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The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-opened Part II

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In your utterly ill educated, totally unscientific sensationalist view that is based on nothing but what you think would make for a good story.
 
Lots of great technical information across a broad range of topics from one side of this conversation.

I hate to butt in but it needs to be pointed out that if someone is going to use explosives to sink a ship the size of Estonia they would pack a couple of large trucks with the boom-boom stuff and not risk the crew finding it, or the crew doing their job and reporting the leak allowing the bridge to slow down, and get people to the lifeboats.

I'd also point out that using explosives would be obvious, even to the slower people, and thus throwing out the whole "It was an accident" thing.

And finally, the official team will return to the wreck next year to dive on it, and they will report their initial findings from this summer's survey in a month or so. Point data from a survey is not evidence of anything.
 
Vixen said:
A timed device at the bow is very likely the reality IMV.
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What evidence do you have for this?

Who placed the device and when?

How big was the device?

Why did the crew not spot the device?

Does this mean you have given up on torpedoes, mines, submarines ramming the ship?

Does this mean the hole in the side was not caused by an explosive charge?

Does it mean the hole in the side didn't sink the ship?

Was the bridge crew still assassinated?
 
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Vixen said:
Graphic representation of explosions in the Estonia.





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The video shows that the bow visor was blown off of the Estonia. Haven't you repeatedly argued that the bow visor and car ramp were intact when the Estonia sank?
 
whoanellie said:
The video shows that the bow visor was blown off of the Estonia. Haven't you repeatedly argued that the bow visor and car ramp were intact when the Estonia sank?
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Well, the graphic also shows flames on the starboard hull side so it looks like whoever made the cartoon is going with both.
 
Vixen said:
A timed device at the bow is very likely the reality IMV.
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And vanishingly unlikely IMV, especially if there was a crewman close to the ramp at the time.

Who on earth would come up with a plot like that? They seemingly needed the ship to sink, but also needed it to look like an accident. So how big a bomb dare you use? What then were the chances the sabotage would fail, and what were the chances that survivors would report the detonation?

It's a stupid risky plan and what's the motive anyway? Do you need the Estonia to sink, or do you want to kill some individuals, or destroy some cargo? If it's cargo, how can you be certain that that particular cargo will be on that particular sailing? Why not just go after the cargo directly, or the people transporting it, instead of this elaborate high-risk sabotage?

It fails the Dr Evil test: If you brought this plot to Dr Evil your chair would tip straight back and drop you into the mutant sea bass tank. Some other henchmen would be tasked with just killing the cargo smugglers.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
What evidence do you have for this?

Who placed the device and when?

How big was the device?

Why did the crew not spot the device?

Does this mean you have given up on torpedoes, mines, submarines ramming the ship?

Does this mean the hole in the side was not caused by an explosive charge?

Does it mean the hole in the side didn't sink the ship?

Was the bridge crew still assassinated?
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I'm sure that she's not ruling anything out.
 
Reformed Offlian said:
I'm sure that she's not ruling anything out.
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She categorically ruled out the mainstream narrative before she even started. Every other hypothesis gets judged according to a much lower standard. Every other hypothesis only has to clear a bar of pseudo-plausibility so low you have to dig a hole to find it. I say "pseudo-plausibility" because, as you can see, so many of them rely on a comically improbable web of speculation and intrigue.

But what it comes down to is that out of all of this, some story has to actually have happened. And that means necessarily that some of them didn't, regardless of how their various proponents have hyped them up. I'm sure, "I don't rule anything out," sounds like a paragon of open-mindedness to some. But that's the armchair amateur's rule. Real forensic investigations are all about ruling out things according to evidence and parsimony.

Conspiracy theory reasoning is exactly to reject the conventional narrative out of hand and cling to literally every story that isn't the conventional narrative.
 
Axxman300 said:
Lots of great technical information across a broad range of topics from one side of this conversation.

I hate to butt in but it needs to be pointed out that if someone is going to use explosives to sink a ship the size of Estonia they would pack a couple of large trucks with the boom-boom stuff and not risk the crew finding it, or the crew doing their job and reporting the leak allowing the bridge to slow down, and get people to the lifeboats.

I'd also point out that using explosives would be obvious, even to the slower people, and thus throwing out the whole "It was an accident" thing.

And finally, the official team will return to the wreck next year to dive on it, and they will report their initial findings from this summer's survey in a month or so. Point data from a survey is not evidence of anything.
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No, a lorry loaded with explosives would not work because you cannot take your vehicle onto a ferry without proving you are the registered owner or that you have ID and authorisation to drive it abroad. One carload of young people who turned up in their employer's car to board the vessel were denied entry because the driver hadn't realised he needed to get the paperwork from his employer to gain entry on board. Yet having said that, there was one container lorry that was found to have gained entry to the ferry yet it had no registered driver.

An explosive device OTOH is cheap and effective. Semtex is like plasticene in the hand and - like many plastics - only becomes dangerously explosive if it is wired to detonate. So yes, if you were a military agent wanting to send a message to the west to stop smuggling out Russian state secrets, then you use military means which are strategically placed devices, or similar. Your aim is to stop the ship - and your state secrets - from reaching their destination and it true military style you don't just make one attack, you have a follow up one to make darn sure. Just as the German ship carrying civilians and military personnel in Operation Hannibal in 1945 was struck three times by the Soviets, once in the bow, once in the engine room and once in the auxillary quarters so a precise military operation would be used by the elite speznats.

"The first was nicknamed "for the Motherland", the second "for Leningrad", the third "for the Soviet people", and the fourth, which got jammed in the torpedo tubes and had to be dismantled, "for Stalin"."

Marinesko followed the ships to their starboard (seaward) side for two hours before making a daring move to surface his submarine and steer it around Wilhelm Gustloff's stern, to attack it from the port side closer to shore, from which the attack would be less expected. At around 9 pm (CET), Marinesko ordered his crew to launch four torpedoes at Wilhelm Gustloff's port side, about 30 km (16 nmi; 19 mi) offshore, between Großendorf and Leba. The first was nicknamed "for the Motherland", the second "for Leningrad", the third "for the Soviet people", and the fourth, which got jammed in the torpedo tubes and had to be dismantled, "for Stalin".[14] The three torpedoes which were fired successfully all struck Wilhelm Gustloff on her port side. The first torpedo struck the ship's bow, causing the watertight doors to seal off the area which contained quarters where off-duty crew members were sleeping. The second torpedo hit the accommodations for the women's naval auxiliary, located in the ship's drained swimming pool, dislodging the pool tiles at high velocity, which caused heavy casualties; only three of the 373 quartered there survived. The third torpedo was a direct hit on the engine room located amidships, disabling all power and communications.
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wiki

So saying that it could have been done another way is just silly. The Russians were sending a message to Sweden and Estonia and they wanted them to get the message.

Think about ti, a series of three explosions in rapid succession went off at Swedish midnight in international waters and within 48 minutes it was at the bottom of the seabed.

Less than 40 minutes after being struck, Wilhelm Gustloff was lying on her side. She sank bow-first ten minutes later, in 44 m (144 ft) of water.
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ibid
 
Captain_Swoop said:
What evidence do you have for this?

Who placed the device and when?

How big was the device?

Why did the crew not spot the device?

Does this mean you have given up on torpedoes, mines, submarines ramming the ship?

Does this mean the hole in the side was not caused by an explosive charge?

Does it mean the hole in the side didn't sink the ship?

Was the bridge crew still assassinated?
Click to expand...

See photo of unexploded device attached to the bow in the Rockwater videos, as highlighted by Brian Braidwood.

Why would the crew necessarily spot it? How do you know the crew or one or two of the crew were not insiders?
 
whoanellie said:
The video shows that the bow visor was blown off of the Estonia. Haven't you repeatedly argued that the bow visor and car ramp were intact when the Estonia sank?
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I pointed out that Paul Barney is convinced he saw the bow intact as it went down.

Engineers Treu and Sillaste, together with AB Seam Linde, all said the ramp was up. Two passengers appear to have described what would be the car ramp features were it up.

Personally, I believe there is no doubt at all the bow visor and ramp were in poor maintenance condition, with the door ramp held in place by mooring rope as the inner eight locks had long been dodgy and water often seeped in on the port side of the bow visor as it did not align.

When the bow visor fell off is secondary to the fact of what caused it to fall off IMV. Whether it fell off before or after the sinking is a moot point. However, I think there is clear evidence of some kind of explosive device was used at the bow.
 
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