Trent Telenko on that stalled Russian convoy's many problems again

[Emrys]

I don't have time right now to do a tidier copy and paste of the Threadreader version, but here's the basic text:

Lady's and Gentlemen, boys & girls, it is time saddle up for another installment of the "Mud and Truck Maintenance in Ukraine" feed.

And this one will be a doozy, because we are talking about Russian truck refueling in the 64km column north of Kyiv. 🧵

1/ Image
I am going to expand on this earlier tweet on the satellite photo montage.

The Rasputitsa, bad tire maintenance, vehicle overcrowding, and lack of fuel have isolated most of this Russian Army column from its rear.

2/
No matter what kind of fuel conservation techniques they engaged in. The 1st 17km or so of that 64 km Russian Army column is out of fuel.

They planned a 3-day operation which is in its 8th day.

And given the temperatures and radio use, those vehicles have dead batteries.
3/
This is why that Russian 41st CAA general was killed.

He showed up at the head of the column to unscrew the logistical mess, screaming at people and waving his arms in the air in visual range of a Ukrainian Army Sniper.
4/
As for why the Ukrainians haven't rolled up those Russian troops in a 'motti' yet. They were busy.

The Russian Hostomel airbase occupation force had to be annihilated to keep fuel from being airlifted in by helicopter.
5/
The head of this 64km column ain't going anywhere. With or without fuel. The Russians can get neither fuel trucks nor wreckers there.

And this "drop dead effect" is proceeding along the column from south to north. The ONLY way that column will move at all is backwards first
6/
This is assuming it moves at all before the Ukrainians destroy it.

The front and middle of the column showed up with food, fuel & ammo for 3-days, & we are 8-days into the war.

The column is packed so tight that you can only refuel about 100-200 meters of column at a time
7/
via a--holes & elbow by jerry cans. Then carefully back out those refueled trucks in order to get to the next 100 meters with the refueling truck and jerry cans.

It would take a week a month from now, when the ground dries, to unf--k this mess.
8/
The Russian Army will not be able to move trucks off road before then.

9/
Nor in a lot of cases will the Russian Army tanks in that column be able to move off road.


10/
The Russians have formed the world's longest POW camp. And the Ukrainians don't have to feed it.

There simply hasn't been anything like this in warfare since the Anglo-American Anzio beachhead in 1944.

11/ Image
The Russian troops in the 40-50 km of the traffic jam closest to Kyiv will run out of food before the jam can be cleared to them.

They'll have to abandon their vehicles and walk north just to get food.

12/
The reason the Russian column got to be so long was due to Russian Army officers “fulfilling the plan”.

They might be shot by the chain of command for disobeying orders to advance into the traffic jam, but won’t be if they obey orders to fulfill the plan.

13/
I'm not saying Ukraine will win or even that Ukraine can prevent Kyiv from being encircled.

I am saying the Russian Army troops in the first 50 kilometers of that 64 km column will have nothing to do with it.

14/End
PS.

The Ukrainians really do want to motti that column.

Click through for the full version: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1499894935209795594.html

The Twitter thread is here:

Link to tweet

[Jim__]

1. The performance of the Russian Army in Ukraine makes it look completely incompetent.

They have overwhelming superiority, months of planning in place at the borders of Ukraine, and then seem to have completely screwed up the execution of their plans.

[Emrys]

2. I copy-edited a book a while back that discussed the Russian armed forces' many shortcomings:

very low morale, institutionalized hazing, corruption, outmoded and poorly maintained equipment etc. - your classic paper tiger.

When this current conflict kicked off, I wondered how dated that view might be, as there'd been noises about Russia addressing some of the problems in the mean time.

It doesn't seem like it was dated at all.

Which leaves Putin's sabre-rattling threats toward any country that gets physically involved on Ukraine's side relying more and more on the prospect of nuclear strikes, as there's a limit to how many fronts his forces can do anything on at the same time (even within Ukraine, let alone Europe) and conventional threats are less and less convincing.

[Crunchy Frog]

6. There was a book published by Andrew Cockburn in 1983 that described this exact situation.

He got a lot of his information just by interviewing NYC cab drivers.

Most of the Soviet "experts" at the time dismissed it, but it all came out in the Soviet press a few years later under glasnost.

[Baitball Blogger]

3. This will make a great movie. Especially the part where the Russian

commander goes to the front of the traffic jam and waves his hands in sight of a Ukrainian sniper who takes him out.

I want to hear all about that Ukrainian sniper's backstory. Especially if he was the second son of a family that was hard on him for not being good enough, and then becomes a war hero with the pull of the trigger.

[MineralMan]

4. Well, it's clear that poor planning and execution is in place

for that convoy. Personally, I suspect that orders went out saying, "Do this immediately! I want to see this in progress within 24 hours!" So, the general(s) in charge mounted a convoy and sent it on its way without a comprehensive, effective plan for supplying and refueling it.

Naturally, due to poor maintenance and poor leadership, the leading part of the convoy ran out of fuel and had breakdowns, blocking movement of those in the rear of the convoy. There aren't huge expressway-style roads on the route, so once forward progress was halted, there was no way to reach the forward parts of the convoy with fuel trucks, repair teams, etc.

The Russian Army has lots of equipment, but much of it is poorly maintained and troops to operate it are poorly trained and ill-equipped to deal with such a massive movement. So, now, there is no movement. There are no on-ramps from side roads that would let supplies, etc. go around the main road to reach the convoy's leading vehicles.

So, now that highway is a parking lot for massive vehicles that are broken down or out of fuel.

In our military, such a thing is called a clusterf**k. It is totally SNAFU and FUBAR.

[dalton99a]

5. Savvy Genius and his savvy geniuses