The sinking of MS Estonia: Case Reopened Part VII

JayUtah said:
What age could you be pressed at? :D
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Any age where you looked big and strong enough to be useful.

Pressed men were rarely the actual sailors, who were highly skilled and well paid. Pressed men tended to be the gun crews, a ship of the line needed hundreds of gunners.
 
Vixen said:
What rot. If Dr. Dölling + Dr. Neubert GmbH run a successful forensic metallurgy lab of Clausthal- Zellerfeld nr Braunswig, of course they are going to be highly qualified, it goes without saying.
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I never said they weren't. What point do you think i was making, exactly?
Vixen said:
So what is your title? 'Mr.' I am guessing...?
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Rev.
 
JayUtah said:
You linked us to this source https://www.estoniaferrydisaster.net/pdf/Enclosure05.pdf which lists external reports in its table of contents but does not actually supply the reports or the briefs that prompted them. You have admitted as much in more than one post in this thread.

I previously discussed the problems associated with this the last time we discussed Braidwood's report in depth. Perhaps you would like to summarize for the group what that discussion said.
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I don't think Braidwood's and Fellows' full report is available on line. I have the full hard copies of the laboratory reports as per a paperback book. I have read it. You have not. Which of us is better placed to assess the findings?
 
JayUtah said:
I run a successful engineering company, Vixen. Yet you have no problem ignoring the notion that I may be highly qualified, and therefore in a position to offer learned criticism of the work of other practitioners in my field. And in fact I have done so in this case. You steadfastly ignore that.
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But you cannot criticise a report you have never seen.
 
Vixen said:
I don't think Braidwood's and Fellows' full report is available on line. I have the full hard copies of the laboratory reports as per a paperback book. I have read it. You have not. Which of us is better placed to assess the findings?
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Where can we get a copy?
 
Vixen said:
I don't think Braidwood's and Fellows' full report is available on line. I have the full hard copies of the laboratory reports as per a paperback book. I have read it. You have not. Which of us is better placed to assess the findings?
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Well that's a good question, isn't it? You're not even remotely qualified to understand metallurgy reports. And the last time we had this discussion, you admitted as much.

But you claim to have the lab reports in a secondary source. Since you're so fond of uploading photos to your Flickr account, I expect to see photos of the reports you say you have. Let me know when the scan/photos are ready.

To that point, why do you think the PDF you wanted us to comment on cuts off the primary sources? Why must we be satisfied with Braidwood's summary?
 
Vixen said:
But you cannot criticise a report you have never seen.
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Except I can, and have, and we had a discussion about that which ended with you disavowing any expertise in metallurgy.

See, before the Braidwood report cuts off at page 16 and leaves out the primary material, Braidwood summarizes each report, quotes from it, and draws conclusions.

For example, on the last page Braidwood notes that the laboratory looked for three markers of explosives: hardening, laminating, and twinning. When explosives go off, they hammer metal and harden it much the same way cold-rolling and hammering do in production processes. And things between the explosives and the metal get slammed into the metal so hard that it welds those intervening elements to it, in a process we sometimes employ purposely. And finally, certain shifts in crystals happen at a microscopic level when the metal is subject to a high strain rate.

Curiously, Braidwood notes that of the markers sought, only twinning was observed. Nevertheless he concludes that this must still indicate the use of explosives.

I asked you this before, when we discussed Braidwood's findings, and you never came up with the answer: What also causes twinning? The answer is fatigue. So the one remaining marker for explosives studied by the lab has a more prosaic explanation that just happens to fit with the JAIC findings. But Braidwood leaves that out, and the "German group of experts" leaves out the primary material that lets us check up on Braidwood's interpretation.

So to answer the question as to who is more competent to evaluate the lab findings, the answer is still clearly me. And I'm still clearly more competent than Braidwood.
 
GlennB said:
Vixen will provide copies here, I have no doubt.
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I assume by "a paperback book" she means Drew Wilson's The Hole. That means I have go up into the attic to dredge up my copy again. I don't recall Braidwood's full report with all the lab report appendices being printed there. But I haven't looked at that book for two years, so my recollection might be foggy.
 
Again, the problem with this current line of failed argument is we now have raised both the bow visor and the bow ramp, and neither shows signs of shape-charges being used. Also, no signs of eel damage.


The larger issue is the stupidity of the claim of explosives being used to sink Estonia. Why sink the ship at all? If the goal was to stop Soviet-era technology stowed on the ship, why not intercept it before it reached the port? No Spetsnaz team is just walking around with shape charges in their pockets, which means they would have to requisition said charges - in advance - and then get onboard the ship before it sailed, but not seize the truck as it entered the port, and arrested, or shot, or threw the driver out of a nearby high-rise building. Believe it or not, people being pulled from their vehicles, and beaten senseless by authorities was a common sight in the former eastern block countries in the 1990s.

And then we're forced to lower our IQs to believe that a good demo guy wouldn't simply place explosive charges in the mystery truck, and then blow it up once it reached port. Or even better, follow the truck to its destination, and detonate the charges there.

My problem with the explosives nonsense is its incompetence on every functional level.
 
Axxman300 said:
My problem with the explosives nonsense is its incompetence on every functional level.
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Indeed. While Braidwood et al. are straining at gnats, the camel they swallow is the fact that there are much more effective ways of using hand-placed explosives to sink a ship, and to do so in a way that would be almost impossible for an investigative board later to detect. Shaped charges on any of the sea chest fittings in the engineering spaces would be devastating to the ship. The flooding would be near impossible to contain or pump away. The damage would be localized to the engine spaces of the wreck, which are notoriously difficult to dive on in most wrecks, and even if the damage could be reached by inspection, it would look not dissimilar from an accidental fitting failure.

It's silly to suppose that someone who wanted to sink a ship, and could do so only by explosives, and had access to the ship to place explosive charges would use large-scale charges (i.e., so as to produce the high strain rates imagined by Braidwood) and place them above the waterline on a piece of the ship easily inspected in undersea wreckage. World's stupidest saboteurs.

Keep in mind Braidwood worked alongside the "German group of experts" whose job it was to speculate about alternative causes for the sinking. Fatigued and overloaded structure couldn't be the cause, they ascertain. So they scurry about doing all this lab work allegedly pointing to explosive charges. But at least in one case all they were able to come up with is metallurgical evidence of fatigue, which they then spun vigorously to conclude was still explosives.
 
I posted the same just yesterday and several times in previous chapters

I would choose the engine and generator through hull pipes. When they are blown machinery is actively pumping thousands of litres a minute in to the ship.
I would add in the outflow from the pumps to that so any attempt to pump woul add to the problem.

Far less explosive needed than trying to blow bows off or try to blow holes in the hull plating.
 
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