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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia | |
| Cheap Chinese tires and the Russian convoy bog down? | |
| 2022-03-04 | |
As the eighth day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine began Thursday morning, Russian forces appeared to have gained tactical control of their first city, the southern port city of Kherson, but Ukraine is still holding out in Mariupol, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv, despite heavy shelling. Deaths are mounting on both sides. Big explosions were heard in Kyiv overnight, but according to the British Defense Ministry's Thursday morning update, the main body of the 40-mile-long Russian military convoy advancing on the capital remains nearly 20 miles from the city center, "having been delayed by staunch Ukrainian resistance, mechanical breakdown, and congestion. The column has made little discernible progress in over three days." Pentagon spokesman John Kirby gave a similar prognosis on Wednesday, saying the "stalled" column hasn't, "from our best estimates, made any appreciable progress in the last 24-36 hours," possibly because the Russians are "regrouping themselves and reassessing the progress that they have not made and how to make up the lost time," but probably also due to "logistics and sustainment challenges" and "resistance from the Ukrainians." Trent Telenko, a retired Pentagon staff specialist and military history blogger, suggests another big reason may be Russia's tires, as he explained in a long, illustrated Twitter thread based on photos of deserted Russian Pantsir-S1 wheeled gun-missile systems and his own experience as a U.S. Army vehicle auditor. "When you leave military truck tires in one place for months on end," the sidewalls get brittle in the sun and fail like the tires on the Pantsir-SR, he wrote. "No one exercised that vehicle for one year." Karl Muth, an economist, government adviser, and self-described "tire expert," jumped in, agreeing with Telenko but adding some details about the tires. "There is a huge operational level implication in this," Telenko said. "If the Russian Army was too corrupt to exercise a Pantsir-S1, they were too corrupt to exercise the trucks and wheeled [armored fighting vehicles] now in Ukraine," meaning "the Russians simply cannot risk them off-road during the Rasputitsa/mud season." That is a problem for the convoy in the north, he added. "The Crimea is a desert and the South Ukrainian coastal areas are dryer. So we are not seeing this there. But elsewhere the Russians have a huge problem for the next 4 to 6 weeks." Read Telenko's whole thread on Twitter. | |
| Posted by:Alistaire Clunk8424 |
| #6 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1499164245250002944.html Great detail in the link above about the tire and off-road tire failures in muc leading to the road-bound convoy issues for the Russians! |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2022-03-04 15:48 |
| #5 The "where are the A-10s?" nonsense can be left parked on the apron, where it belongs... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2022-03-04 14:12 |
| #4 Those chink tires were "probably pop's"...you could see the air in them. |
| Posted by: crazyhorse 2022-03-04 09:26 |
| #3 The old truism still holds: Amateurs talk tactics, politicians discuss strategy, professionals study logistics. |
| Posted by: Chealing Chomotle4158 2022-03-04 07:45 |
| #2 *were alerted |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2022-03-04 07:14 |
| #1 The Soviets/Russians have a history of 'hanger queen' equipment. They would only use one or a crude mechanical simulator to practice with. They were not keen about 'going to the field' and using the stuff in real environment as it takes a toll on the equipment requiring constant maintenance and supply/parts support. American units have readiness reports that track the status of every vehicle. It's a bit of a pain and, yes, some commanders crib their reports. [Amazing how many readiness reports were 'updated' when they were altered for Desert Shield in the early 90s. /sarc off] In WW2 their analysis was that tanks usually didn't survive more than something like a 100 hours on the battlefield so why build something that require so much support. The Americans had recovery units which would recover tanks and refurbish them in theater not far from the front lines and then send them back into combat. When the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in '68, they did it under cloud cover to avoid satellite detection. They pulled it off but when the clouds cleared, intel showed a trail of abandoned vehicles all the way back to their bases. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2022-03-04 07:14 |