Yep, the more distance there is between the explosive and the target, the less effective it is. This is why the 1993 bombing of the World Trade center didn’t do as much damage as they wanted, they couldn’t get it close enough to the structural elements of the building.
Does this photo disprove boat/explosion from underneath theory? (lack of scorch marks, damage)
Wouldn’t the most damaged part be underwater?
That inspection walkway under the road deck sure looks looks like something messed it up. Pressure wave from a blast? But yeah, the part that actually detached from the bridge is underwater, so we can’t see the exact site.
Speclatively, It looks like the concrete piling where the road bed separated may be scorched (compare to the pilings on the left), and where the roadbed enters the water there is a lot of black material around the hole in the roadbed and the underside structure around it. Finally, the concrete in the foreground looks like it’s been hit with shrapnel.
All of that could have other explanations, though.
Perhaps secondary explosions from the tankers.
You would have seen a fuel dispersal event prior to detonation.
Okay, I yake back the ‘under bridge’ theory. In the photo @Walken_After_Midnight posted, you can clearly see the bridge deck is heavily scorched. It’s just not visible from the ‘under deck’ photo.
It’s unfortunate the train bridge wasn’t more severely damaged.
I think the Russians have figured out what happened and they’ll have defenses against a similar attack.
At least they got a section of the road down.
Maybe. Some of the comments on the twitter feeds of the Ukrainian war reporters have some pretty bizarre theories. Obviously it’s speculation, but the guess is that this was done by Wagner and / or the Kadyrovites to put pressure on Putin to purge Shoigu and the top brass of the regular Russian forces. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense twitter feed suggests that Russians of one sort or another are responsible for the attack.
It seems to be really, really hard to learn from history. Vlad is making the same mistake, following the same pattern, and despite what looked like promising early progress, like that other guy, he does not realize that ultimately it is just not possible to be victorious on the Russian Front.
Hmm, a false flag that hurts the military and gives Russia a excuse to retaliate against Ukraine .
Sounds like something tbe Wagner group would do.
This article seems to confirm the 182,000 balls in one of the new HIMARS warheads. There is also some video of testing. It looks pretty damn brutal.
one reason Putin will not axe Shoigu yet is - he is being built up as the main scapegoat (to deflect blame away from P. )
… but if Shoigu falls out of a window today, who will be responsible for next week’s (and ongoing) shitshow? … so there is this weird scenario that Putin cannot kill the “guilty” guy, as ongoing screwups will show that Shogi-bear was not the culprit.
quite possible - but that requires additional resources that will be sypohned away from the war effort … so the more bridges/airfields/powerstations the Ukr. attack, the thinner the Ru. will have to spread themselves.
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also:
I am no expert on that stuff, but doesnt some serious assessment of that structure take days/weeks? … any firfighter here with experiences concerning structural heat damage?
I am aware that those bridges are “overdesigned” - but I’d like to know (or hear a guess) how much weaker the structure is now (compared to yesterday’s 100%)
The hypothesis is that Kadyrov and Prigozhin seem to be of the belief that if only they were in charge of the whole show that there wouldn’t be any more screw ups or shitshows.
Whether they mean this or not, the constatant harping on particular generals assumes that the Russian military is fundamentally competent, just badly led. Based on all we’ve seen in six months, that’ll just not true, in my armchair opinion.
make both of them bosses of the war (eastern and southern front) … w/out access to nukes … and pretty soon both will be floating face-down in the Dniepr (figuratively speaking)
rinse-repeat … this way Putin might be able to get rid of any “new leadership” in russia
sports analogy: if a football team is royally screwed, the only way out is changing the coach … you cant really change/swap the whole team of 20+ players.
The aerial view shows the bridge is broken in 2. So whatever did it blew it completely apart.
I think it’s important to emphasize again that this was Putin’s pet bridge project and Ukraine severely damaged it on his birthday. It’s a huge psychological blow to his image.
It appears no section of the road deck was completely severed itself by blast effect.
What likely happened is the section where the blast occurred deformed downward from the force. This likely pulled the supports to the east and west to cant inward. So at least 3 sections of the road deck were under enormous stress. It appears the connectors for the road deck failed at multiple points. It would be somewhat random which end will fail first. But then you also have the rebound energy slamming back on the connectors that did not initially shear breaking more connectors. Explains the somewhat random falling of deck sections.
There may be large cracks in the concrete of the supports now, below the surface. Could drastically shorten the lifespan of that section of the bridge. But may be good enough for now.
