The Kerch Bridge Thread
Fires out, looks like that bridge has spans dropped in 2 separate locations. Also thing the second still standing bridge is rooted. Look at the sag in the a bridge section at 23 seconds
Last edited by rattman; 8th Oct 2022 at 07:12.
Russian Telegram channels are sharing this video which is allegedly CCTV footage of the explosion.
The truck may be a red herring - just at the wrong place at the wrong time. If you look below the bridge in the moment before the detonation you can see a high speed boat appearing. A UKR remote?
The truck may be a red herring - just at the wrong place at the wrong time. If you look below the bridge in the moment before the detonation you can see a high speed boat appearing. A UKR remote?
Not seeing a high speed boat, there is an odd wave set though just behind the truck, on the water... That truck driver will be searching all over for his cigarette packet. Looks like steam coming off under the rail bridge, water main blown? The truck was coming from the Russian side of the planet... so if it was a truck bomb, there is room for more of those in the east. Probably need a new volunteer, as that driver will still have tinnitus from this effort. A single cigarette taking out both roadways and the railway, and a water main is going to have lots of paperwork on the remediation of the OH&S plan there.
It is a good excuse to get out of Ukraine, and blame his military, and safety managers, and retire to Sochi. Just sayin'...
This video (the one that is 44-sec long and is from the surveillance cameras looking East along the centreline of the road highways, explosion is at 33sec) suggest the truck was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Something seems to go off in the space between the bridge pier and the bridge deck, on the Russia-bound highway (I think that is the South one). The debris that blows S-N must be something lighteweight as the wind is also blowing S>N (we can see that from the smoke on the railtanks). I think the train may also have been happenstance. Actually I am unsure, maybe two piers are carrying explosives ?
This is the ideal location for Ukraine to pick. It is undeniably in their teritorial waters. It is not in the shipping channel which a) they want open and b) they want to avoid legal hassle over).But how did explosives get there ? Not necessarily placed by Ukraine given the factional infighting in Russia ?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1578633947109810176
This is the ideal location for Ukraine to pick. It is undeniably in their teritorial waters. It is not in the shipping channel which a) they want open and b) they want to avoid legal hassle over).But how did explosives get there ? Not necessarily placed by Ukraine given the factional infighting in Russia ?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1578633947109810176
The stills that have been pulled from the video show a bow of a boat and a bow wave at the moment of the detonation. Shades of some recent PMs.
Last edited by fdr; 8th Oct 2022 at 08:42.
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It looks like one span was targeted but as it fell into the water it dragged 2 other spans with it. Funny how things unexpected happen, I remember on dems supv course how the instructors were saying you don't want to perfectly cut a bridge deck only to have the handrails remain holding it in place.
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It does look like a boat under the section to me, possibly one of those remote ones that washed ashore in Crimea?
They have dropped it at the lowest point where a detonation underneath would be most effective, as for the train loco unit, disconnected and legged it when his train caught fire and was derailed?
There is another image out there showing a secondary fire in the sea
They have dropped it at the lowest point where a detonation underneath would be most effective, as for the train loco unit, disconnected and legged it when his train caught fire and was derailed?
There is another image out there showing a secondary fire in the sea
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
The lack of any crater damage would argue against a truck bomb, and an explosion above would mostly dissipate upwards.
An explosion below would produce heave lifting adjacent spans and breaking their connections to be piers. As Nutty points out the low location is perfect to maximum any heave.
Argument against planted charges is both the CCTV coverage and reported extensive sea and other surveillance. Getting onto the structure and wiring that amount of explosives in place wouldn’t be inconspicuous.
An explosion below would produce heave lifting adjacent spans and breaking their connections to be piers. As Nutty points out the low location is perfect to maximum any heave.
Argument against planted charges is both the CCTV coverage and reported extensive sea and other surveillance. Getting onto the structure and wiring that amount of explosives in place wouldn’t be inconspicuous.
Last edited by ORAC; 8th Oct 2022 at 08:42.
The additional images are suggestive that you are correct, Petit plateau, It has the hallmarks of a charge on the bridge support, there is a large amount of debris that is coming over the side of the bridge deck. The truck may just be bad luck, could happen to anyone, along with the car, and, where is the engine for the train?
Regarding the source of explosion : either explosives placed on the piers or one+ of those fancy boats. Given the size of the blast(s) I tend towards the boat(s). Something like that can carry a tonne or so of explosive and with the right sort of charge shaping the effect would be upwards. The sensor set on the boats washed ashore includes some things that would enable the necessary precise positioning. That in turn tends to suggest a Ukraine job, rather than an internal faction within Russia. I am also tending towards just one device with the multiple spans being dropped just being shockwave effects, that would account for the clean road-deck end in one of the stills.The damage to the adjacent road carriageway deck was happenstance imho. Whether they always park tanktrucks at that point overnight is something I am sure intel would have been aware of, and might have played a part in precise target selection, who knows. Nice coincidence mind you
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The boat? You decide.
Regarding the train: in the centreline roadway video we can see that the train is stationary, not even slowly moving. In the long distance shots we can see that the now-burning train has no locomotive attached. My best guesses is that i) less likely, they are short of locos and parked the tank train there overnight as it ought to be a SAM-protected area, or 2) more likely, the train was waiting at signals to proceed, but that the loco driver then sensibly got him/herself out of there.
Regarding the source of explosion : either explosives placed on the piers or one+ of those fancy boats. Given the size of the blast(s) I tend towards the boat(s). Something like that can carry a tonne or so of explosive and with the right sort of charge shaping the effect would be upwards. The sensor set on the boats washed ashore includes some things that would enable the necessary precise positioning. That in turn tends to suggest a Ukraine job, rather than an internal faction within Russia. I am also tending towards just one device with the multiple spans being dropped just being shockwave effects, that would account for the clean road-deck end in one of the stills.The damage to the adjacent road carriageway deck was happenstance imho. Whether they always park tanktrucks at that point overnight is something I am sure intel would have been aware of, and might have played a part in precise target selection, who knows. Nice coincidence mind you
Regarding the source of explosion : either explosives placed on the piers or one+ of those fancy boats. Given the size of the blast(s) I tend towards the boat(s). Something like that can carry a tonne or so of explosive and with the right sort of charge shaping the effect would be upwards. The sensor set on the boats washed ashore includes some things that would enable the necessary precise positioning. That in turn tends to suggest a Ukraine job, rather than an internal faction within Russia. I am also tending towards just one device with the multiple spans being dropped just being shockwave effects, that would account for the clean road-deck end in one of the stills.The damage to the adjacent road carriageway deck was happenstance imho. Whether they always park tanktrucks at that point overnight is something I am sure intel would have been aware of, and might have played a part in precise target selection, who knows. Nice coincidence mind you
The video along the road way supports a shock that is from under the structure of the road spans, and, IIRC, most spans are located on plates and are free to slide for expansion joints normally, so are able to be lifted off a buttress, like the SFO and LA earthquakes. Parking a full set of tanks on a bridge, with carriages uncoupled from any loco, is loco. The engineers are going to be spending a fair bit of time thinking through the damage of the rail bridge structure, The closeups will be interesting to see if there has been any distortion to the structure, the rails are a given. Those tanks with wind underneath were pretty good furnaces.
Last edited by fdr; 8th Oct 2022 at 09:06.
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That secondary fire seen off the bridge.
Darwin awards candidates
"The firemen standing so far away. They're afraid" (of a burning fuel train)
"shall we go closer?"
"Yes - of course."
This is Blackadder level of comedy - in real life.
"The firemen standing so far away. They're afraid" (of a burning fuel train)
"shall we go closer?"
"Yes - of course."
This is Blackadder level of comedy - in real life.
He under states the use of the route as an MSR for Crimea. It was always a worthwhile target, and it is a major mess to Crimea.
Separately, unconfirmed word Prigozin was taken out along with his Wagner local HQ and troops. Not the first time it has been claimed.
Even more astonishing that the Russians hadn't closed off the bridge. That must be a good few hours after the blast.
One of the videos does appear to show burning materials landing on the bridge deck, possibly unexploded material from an improvised device?
I'm guessing the 1 or 2 spans which fell undamaged can be craned back up into place relatively quickly (assuming they are undamaged). The broken span will need to be replaced, which will take quite some time.
That said I wouldn't like to be a member of the crew tasked with repairing the bridge. The Ukes may take a leaf out of Russia's playbook and attempt a 'double-tap'
I'm guessing the 1 or 2 spans which fell undamaged can be craned back up into place relatively quickly (assuming they are undamaged). The broken span will need to be replaced, which will take quite some time.
That said I wouldn't like to be a member of the crew tasked with repairing the bridge. The Ukes may take a leaf out of Russia's playbook and attempt a 'double-tap'
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
ROFL….
Vladimir Konstantinov, the head of Crimea's Russian-installed illegal "parliament", claimed that the damage was "insignificant", and the bridge would be repaired soon.
Vladimir Konstantinov, the head of Crimea's Russian-installed illegal "parliament", claimed that the damage was "insignificant", and the bridge would be repaired soon.
Could be a burning slick from whatever was in the rail trucks. It looks like it is on land but that could be the shadow cast by the pall of smoke.
Yup, just like all their online trolls claimed the Moskva was only lightly damaged and would be back in action in a matter of days.
Okay, I admit I'm not an engineer, but they do look lighter than the stones at Stonehenge and our ancestors shifted them by hand....
Okay, I admit I'm not an engineer, but they do look lighter than the stones at Stonehenge and our ancestors shifted them by hand....
The local time of explosion was approx 6:07 am or so. Local sunrise is 7:01 am. It was dark, you can see that in the cameras. There was some sea running with some wave action. I think that bomb-boat is sufficiently low in the water to not be easily detected. (This is actually how the earliest 'semi-submersibles' operated, basically just awash). The sensor fit on that bomb-boat is enough to place it accurately under this, even in a degraded GPS environment.
Whether that is the bow of a bomb-boat just coming into the picture frame I am unsure. It could actually be a security boat (RIB) taking a closer look at a bomb-boat at just the wrong moment In later film one can see the security RIBs moving around. That picture frame looks to be moving too fast and making too much bow wave for a bomb boat, plus it doesn't appear to be in quite the right position for the blast location.
The Russians built this bridge. I suspect they cast these sections fairly locally. That is normal construction technique all over Europe including Russia. The sections are not terribly large. Whether they have three spare sections sitting onshore is not so obvious. Doing a wartime repair with steel sections is perfectly feasible, just a matter of time. Winter is coming in mind you. The rail bridge may be more difficult, who knows what the remaining safety factor is (if any) and ascertaining that very important number is quite difficult. A lot depends on how much fuel went straight into the sea as opposed to pooling and burning on the bridge itself.
I don't think it was just explosives. I think there was something else, quite likely copper or aluminium to act as a penetrator. That likely is what also impacted the train of fuel rail cars.
Whether that is the bow of a bomb-boat just coming into the picture frame I am unsure. It could actually be a security boat (RIB) taking a closer look at a bomb-boat at just the wrong moment In later film one can see the security RIBs moving around. That picture frame looks to be moving too fast and making too much bow wave for a bomb boat, plus it doesn't appear to be in quite the right position for the blast location.
The Russians built this bridge. I suspect they cast these sections fairly locally. That is normal construction technique all over Europe including Russia. The sections are not terribly large. Whether they have three spare sections sitting onshore is not so obvious. Doing a wartime repair with steel sections is perfectly feasible, just a matter of time. Winter is coming in mind you. The rail bridge may be more difficult, who knows what the remaining safety factor is (if any) and ascertaining that very important number is quite difficult. A lot depends on how much fuel went straight into the sea as opposed to pooling and burning on the bridge itself.
I don't think it was just explosives. I think there was something else, quite likely copper or aluminium to act as a penetrator. That likely is what also impacted the train of fuel rail cars.