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

[Jack by the hedge]

... So to claim that if Linde had been near the car ramp when he heard a bang that knocked him off his feet due to the consequent sea swell '...

LOL. "due to the consequent sea swell"? That wasn't in your story before.

So now the ship lurching wasn't a direct consequence of the bomb. The consequence was a sea swell and that caused the ship to lurch. How does that work?

Okay, I guess "subsequent" is what you had in mind. Not what you said before, but a step towards reality.

 

[Vixen]

Astonishing crap. Mig welding reaches 1650°C and arc welding much higher. Mig welding is a DIY/hobbyist activity for some.

On a ship, really? In the middle of the sea, when you need a constant power supply?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

To even get to temperatures above 700°C artificially you need to be in a laboratory. There is no way 'welding' would cause the type of deformation as seen here. Professor Westermann was being purely descriptive and was not giving an opinion as all she did was microscopically examine the bow visor for deformations and its type.

A huge overclaim based on nothing. You simply don't know what sample she examined microscopically and you definitely don't know what temperatures are involved in welding. It's not the same thing as soldering. You blithely mix and match fragments of what you've read as if hull plate deformations on the scale of tens of centimetres were something you would examine with a microscope.

 

[Vixen]

LOL. "due to the consequent sea swell"? That wasn't in your story before.

So now the ship lurching wasn't a direct consequence of the bomb. The consequence was a sea swell and that caused the ship to lurch. How does that work?

Okay, I guess "subsequent" is what you had in mind. Not what you said before, but a step towards reality.

Yes, it was mentioned before. See video of cargo boat being cut in half because of a swell. Obviously, in this case, this would have been an artificially induced swell from the explosion rather than a naturally occurring one.

(That's if we assume Linde is not lying. However, his description seems to be by someone who has experience of such an event.)

 

[GlennB]

On a ship, really? In the middle of the sea, when you need a constant power supply?

It illustrates the point. Plumbers' blowtorches burn hotter than the 700C you claimed and are entirely portable. Much more powerful/hotter devices are also portable. Please stop talking such palpable bilge.

eta:

Candle flame ≈1,100 °C (≈2,012 °F) [majority]; hot spots may be 1,300–1,400 °C (2,372–2,552 °F)
Propane blowtorch 1,200–1,700 °C (2,192–3,092 °F)

wiki

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Re civilian collateral: you saw at Salisbury recently, the Russians had no problem putting he lives of 250,000 people at risk just to target one guy and his daughter.

In WWII it had no problem bringing down the Swedish merchant ship Hansa even though it had been painted white to convey it was non-military (the Soviet motivation was to stop iron ore from reaching Germany).

In the first case the target was Skripal and the message was unmistakeable. In the second case the target was the ship (although it was neutral and not a freighter at all) and there wasn't any message, they were at war and they screwed up.

In the Estonia case there was no message and no target, at least no target that couldn't have been dealt with in a less dunderheaded and more effective way.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

On a ship, really? In the middle of the sea, when you need a constant power supply?

What are you talking about? Do you imagine people are suggesting the ship was sabotaged by some phantom welder? The Atlantic lock area had a history of being welded and rewelded. That will most certainly leave its traces in the metal.

 

[Kid Eager]

To even get to temperatures above 700°C artificially you need to be in a laboratory. There is no way 'welding' would cause the type of deformation as seen here. Professor Westermann was being purely descriptive and was not giving an opinion as all she did was microscopically examine the bow visor for deformations and its type.

1. So is that a yes or a no? Did Professor Westermann say anything about explosives?
2. The rest of your comment is a strange rampage off the path into who knows where, which I can only conclude is a deliberate deflection. No claim exists that welding caused the deformation especially given that the deformation and temp affected areas don’t overlap, temperatures above 700c are trivially easy to produce, and she was giving an opinion.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Yes, it was mentioned before. See video of cargo boat being cut in half because of a swell. Obviously, in this case, this would have been an artificially induced swell from the explosion rather than a naturally occurring one.

(That's if we assume Linde is not lying. However, his description seems to be by someone who has experience of such an event.)

OMG you are actually suggesting a bomb inside the ship made the sea heave and that made the ship lurch and that made the guy standing a few metres from the bomb stagger.

Wow. I hardly know where to begin.

 

[Andy_Ross]

This is talking about people directly in the line of the blast. For example, SS Kursk. I've been within 200 metres of an Oxford Street IRA bomb. It didn't cause physical injury. I don't believe anything AB Linde says anyway.

An explosion in a ship's compartment is not the same as being 200 yards away from a bomb in the open.

 

[Andy_Ross]

They had enough of that stuff to kill >250,000 people. Highly dangerous act. They knew it would get world wide publicity. 'Ex-Russian spies, we are watching you!'

They could just as easily have simply shot the guy or stabbed him with an umbrella but no, this was a statement.

If they wanted the publicity to 'send a message' to the worlds governments over weapon smuggling wouldn't they have similarly made it obvious that the ship had been sunk rather than making it look like a faulty part?

 

[Andy_Ross]

I saw Led Zeppelin at Earls Court and immediately had hearing problems after the concert. Everyone sounded like Donald Duck and it was like this for three days, when I thought I had gone deaf. My ear specialist doctor laughed and reassured me that, no, no, Deep Purple were the loudest.

But seriously, the volume of any blast depends on the amount of explosive. Builders use explosives all the time. Here in Finland you can openly buy the stuff in buckets. So to claim that if Linde had been near the car ramp when he heard a bang that knocked him off his feet due to the consequent sea swell 'He would have been deafened', ain't necessarily so.

If the bang was big enough to knock him off his feet in a closed space he would have suffered more than a bit of deafness.

You have not the slightest idea of the effect of blast injury in a closed space.

 

[Andy_Ross]

To even get to temperatures above 700°C artificially you need to be in a laboratory. There is no way 'welding' would cause the type of deformation as seen here. Professor Westermann was being purely descriptive and was not giving an opinion as all she did was microscopically examine the bow visor for deformations and its type.

Arc Welding produces around 6000-8000 degrees Celsius.
Oxy Acetylene gas welding produces temperatures around about 3,200 degrees Celsius.

Welding steel requires it to be heated above 1500 degrees to melt the parts or it won't work.

Welding did not cause the deformation.

 

[Steve]

If the bang was big enough to knock him off his feet in a closed space he would have suffered more than a bit of deafness.

You have not the slightest idea of the effect of blast injury in a closed space.

Y'know, there is an awful lot of "saw it in a movie" in this thread.

 

[Andy_Ross]

On a ship, really? In the middle of the sea, when you need a constant power supply?

Who says they were welding 'in the middle of the sea'?
All the parts of the ship not held together with bolts and rivets were welded together.
You yourself say the crew of the ship had made modifications to the locking mechanism and we know that parts had been replaced in the past.
As for power supply, why would you think a ship the size of the Estonia couldn't produce enough electricity to power an arc welder?
Gas welding doesn't need any external power.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Yes, it was mentioned before. See video of cargo boat being cut in half because of a swell. Obviously, in this case, this would have been an artificially induced swell from the explosion rather than a naturally occurring one.

(That's if we assume Linde is not lying. However, his description seems to be by someone who has experience of such an event.)

How big was the charge? To lift a ship enough to knock people off their feet would have needed a huge charge!

Here is film of a JSM hitting a ship in a test firing. Onboard camera shows the ship shakes but no large movement of the hull.

Look at the size of the blast!




Here is a US Navy firing exercise, an old ship is hit with several types of missile. notice the size of the blast.
Only the torpedo at the end makes the ship move an appreciable amount. Look at the blast and extent of the damage.

 

[Vixen]

It illustrates the point. Plumbers' blowtorches burn hotter than the 700C you claimed and are entirely portable. Much more powerful/hotter devices are also portable. Please stop talking such palpable bilge.

eta:

Candle flame ≈1,100 °C (≈2,012 °F) [majority]; hot spots may be 1,300–1,400 °C (2,372–2,552 °F)
Propane blowtorch 1,200–1,700 °C (2,192–3,092 °F)

wiki

That is completely irrelevant. I was quoting the Braidwood laboratory report from Clausthal-Zellerfeld, an independent forensic laboratory, who report the deformation on the metal they examined was consistent with a detonation or a temperature over 700°C. The fact that you know of something that reaches this temperature is a non-sequitur.

Does a mig welder product deformations consistent with a detonation?

 

[Vixen]

In the first case the target was Skripal and the message was unmistakeable. In the second case the target was the ship (although it was neutral and not a freighter at all) and there wasn't any message, they were at war and they screwed up.

In the Estonia case there was no message and no target, at least no target that couldn't have been dealt with in a less dunderheaded and more effective way.

Utter nonsense! The Soviets categorically denied they torpedoed the Hansa in Oct 1944. So you are wrong to claim that their attitude was 'It's OK, it's a war!' It took Russia forty-eight years to admit it was their submarine that had sunk the Hansa. Sweden was a totally neutral country, BTW. The USSR did not 'target' the Hansa. It just lay in wait skulking around the seabed and probably mistook it for another ship.

So you reckon that if a sovereign state discovers/is tipped off their defence and space secrets are being smuggled to a foreign hostile power, it should just go to that foreign country, bluff its way on board the offending transport and 'throw the smugglers overboard'?

Yes, that would really work and make it stop_NOT!

 

[Vixen]

1. So is that a yes or a no? Did Professor Westermann say anything about explosives?
2. The rest of your comment is a strange rampage off the path into who knows where, which I can only conclude is a deliberate deflection. No claim exists that welding caused the deformation especially given that the deformation and temp affected areas don’t overlap, temperatures above 700c are trivially easy to produce, and she was giving an opinion.

All Westermann was tasked with doing was to analyse the sample metal from the bow visor. It is not her job to declare whether the deformations she discovered were caused by a detonation or not. In any case, any detonation may well have been caused by the Swedish Navy or another hundred and one scenarios. It is for the investigators to rule out the various scenarios, not a humble professor of Metallurgy and Material Science.

 

[Vixen]

OMG you are actually suggesting a bomb inside the ship made the sea heave and that made the ship lurch and that made the guy standing a few metres from the bomb stagger.

Wow. I hardly know where to begin.

No. If the explosive device was on the bow visor it would be outwith the car deck not inside it.