markets were built by the Soviet Union.

They each were fed specific grades of crude oil, and the Soviet/Russian state railways fuel tank car fleets were scaled for just-in-time deliveries to & from those refineries.

2/
Aug 28 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
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/
Aug 23 • 21 tweets • 8 min read
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🧵
1/ Image 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/
Aug 21 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
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/
Aug 21 • 16 tweets • 7 min read
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