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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
Jul 29 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
What is interesting for me is that the pre-2022 Western intelligence assessments of the Russian Army credited it with lots of tactical pipelines to move fuel.

Those would be far more useful in moving water than trucks...yet...where are they?

1/ These pipelines seem to have fallen into that same logistical 'assume they exist but don't' black hole as Russian truck D-rings & pallets, tactical truck trailers, and Russia's "superior" tooth to tail ratio that acts more like 1863 Union Army where...

2/
Jul 29 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Russia is showing signs of being at "end run production."

It has run out of serious motor transport & even the smallest scale we are seeing kludged together trailers to make ends meet.

Note also: Water bottles & potatoes are the high priority transport items⬇️

End run🧵
1/ While we are getting Western intelligence assessments that continue to point out Russia's vast increases in production of military materiel, especially tanks, IFVs and APCs (from the same people who claimed Russia would over run Ukraine in 3-to-5 days)

2/
Jul 27 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
Given what happened to DoD procurement after the 2nd Clinton Adm. annihilation of military specifications, which killed the configuration mgt, systems engineering & production engineering disciplines in defense contractors.

I shudder to see what DOGE's AI will do.

Mil-spec🧵
1/ I've written about this issue for seven years starting on the Chicagoboyz weblog with a post titled:

"The 737 MAX and the Death of MIL-STD-499A SYSTEM ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
March 24th, 2019"

2/
Jul 24 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
So, the Thai Army is now ahead of the US Army in using heavy multi-copter drones?

This underscores the vulnerability of the West to drones due to its bureaucratically bloated and infinitely slow military procurement systems.

1/ The snail like pace of Western military procurement versus the Ukrainian fielding of an all-aspect stealth shaped OWA drone in less than a couple of years is very noticeable.

2/
Jul 22 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
On the morning of 20 July 2025, a AFGSC airman at Minot AFB took his M18, still inside it's issued holster; and placed it on a desk.

It then went off, struck him in chest, and killed him

AFGSC issued a halt order on 21 July 2025 for use of M17/18 Modular Handgun System.

1/ Image As an ex-DoD procurement official, that letter is a procurement killing hammer.

This is going to hit SIG Sauer like a moderate sized asteroid in terms of DCMA corrective actions requests or "CAR."

2/ Image
Jul 22 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
During WW2's combined bomber offensive, unitary incendiary bombs were found to be five times as effective as high explosive, mass for mass, at destroying buildings & structures.

But the bomber barons were hung up on the tonnage delivered, not their effects.

Success Metrics🧵
1/ A single 100lb M47 bomb (left) was as effective as a M65 500lb general purpose HE bomb.

The Bomber Mafia in ETO fought incendiaries, as their bombers lacked the bomb station multiple release modifications for most of WW2, as the mass of bombs dropped was a 'success metric.'

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Jul 18 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
This:

"Russian aircraft manufacturers have failed to create analogues of foreign bearings and electronic components for aircraft, said Anatoly Gaydansky, CEO of Aerocomposite."

Also applies to railway cassette bearings for Russian wagons and locomotives.

Russian Railway🧵
1/ Image Low friction roller bearings are a major technological strength of the West. 

They are the difference between Rolls Royce jet engines lasting thousands of hours and Russian or Chinese jet engines lasting half as long.

Rail roller bearings are different in their application

2/
Jul 16 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
The following is a serialized post from Strategypage -dot- com on the disastrously bad US Navy leadership decisions on fleet maintenance & where they have left US National Security.

"Surface Forces: USN Maintenance Mess

1/ July 11, 2025: The U.S. Navy is no longer able to maintain or repair its ships. In an earlier economy move, all the navy ship repair and maintenance facilities were sold off. The worst aspect of this was the loss of skilled shipyard workers. ...

2/
Jul 16 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Well now, the reality of Russian casualty ratios from drones and 💩casualty evacuation in the Russo-Ukrainian War begins to emerge.

'Some people' 🙄 have been talking about this for literally years and how it has gotten worse over time.

1/ This is what I said in April 2022 when the "professional" Russian Army was around and FPV drones weren't.

2/
Jul 10 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
This Ukrainian fiber optic FPV drone attack underlines that 20th century style tactical truck based logistics are obsolete in the age of mass, cheap, 50 km FPV drones.

Drones costing less than $2,000 are killing trucks costing over $150,000.

US military versus Drones🧵
1/ The issue of Western truck production versus drone production is stark

Ukraine in 2025 is making ~12,000 FPV and grenade dropping class small drones a month.

The peak annual US Army FMTV production was in 2005 for a total of 8,168 trucks.

Those trucks are 20 years old.

2/ Image
Jul 2 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Injection molding requires an industrial scale, and above all, _reliable_, supply chain to be more efficient that 3D printing.

This is in a lot of 3D/AM industrial guru papers on the transition from low thousands a year production to the tens of thousands scale.

1/ Injection molding gets you a lot of one thing cheaply. Think lots of fiber optic guided FPV drones, which are immune to radio jamming.

3D/AM allows a lot of modifications to meet the changing requirements of war. Think rapidly evolving Ukrainian interceptor drone designs.

2/
Jul 1 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
Ukrainian mass production of FPV interceptor drones has reduced the cost per shot from $7,200 to $5,800.

The US Coyte II drone interceptor runs to $100K a shot.

The cost difference was the Big/Expensive/Few platform & missile cult was in charge of developing the Coyote II.
1/2 Image
Image
Image The Coyote I was a propeller interceptor like the Ukrainian FPV's, but it wasn't "enough" for the higher end drone threat like the TB-2 Bayraktar.

2/ Image
Jun 27 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
The F-35 Big/Expensive/Few Platform & Missile cult is in deep denial of this battlefield reality.

Air superiority below 2,000 feet/600 meters has been lost by crewed aircraft.

F-35's are irrelevant for the Mavic drone threat, save as a budget threat to the C-UAS procurement.
1/ The arrival of the Ukrainian Gogol-M, a 20-foot span fixed-wing aerial drone mothership, with over a 200km radius of action while carrying a payload of two 30km ranged attack drones under its wings, underlines the impact of low level airspace as a drone "avenue of approach."
2/
Jun 27 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
This is the main example of one of the most unprofessional delusions held by the US Navalist wing of the F-35 Big/Expensive/Few platform and missile cult.

Russian fiber optic FPV's have a range of 50km - over the horizon!

1/ This means things as the Russians make these FPV's from Chinese commercial drone components in six figure and soon 7 figure (millions!) numbers.

This has huge implications for the impending Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

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Jun 24 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
It isn't just a matter of pre-2023 sniper tactics being obsolete.

Every patrolling tactic taught by the US Army Infantry and Ranger schools are obsolete when you can "just send a drone. "

1/3 Drones simply don't have ground line of sight issues like soldiers do.

Drones can see in more of the electromagnetic spectrum than humans.

And the US Army refuses to buy enough small drones (1 m +) to train their troops to survive on the drone dominated battlefield.🤢🤮

2/3
Jun 23 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Please note that Iran _ISN'T_ shooting down IDF drones over Tehran⬇️

There are technological reasons for that.

1/2 The odds are heavily in favor of the IDF having parked Hermes drones with "Gorgon Stare" technology over Tehran to hunt Iranian senior government officials.

2/2 Image
Jun 22 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
The following photo captures from WW2 bomb damage analysis documents are to calibrate people's eyes as to what to expect from the Fordow strike.

The MOP crater is going to be something called a "Camouflet" because the MOP will dig so deep before exploding.

1/6 Image The problem with this US strike is the rock density in the Fordow area may be too much for the GBU-57/B MOP (See Grok below)

Unless there is really good intelligence showing a weakness in Fordow or...

2/6
 grok.com/share/c2hhcmQt…
Jun 22 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Well, it wasn't a TACO moment.

This US strike on the Iranian nuclear program was paddy cake.

The Iranian smart move here is screaming a lot, doing little and waiting for a Democratic US President to build nukes.

1/2 Image The dumbest of dumb moves by the Iranians would be laying sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz.

That was what set off Operation Praying Mantis in the late 1980's which sank 1/2 of Iran's navy in a day.

2/3 Image
Image
Image
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Jun 19 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Ukrainian SF/intel teams are ripping up Russian rear areas, and possibly now RuAF strategic nuclear ICBM's, with armed small drones.⬇️

China will do the same to the USA with it's fighting age male "undocumented migrant" population, when it kicks off the invasion of Taiwan.

1/3 Small drones fitted with flux compression generator (FCG) non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse (NNEMP) would be capable of zorching the electronics of a Cold War era ICBM physics packages, RV and midcourse bus inside a silo by landing on the missile hatch and going bang.

2/3 Image
Jun 18 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Iran has been at war with the USA since 1979.

Every time the USA has fought back, like Operation Praying Mantis or killing IRGC chief Qasem Soleimani, it has won.

The Iranians last killed American servicemen on January 28, 2024.

1/3 Image
Image They were
- Sgt. William Jerome Rivers,
- Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sander and
- Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett
of the 718th Eng. Co., 926th Eng. Bat.

2/3 Image
Jun 17 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
A lot of Western military officers at all levels have been vociferously denying the systematic Russian use of Chemical weapons since the siege of Mariupol in 2022.

I expect this Western military delusion to continue.

1/3 This is because acknowledging it was happening would require

1. Pronouncing the Chemical weapons convention is as dead as the London Naval treaty, and

2/3