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

[Andy_Ross]

Not only did "the Russians" (TM) not claim responsibility for the sinking..... and not only did they (apparently) sink the ship in such a clandestine and improbable manner that they left no evidence whatsoever of their dastardly methods.......

..... but they magnificently managed to engineer things such that all the (credible, reliable) evidence pointed clearly - and solely - towards the accident having been caused by the bow visor failing due to fatigue and stress.


These GRU/FSB guys really do have a flair for this sort of stuff!

Don't forget the Russians weren't involved at the start of the thread, it was a Swedish sub 'escorting' the ferry that rammed it by accident that sank it.

 

[zooterkin]

And look who the crew member was who made a statement he was at the car ramp at 1:00 when he heard a huge bang which caused the ship to swell up and almost knock him off his feet. This crew member changed his story many times. He was jailed a couple of years later for drug smuggling. The prosecutor wanted eleven years. Just sayin'.

The ship did what now?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

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"."

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.

ibid

Oh, right, the FSB couldn't get a truck bomb onto Estonia because paperwork is beyond their skills.

Why on earth are you comparing a ship torpedoed 3 times with a ship whose bow door broke off?

There were no explosions. There were no suicide commandoes. What good is a "message" that only conspiracy theorists can hear?

 

[Andy_Ross]

You might just as well ask, 'Why did they not:

• send out bomber aircraft
• launch a sky rocket
• drop a team of specialist paratroopers by parachute
• send along a barrage of hang-gliders with AK-rifles

Fact is, it is not easy to bring down a ship unless you have expert military knowledge.

You were claiming the crew opened the bow to dump a burning lorry overboard just a short while ago. What expert military knowledge did that involve?
How about the escorting sub ramming it by mistake? that was certainly 'military' but was it 'expert'?

In your scenario the Russians obviously managed to get a great deal of explosives aboard and place them without detection.
If the ycould do that then why not just drive a bomb aboard in a truck or car?

 

[Andy_Ross]

A timed device doesn't need you to be present.

It needs you to be aboard the ship to plant it and set the timer though.

Any explosives on the bow visor would have to be planted after the ship sailed or the crew would have seen them.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

I'm guessing you consider yourself an expert in 'intelligence studies' having once done an undergrad module on the Baltic States.

An expert? Oh no. I do consider myself to have a greater understanding of intelligence studies than the average joe, which my degree in International Relations and continued reading of the subject provides me.

Again, it wasn't one undergrad module, it was my whole course. My uni decided that since I had decided to do a subject all my modules should be related to that subject, so I didn't take any modules in science or English Lit or anything.

There's a difference of course between having some level of advanced knowledge in a subject and being an expert. I consider myself as having the former. You seem to want us to accept you as the latter despite neither applying to you. Take your multiple page long hissy fit over not being a scientist. Or your latest hilarious attempts to allude to knowledge of the activities of the Russian secret services.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

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.

It was a very long way away from the wreck. It didn't walk there. Evidence for any explosion is very, very far from "clear".

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Compare and contrast to SV Wilhelm Gustloff a German ship blown up by the Soviets with military precision. Then think of the saying, 'All is fair in love and war'.

The Russians had fired two shots, as it were, across the bows of Sweden about smuggling their military and space secrets and as far as they were concerned this continued smuggling was a casus belli. That could be the motivation. And why the KSI/CIA/MI6 decided it best it made the whole thing 'classified'.

What the hell has that got to do with what I wrote about its being a dumb plan?

You're now wittering on about a ship that the Russians torpedoed during the war, carrying enemy troops (as well as a large number of civilians). I see that your love of the phrase "with military precision" persists but it adds nothing to the argument. They used military weapons, because they were the Soviet navy.

Estonia did not get torpedoed.

What was their plan? Plant a little bomb and hope that nobody except the people they needed to "get the message" would realise it was a bomb? How could they do that? Make it too small and it probably wouldn't work. Make it too big and it would be obvious to everyone. In any case, the motive was not to sink one ferry. The motive in your fantasy is to stop smuggling. Do you think the FSB were incapable of thinking of any other way to interdict the smuggling of ex-Soviet tech other than to sink a ship carrying one consignment? Really?

Like I said, at the evil budget meeting where you pitch this plan and ask for the resources, Dr. Evil's finger will be twitching over the button.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Have you considered that if the Russians got a team onto Estonia chasing after some smugglers and a lorry load of high tech booty, they could have more easily thrown the smugglers over the side, then steal the lorry or just abandon it. Whatever.

Do you think the smugglers customers would have failed to "get the message" if they all mysteriously got disappeared into the stormy Baltic that night?

 

[Axxman300]

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"."

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.

ibid

This is one of the dumbest things I've read in this thread, certainly in the top four.

There were no explosions.

The Spetsnaz have access to quality fake documents to just about any European country, so getting a truck bomb on a ferry back in 1994 would not have been much of a problem had they wanted to do something dumb.

The Russians didn't sink the Estonia.

There are hundreds of surveyed shipwrecks with plenty of holes caused by explosives, shells, torpedoes, and mines. The Estonia is not one of them.

Smuggling of Soviet/Russian secret hardware continued after the Estonia sank.

Had there actually been some vital piece of Russian state secrets onboard the Estonia the Russian navy would have intercepted her with surface ships, escorted her to a Russian port, and searched the ship. The resulting public relations fiasco would be more than enough to make the west cool their jets. This is how Russia had acted in the past along with China, North Korea, the UK, and the USA.

 

[Axxman300]

Have you considered that if the Russians got a team onto Estonia chasing after some smugglers and a lorry load of high tech booty, they could have more easily thrown the smugglers over the side, then steal the lorry or just abandon it. Whatever.

Do you think the smugglers customers would have failed to "get the message" if they all mysteriously got disappeared into the stormy Baltic that night?

I mentioned this concept before.

If there had been a Spetsnaz team onboard they would have recovered the stolen gear, and fed the smugglers to the fish. Nobody would have known they were there.

 

[Axxman300]

You might just as well ask, 'Why did they not:

• send out bomber aircraft
• launch a sky rocket
• drop a team of specialist paratroopers by parachute
• send along a barrage of hang-gliders with AK-rifles

Fact is, it is not easy to bring down a ship unless you have expert military knowledge.

Not true.

You can sail your ship at flank speed into a field of icebergs. You can leave a bunch hatches open in a storm, you can sail headlong into a hurricane, you can ignore a lighthouse and sail into rocks, and a bunch of other things which do not require military knowledge of any kind.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Not true.

You can sail your ship at flank speed into a field of icebergs. You can leave a bunch hatches open in a storm, you can sail headlong into a hurricane, you can ignore a lighthouse and sail into rocks, and a bunch of other things which do not require military knowledge of any kind.

I could sink a ship with a spanner.

 

[Vixen]

He didn't suffer blast injuries or deafness. Just sayin' your idea is fantasy.

How do you know? Hearing loss can take years to become apparent.

 

[Vixen]

The ship did what now?

A swell is sudden surge upwards. Linde said this happened when he heard the bang (which in his later statement, he played down and said you'd have to have been 1.5m from the car ramp to have heard it). Yet in the early statement it almost knocked him off his feet, he claimed.

 

[Vixen]

Oh, right, the FSB couldn't get a truck bomb onto Estonia because paperwork is beyond their skills.

Why on earth are you comparing a ship torpedoed 3 times with a ship whose bow door broke off?

There were no explosions. There were no suicide commandoes. What good is a "message" that only conspiracy theorists can hear?

Why would a skilled military operator use a truck bomb? The Russians are not 'amateur hour' jihadis as was the case in USS Cole, when a couple of guys laden with suicide vests rammed a small boat loaded with 700lbs of explosives into it.

There is finesse and there is bull in a chain shop. Do you think the speznats are the latter?

 

[Vixen]

You were claiming the crew opened the bow to dump a burning lorry overboard just a short while ago. What expert military knowledge did that involve?
How about the escorting sub ramming it by mistake? that was certainly 'military' but was it 'expert'?

In your scenario the Russians obviously managed to get a great deal of explosives aboard and place them without detection.
If the ycould do that then why not just drive a bomb aboard in a truck or car?

No, that is not my belief, that was the claim of engineering expert and JAIC investigation team member Harri Ruotsalainen's suggestion. And do you know what? The Estonian government and the Swedish current investigators have taken his suggestion seriously and will be auditing the vehicles on the car deck.

 

[lobosrul5]

I could sink a ship with a spanner.

I'll do you one better... I could sink a ship with water

 

[Vixen]

It needs you to be aboard the ship to plant it and set the timer though.

Any explosives on the bow visor would have to be planted after the ship sailed or the crew would have seen them.

The lifeboats on the Estonia were unlashed early on, so someone was getting ready to leave.

And how do you know one of them did not.

 

[Vixen]

An expert? Oh no. I do consider myself to have a greater understanding of intelligence studies than the average joe, which my degree in International Relations and continued reading of the subject provides me.

Again, it wasn't one undergrad module, it was my whole course. My uni decided that since I had decided to do a subject all my modules should be related to that subject, so I didn't take any modules in science or English Lit or anything.

There's a difference of course between having some level of advanced knowledge in a subject and being an expert. I consider myself as having the former. You seem to want us to accept you as the latter despite neither applying to you. Take your multiple page long hissy fit over not being a scientist. Or your latest hilarious attempts to allude to knowledge of the activities of the Russian secret services.

I have never claimed to be an expert either so your grandstanding is just your blowing hard. Come off your high horse.