Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Efficiency.


This is coolbert:

As was the Transportation Plan in 1944 so is the onslaught of the Russian military against the Ukrainian railway system now!

"Russia Ramps Up Attacks On Ukraine Rail Lines To Thwart NATO Arms Shipments"

From the Internet web site "Zero Hedge" the article BY TYLER DURDEN APR 25, 2022 -

"The Russian military is ramping up efforts to thwart Western arms deliveries into Ukraine, on Monday striking at least six railway stations and facilities. In a statement late in the day the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) confirmed it attacked the locations, including taking out train tracks and transport lines, as they were being used 'to supply Ukrainian forces with foreign weapons,'" 

* SPECIAL emphasis on FOREIGN weapons.

* Railway bridges, stations, rolling stock, marshaling yards all attacked and destroyed. The plan. 

* About 500 miles [800 kilometers] straight-line distance from Lvov to the Donetsk area.

* Railroads about nine to ten times more efficient at delivering load than road-bound transport.

"Earlier in the day Ukrainian Railways authority head . . . had confirmed that five of the stations were hit, saying there were at this point unknown numbers of casualties, during what was described as an 'unusually long' continuous air raid that lasted a reported two hours Monday morning."

These attack on a much smaller scale reminds the amateur historian of the destruction of the French railway system, WW2. The "Transportation Plan" it was called.

"The Transportation Plan was a plan for strategic bombing during World War II against bridges, rail centers, including marshalling yards and repair shops in France with the goal of limiting the German military response to the invasion of France in June 1944."

A plan that worked exceedingly well. German troop reinforcements and logistical support to those Nazi troops in the Normandy battlefield greatly hampered. Road movement ONLY possible and then ONLY during hours of darkness!

A  plan that worked so exceedingly well that Allied forces their advance eastward from the Normandy break-out area 1944 also significantly impeded. So much destruction to the French railway system that the allies could not move supplies to the forward units fast enough.

SPECIAL construction units, DEVOTED to quick and expeditious repair of the Ukrainian rail network could go a log way to MITIGATE damage. But all that must be organized in advance and ready to go. Start reading those manuals on how to build wooden railroad trestles also. As from the American Old West. The Japanese during WW2 did so and had great success building expedient structures!

coolbert.


 





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