How Ukraines HIMARS Has Made Russia's Supply Problems Worse

Russia is so dependent on trains and a limited number of still functioning trucks for resupply that it has become easier for Ukraine to identify the places where those storage depots and transfer points are located.

And that makes it easier to target them. JL 

Trent Telenko reports on Twitter:

Russian tactical trucks today fill the cultural/logistical space that horse-drawn carts did for the 19th century Russian Imperial Army. They are something that covers the last 20 km - 30 km from a rail head. Overloaded tactical truck tire tracks next to railway lines mean things. You can see rail lines from orbit. You can see those tire tracks too. The UAF can track a train from 100 km away with a TB2 Drone. HIMARS strikes more than double the distance trucks have to travel from rail heads. The Russians need twice as many trucks as they thought they'd need, and there weren't enough in February. It isn't silly when you have no other choices. It's called desperation. The Russians changed operational patterns because they had sufficient artillery ammunition to push back Ukrainian defenses when they didn't before.

 

In addition to the changed Russian operational & logistical patterns of attacks from Popasna, the Ukrainians made several specific "Asks" for Western sensors and weapons including HIMARS & drone thermal sensors that suggested hidden rail logistics.And what the Ukrainians wanted those items for would go on to make

@HIMARStime

the Russian Army ammunition depot destroying reality it is today.

 

I mentioned then that understanding a military's social history, & its relationship with technology over time, was a useful tool for intelligence analysis that Western intel & military's have not included it in their P.M.E. since WW2.And that this failure to include military social history in professional military education lead to 80 odd years of cognitive bias blind spot failure in acknowledging the lack of Russian mechanized logistics by historically illiterate senior intel/policy makers.That is a cognitive bias blind spot failure. The

@Battle_Order

youtube channel has great logistics video that gives you the gritty mechanized logistical reality of fueling a US Army battalion that is the background this Western cognitive bias failure.

 

Overloaded tactical truck tire tracks next to railway lines mean things. I mean, this utterly silly. The UAF can track a train from 100 km away with a Wescam FLIR on the TB2 Drone.It isn't silly when you have no other choices. It's called desperation. The Russians major munitions problem is moving what munitions they have with "The Plan's" Rail Depot logistics shot to hell by GMLRS strikes. The Russians just don't have enough trucks for a Plan B.

 

Worse, if you can see the rail lines from orbit. You can see those tire tracks too. A "Coherent Change Detection" on satellite photos will spot those tire tracks instantly and you can build up a map of ammunition depots over time.HIMARS GMLRS strikes more than double the distance trucks have to travel from rail heads to be far enough back to be safe from a HIMARS launcher GMLRS footprint. This "GMLRS Tax" requires lots and lots of new smaller intermediate dumps close to the firing batteries.That means the Russians need twice as many trucks as they thought they'd need, and there weren't enough to begin with in February. They have a lot less trucks now. And HIMARS can still hit their new intermediate dumps, which the Russians will bungle the management of... due to insufficient signals and command capability. Hence these Train-Truck transfers in lieu of intermediate dumps. The Russians simply do not have a truck-based distribution system that Western military logisticians & intelligence generally is familiar with.So that "Collective We" can't think outside that truck distribution box to use that Google tool to find Train-Truck transfer tire tracks. This underlines the point that if someone is doing something considered "Silly" or "Stupid", but it works in war. It isn't silly whenwhen it works, it's neither desperation nor stupidity. It is pure genius. Especially if the other side simply can't see what you are doing because they are "Sophisticated" AKA have blind spot cognitive biases.'Sophisticated logistics' for Russia is in the railways & the Russian Railway troops. Railway troops are where all the logistical signals & big brained staffer officers with the mental chops for manual labor logistical operations are located. Russian tactical trucks today...fill the cultural/logistical space that horse-drawn carts for the 19th century Russian Imperial Army. They are something that covers the last 20 km - 30 km from a rail head. They are not over committed capital equipment for which close track must be kept in order to ..maximize logistical transfer capability as shown in that

@battle_order

video.