Cont: The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-opened Part III

[JesseCuster]

The point being made is that professionals know that to make an effect attack you need to back it up in case the first attempt doesn't quite come off.

And what about all the sabotage and terror attacks that don't involve having a "backup" in case the first attempt doesn't quite come off? Is it a general principle that saboteurs and terrorists use multiple bomb attacks in case something goes wrong, regardless of the situation, e.g. demolition charges being used to sink a passenger ship is absolutely nothing like a ranged attack using improvised mortars, so why would the tactics be the same?

What I love about this is that Vixen is inventing a narrative to fit her idea of the "series of explosives", yet has castigated others for anything that looks like speculation or doesn't involve "recorded facts".

Who are you trying to fool her Vixen? Nobody believes that you only go in for recorded facts, that you don't believe in discussing hypotheticals, that your posts are well sourced, referenced and cited, that you're a cool and calculated researcher, etc. Just reading the thread will absolve anyone of those ideas.

 

[LondonJohn]

At this point I'll admit to the very real possibility that I was wildly wrong about the diameter of the bolt. The JAIC report does agree with Heiwa/Vixen, although the 78mm degree of wear found in similar bolts then makes no sense.

But as I said: the condition of the bolt wasn't at issue here, wrt the point of failure of the bottom lock.

The bottom lock failed because of the failure of the two lugs (which the bolt was designed to pass through) that were the part of the lock that was attached (welded) to the forepeak deck of the ship.

Those two ship-side lugs had burst open - meaning that even with the bolt in its fully-extended position, the bow visor was no longer connected to the ship at that bottom point.

This was readily visible to investigators, as soon as they started examining the wreck. The mode of failure was also readily apparent, from the visual condition of the lugs.

But in order to have raised the relevant evidence to the surface - in the form of those two broken lugs - investigators would have had to cut out the section of the forepeak deck to which the lugs had been welded, and raise the deck section plus the two broken-open lugs. And even then, it wouldn't have enabled them to learn significantly more than they already knew.

 

[JesseCuster]

Uhm, it's quite a bit more than just "an error" to believe that to get from grams to kilograms one should divide by 10.

It certainly puts into perspective her bizarre attempt at calculating kinetic energy earlier in the thread, which she attempted to play off as just having a joke. It's not the first time she's pulled some nonsensical 'calculations' out of nowhere.

 

[LondonJohn]

And what about all the sabotage and terror attacks that don't involve having a "backup" in case the first attempt doesn't quite come off? Is it a general principle that saboteurs and terrorists use multiple bomb attacks in case something goes wrong, regardless of the situation, e.g. demolition charges being used to sink a passenger ship is absolutely nothing like a ranged attack using improvised mortars, so why would the tactics be the same?

What I love about this is that Vixen is inventing a narrative to fit her idea of the "series of explosives", yet has castigated others for anything that looks like speculation or doesn't involve "recorded facts".

Who are you trying to fool her Vixen? Nobody believes that you only go in for recorded facts, that you don't believe in discussing hypotheticals, that your posts are well sourced, referenced and cited, that you're a cool and calculated researcher, etc. Just reading the thread will absolve anyone of those ideas.

Yes. Just off the top of my head, for example, when the IRA bombed the Grand Hotel in Brighton in an attempt to kill then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and other leading Government members, I well remember that they set off two or three different bombs in order to maximise the chance of achieving their objective.


Not.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The point being made is that professionals know that to make an effect attack you need to back it up in case the first attempt doesn't quite come off.

But they didn't back up the mortar attack, they just fired the mortar.

What definition of 'back up' are you using?

 

[Andy_Ross]

At this point I'll admit to the very real possibility that I was wildly wrong about the diameter of the bolt. The JAIC report does agree with Heiwa/Vixen, although the 78mm degree of wear found in similar bolts then makes no sense.

It depends on the size and age of the ship.

From the report Chapter 3 section 3.3 Bow Visor and Ramp installation

The Bureau Veritas rules valid at the time had no details regarding procedures for calculating sea loads on the bow visor installation. It was stated in general wording that doors should be firmly secured and that structural reinforcements should be made to attachment points of cleats, hinges and jacks. The general wording in the rules also specified that the scantlings of the visor structure should be equivalent to that of the hull itself.
The vertical and longitudinal sea loads to which the bow visor could be exposed were calculated separately by the yard and by the von Tell company. The Bureau Veritas rules gave no detailed guidance for such calculations.
The yard therefore used for this purpose nominal “pressure heights” given by Bureau Veritas in a note (Note Documentaire BM2, 5.4.1976), originally issued as general guidance for determining the loads on the bows of large ships.
The von Tell company used nominal pressure heads per unit of projected area specified in the rules of Lloyd's Register of Shipping, valid at the time. It has not been possible to verify in detail what exchange of information on this issue took place between the yard and the supplier prior to the detailed design of the von Tell equipment.

The complete bow ramp and the operating and locking devices for the visor as well as the aft ramps and the car platforms were designed and delivered by an independent company, von Tell AB, an established supplier of cargo handling equipment and systems. The design was based on a detailed specification by the shipyard. Von Tell AB used a subcontractor, Grimmereds Verkstads AB, for manufacturing complete sets of components for the ramps, the car platforms and the visor locking devices. The routine contacts between the yard and the supplier were via von Tell GmbH, a subsidiary of von Tell AB. Incorporation of the system into the ship and manufacture of the attachment structure were shipyard work.

 

[whoanellie]

OK, a kilogram is a thousand grams, my mistake.

Once again Vixen, an accountant and a scientist, is baffled by numbers.

 

[LondonJohn]

Once again Vixen, an accountant and a scientist, is baffled by numbers.

Yes.

A case of "don't give up the day job"

 

[Andy_Ross]

No, you can divide the result by 6.6.

Where did you get "10" from? Do you know how to do that calculation?


And........

Do you actually know how the bottom lock failed, Vixen? And therefore which parts would have been relevant from a salvage perspective?

(Hint: it had nothing to do with the bolt itself)

According to the report

The locking bolt remained attached to the actuating cylinder piston rod, which was bent. The remains of the attachment lugs and the locking bolt were removed from the wreck during the diving operation for close investigation.

So it wasn't just the bolt that was recovered as it was still attached to the actuating cylinder piston rod.
It weighed considerably more than Vixen is trying to imply.

Also in the report

It was noted that the weld beads between the lugs and the bolt housing and the support bushing respectively had failed partly in the bead itself and partly in the fusion zones. The steel plate of the lugs had failed in their thinnest sections, generally in a forward-upward direction. The two lugs for the bolt housing were twisted towards the port side.
When the locking bolt was removed from the actuator piston rod, the actuator was in fully extended, i.e. locked, position. The piston rod was bent upwards, away from the forepeak deck. The hydraulic hoses were connected. The bolt was checked for wear and deformation. The bolt was straight. The general diameter of the bolt was about 78 mm. Only a slight variation in diameter was measured at the contact area between the bolt and the visor lug. No other damage to the bolt was noted.

So contrary to Vixens claim that it wasn't inspected we see that it inspected and the bolt itself was found to be in good condition.
It wasn't the bolt that was the problem it was the welds securing the whole assembly that failed.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

The atlantic lock bolt had a diameter of 78mm - 79mm, not centimetres, so you can divide your result by ten.

If the error was in thinking a bar's diameter was in cm rather than mm then the error in its mass would be a factor of one hundred, not ten. As the error seems to be taking the diameter to have been 200mm rather than 78-79mm then the error would be about 6.5, and still not ten.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

The point being made is that professionals know that to make an effect attack you need to back it up in case the first attempt doesn't quite come off.

Professionals would know if a first charge didn't do the job then a second charge, placed close enough to do the same job, would be destroyed by the first detonation.

Professionals would know if there was any doubt that the first charge was big enough to do the job then you needed to set a bigger charge to make sure, not two the same size because again the first would destroy or disrupt the second.

Professionals would know if you set too small a charge then there's a risk it won't break the lock and the ship will survive. If it gets back to port it will be abundantly clear it was attempted sabotage and not an accident.

Professionals would know setting a big enough charge to be absolutely certain of success would also leave damage that would be obvious to divers who later inspected the wreck so in the end there was no point at all in trying to make the sinking look like an accident.

Professionals would know, as Captain Swoop described long ago, that there are easier and more certain ways to sabotage a ship with strategically placed explosives, and so they would do that instead.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

When watching the Rockwater tapes, Braidwood spotted the 'device'-looking package. Mysteriously, this image was removed from a later tape.

Mysteriously, you seem to have pictures of the mysteriously removed video of the package. Which looks like cardboard wrapped in tape. Not at all clear what aspect of it is "device-looking".

 

[Jack by the hedge]

It's covered in waxed material that such explosives are usually packaged in.

How can you tell?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

... ISTM that whoever was responsible - if it was sabotage - was making it an absolute certainty that the vessel would halt there by hook or by crook.

Yet you also believe they set extra explosives which did not go off. And you have previously avoided the idea that the saboteurs were actually aboard on a suicide mission. So how would they know whether to detonate their extra bombs or not?

How for that matter would they be sure that the loosened visor would pull the ramp open at the top and not be pushed up and away by the next wave? If the ramp had remained closed and undamaged, the ship might have survived.

How is that "absolute certainty"? It obviously isn't. If you want the ship to sink with absolute certainty by hook or by crook you don't mess around trying to cause damage that might be survivable.

 

[JayUtah]

Remember: we are talking about the 78mm - 79mm in diameter bolt, not the entire lock.



Heiwa

So is Anders Björkman somehow magically back to being an authority again?

 

[JesseCuster]

What is it that Vixen is claiming re the bow visor?

On the one hand she's spinning a yarn about sabotage and detonation charges damaging the bow visor which caused it to fail and come off and was a causative factor in the sinking.

On the other hand she's spinning a yarn about how no-one saw the bow visor actually failing and opening or falling off, how engineers saw things on monitors that meant it didn't actually fail, how if it did fail the ingress of water wouldn't be enough to sink the ship (it would just trickle in because of something to do with the motion of the ship up and down in the water, I can't remember the claim) and thus a failure of the bow visor wasn't a causative factor.

It's fun to see her switch gears casually from telling us about witnesses that show the bow visor didn't actually fail and wasn't the cause of the sinking, and then telling us about multiple detonation charges being used to destroy the lock and thus sinking the ship.

 

[Mojo]

Professionals would know if a first charge didn't do the job then a second charge, placed close enough to do the same job, would be destroyed by the first detonation.

Professionals would know if there was any doubt that the first charge was big enough to do the job then you needed to set a bigger charge to make sure, not two the same size because again the first would destroy or disrupt the second.

Professionals would know if you set too small a charge then there's a risk it won't break the lock and the ship will survive. If it gets back to port it will be abundantly clear it was attempted sabotage and not an accident.

Professionals would know setting a big enough charge to be absolutely certain of success would also leave damage that would be obvious to divers who later inspected the wreck so in the end there was no point at all in trying to make the sinking look like an accident.

Professionals would know, as Captain Swoop described long ago, that there are easier and more certain ways to sabotage a ship with strategically placed explosives, and so they would do that instead.

Perhaps it was professionals covering their tracks by looking like amateurs.

 

[Mojo]

What is it that Vixen is claiming re the bow visor?

On the one hand she's spinning a yarn about sabotage and detonation charges damaging the bow visor which caused it to fail and come off and was a causative factor in the sinking.

On the other hand she's spinning a yarn about how no-one saw the bow visor actually failing and opening or falling off, how engineers saw things on monitors that meant it didn't actually fail, how if it did fail the ingress of water wouldn't be enough to sink the ship (it would just trickle in because of something to do with the motion of the ship up and down in the water, I can't remember the claim) and thus a failure of the bow visor wasn't a causative factor.

At another point the bow was being dissolved by radioactive waste, wasn’t it?

 

[GlennB]

What is it that Vixen is claiming re the bow visor?

On the one hand she's spinning a yarn about sabotage and detonation charges damaging the bow visor which caused it to fail and come off and was a causative factor in the sinking.

On the other hand she's spinning a yarn about how no-one saw the bow visor actually failing and opening or falling off, how engineers saw things on monitors that meant it didn't actually fail, how if it did fail the ingress of water wouldn't be enough to sink the ship (it would just trickle in because of something to do with the motion of the ship up and down in the water, I can't remember the claim) and thus a failure of the bow visor wasn't a causative factor.

It's fun to see her switch gears casually from telling us about witnesses that show the bow visor didn't actually fail and wasn't the cause of the sinking, and then telling us about multiple detonation charges being used to destroy the lock and thus sinking the ship.

You missed out the mass of radioactive waste that burned a hole through the bow.

ninja'd

 

[JesseCuster]

At another point the bow was being dissolved by radioactive waste, wasn’t it?

Ha. I'd forgotten that. Also, the source of that "theory" was a parody website, which she desperately tried to defend her use of..

It's astonishing how often Vixen throws out these weird scenarios, makes an attempt to defend them as plausible and how various journalists, eyewitnesses, experts, etc. confirm the scenario, only for it to be forgotten as some new mutually exclusive fantasy scenario takes its place.

What happened to the large object moving at 2-4 knots and which weighed 1,000 to 5,000Kg colliding with the Estonia?

Remember when Vixen said that the most likely cause of the sinking of the Estonia was an accidental collision with an escorting British or Swedish submarine? I wonder what the half-life of these hypotheses are.