Even a passive sonar array would be unlikely to detect a low speed battery powered munition. Which probably exist. The risk of those is your target moving/guiding it for long enough (currents could mess up a programmed route) but that seems like a solvable problem (even though I do not know how to solve it)
But yes RoV from the rear of a ship seems like the most obvious answer. But you could also maybe just drop a charge over the side and let it sink. Put a long enough wire from it to your ship and steer it to its target. You wouldn’t even need a motor.
Contact queuing on the Kazakh border for the second day says that locals have a business where they get two cars in the queue and then let people cut in between them. Selling spots for $500 and can do as many as they want. "So you get why I've been here two days," he says.
Safe to assume Britain has the SAS enroute to begin enforcing their one true red line.
Another interesting fact about this is how no one is talking about any sort of sonar data from the area. A major underwater gas pipeline didn't have sonar surveillance nearby? Really?
Absolute silence so far - from all the governments involved. Siesmic data you can't hide because it travels too far, but really? Nothing? When we have a whole lot of data for Unexplained Sounds under the ocean?
The big detail of course is sonar capabilities tend to be somewhere between secret and mega-fucking-secret, but in that region, around a major strategic asset, the idea that there isn't a lot of data or what went on is completely implausible.
For sonar you need a sonar. They give you a very limited view of sonic reflections in a specific area. So for finding a pipeline, you move the sonar around until you see it’s reflection.
It would take a lot of time to sonar map the Baltic and you couldn’t see anything not directly underneath your ship.
Mostly intelligence gathering uses listening buoys. These can hear engines and noise. But the Baltic is busy and narrow in spots and noisy and so I’m sure there’s a limit to which noises can be filtered out.
Using an ROV from the back of a ship won’t have stood out much. If a ship spoofs its GPS transponder there’d be no sign of them having been there.
Here’s the current marine traffic map of the Baltic:
We are very, very good at picking out individual sounds from listening buoys, and there's been a lot of work recently on improving those sorts of systems. Detecting and classifying commercial traffic is table stakes there - what you have is a big obvious event which will have made a lot of noise, which perfectly timestamps when you walk backwards to reconstruct it.
Sure, going back over the recordings. Maybe there’s even a live analysis done checking motor sounds against gps tracking. Maybe it flags weird machine noises like ROV impellers.
But it’s not as if the sea, let alone the sea floor, is as monitored as say a city with linked security camera systems.
Maybe the US hears a lot more, but they don’t seem to share it.
I know several NATO countries fly drones or small planes to keep tabs on shipping (to spot pollution and drug smuggling). So I think the expectations of people regarding what would have been ‘seen’ are perhaps a bit optimistic.
At the same time, NATO is doing exercises in the Baltic, so I think a Russian submarine would have been spotted.
Again, no info means no info.
well according to that post both the pipelines are just going to fully empty out
i don't know much about pipeline construction but it sure seems like a bad design that the failure state due to rupture appears to be "idk empty entire contents into the ocean i guess"
well according to that post both the pipelines are just going to fully empty out
i don't know much about pipeline construction but it sure seems like a bad design that the failure state due to rupture appears to be "idk empty entire contents into the ocean i guess"
Ain't nobody paying for environmental safety unless they are made to. Ever.
well according to that post both the pipelines are just going to fully empty out
i don't know much about pipeline construction but it sure seems like a bad design that the failure state due to rupture appears to be "idk empty entire contents into the ocean i guess"
I think any sort of remote controlled valve underwater would introduce a point of failure rather than add much to the safety.
But on to the real meat and potatoes; this is now a fait accompli, and so much the better. Will it actually sway the German attitude regarding future trade relations with Russia?
That’s the more interesting question. Going to start reading the German papers again…
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
So we talking about the gas pipeline because it was your banker-controlled government that did it.
Hello, brand new person. This is not up to the standard of posting we expect around here.
- Who is the "your" to whom you are referring, and what country do you purport to be from?
- What do you imagine that bankers have to do with anything? That word has certain very specific connotations. You don't get to just throw it out there.
- Do you have any sources to cite or lines or argument to make? A one-sentence declarative post doesn't cut it.
And, uh, welcome to the PA forums.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
well according to that post both the pipelines are just going to fully empty out
i don't know much about pipeline construction but it sure seems like a bad design that the failure state due to rupture appears to be "idk empty entire contents into the ocean i guess"
I think any sort of remote controlled valve underwater would introduce a point of failure rather than add much to the safety.
But on to the real meat and potatoes; this is now a fait accompli, and so much the better. Will it actually sway the German attitude regarding future trade relations with Russia?
That’s the more interesting question. Going to start reading the German papers again…
German government has been busy to find replacements for Russian gas for months and last week Scholz was visiting several countries to make deals for LNG deliveries. All upstanding and way more ethical than Russia of course. Let's see: Katar, hmmm, Emirates, hmmmmmm, Saudi Arabia, hmmmmmmm. Cool, cool, cool.
Might even keep the last three nuclear plants running a bit longer. Bavarian minister and part of the opposition was clamouring for it anyway. Oh what's that? The one in Bavaria had a valve failure this year and would need extensive repairs to keep running after the end of the year, and the Bavarian government knew about it and kept quiet? Surprised Pikachu.
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Grudgeblessed is the mind too small for doubtRegistered Userregular
Well, goes to show that you simply will not run a fossil fuel dependent society without also getting blood on your hands. Only exception I can think of maybe is Norway - but they did the baby seal clubbing thing, maybe they've stopped that now? And Norway is not going to be supplying the whole EU anyway...
Germany gets its Uranium from Russia and Kazachstan, so there’s that to consider.
Sooner or later industry closures will have to be put on the table, and it’s going to be an extremely ugly fight.
well according to that post both the pipelines are just going to fully empty out
i don't know much about pipeline construction but it sure seems like a bad design that the failure state due to rupture appears to be "idk empty entire contents into the ocean i guess"
I think any sort of remote controlled valve underwater would introduce a point of failure rather than add much to the safety.
But on to the real meat and potatoes; this is now a fait accompli, and so much the better. Will it actually sway the German attitude regarding future trade relations with Russia?
That’s the more interesting question. Going to start reading the German papers again…
Don't know much about gas pipelines in particular, but for subsea oil and gas wells (and enormous attached facilities), you absolutely have tons of safety valves there.
Some of them are controlled from topside (i.e., platform or on-shore facility) and some fully automatic subsea (much less common). They'd all be fail-safe upon loss of communication from topside, though.
And you absolutely do have thousands of valves subsea who are actively controlled from topside to do things like flow regulation (i.e., not safety on/off valves but variable flow choke valves etc.).
I'm still not sure what the fuck the calculus is here but it's 100% Russia.
I guess, and bear with me, Putin is deranged. So in his worm addled brain, by sabotaging two useless pipelines he thinks he now controls the only active one(s) (I'll be honest I ain't know shit about Russian or European pipelines) so he has a greater bargaining chip should he need to burn the whole thing to the ground when the Wicked Armies of NATO inevitably invade to seize his precious petrochemicals and eat his flesh?
Like, there is now one active pipe that I can hold hostage? Maybe?
Maybe he's actually just an idiot? Like, the trend throughout this last decade or so is that actually most world leaders are really monumental, just absolutely mammoth buffoons.
Edit: or he's a petulant child that thinks after all this Europe will come crawling back to him, mewling for their gasies (well, Germany might) but because they've scorned him so, wounded him so deeply, he must show them that he is very angry and they shan't have any supper.
I'm still not sure what the fuck the calculus is here but it's 100% Russia.
I guess, and bear with me, Putin is deranged. So in his worm addled brain, by sabotaging to useless pipelines he thinks he now controls the only active one(s) (I'll be honest I ain't know shit about Russian or European pipelines) so he has a greater bargaining chip should he need to burn the whole thing to the ground when the Wicked Armies of NATO inevitably invade to seize his precious petrochemicals and eat his flesh?
Like, there is now one active pipe that I can hold hostage? Maybe?
Maybe he's actually just an idiot? Like, the trend throughout this last decade or so is that actually most world leaders are really monumental, just absolutely mammoth buffoons.
I'll be shocked if the remaining pipe wasn't just a detonation failure. However this was done, it wasn't a simple operation. A reasonable guess would be timed charges on the pipes - hence 2 explosions detected (i.e. 4 charges, but placed in 2 separate operations so the timers are only locally synced).
oh just for completion's sake: if the gas does catch fire what happens is that the exclusion zone for shipping becomes easier to see, the pictures get more interesting and the greenhouse gas emissions from the leaks are reduced significantly
in case anyone was worried about the potential for disaster.
oh and another thing to mention in case it wasn't is that this happened on the same day as Baltic Pipe, a new pipeline from Norway to Poland, was officially opened.
also even though it's in shallow waters, 70 metres or so, I still feel like the only options are state sabotage or accident.
70 meters is shallow for “the ocean” but that’s enough depth and pressure to severely limit the list of possible actors. I think only saturation divers are even able to get that deep safely, and I’m confident in saying that anyone not specifically trained and equipped to make holes in steel pipe at that depth would not be able to survive the attempt, much less succeed.
That is true - it's shallow as compared to subsea operations I usually hear about in the north and norwegian sea. It's an easy task, a depth not requiring the super specialized divers nor highly advanced ROVs
but yes, by that I don't mean "so somebody with a scuba cert could do this", I mean that it's not terribly difficult to find a company that can do work at that depth. Easy for the actual professionals who do this.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
“If we’re going to lose a war, we may as well lose a world war,” seems to be where Putin is desperately trying to taking this
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Then again, I can totally see how Putin's action at the moment could form the basis for future self-mythologising. However this situation continues, I just hope it won't parallel the 'Stab-in-the-back myth' after WW1, which played no small part in Hitler's rise to power and WW2. It's not enough for Putin to lose (whichever form this may take): he also has to be seen to lose, and it has to be clear that it was his decisions that led to this.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
'someone' blows up the nord stream pipelines and then the Russian government decides to restrict other gas pipelines' deliveries.
Certainly an interesting timing there, Russia. Not suspicious at all, no no.
why does Ragip Soylu ring a bell?
oh right that's the one who was going SWEDEN TO EXTRADITE KURDS and other utter bullshit that wasn't in the text about the documents signed between turkey and sweden back then who made me read the entirety of that rather dull document because it sounded like horseshit.
because hey guess what isn't mentioned in the orange text even once: that Gazprom is to cut gas supply! Stop spreading misinformation!
this is Gazprom and Naftogaz fighting over payment, like they have for a while.
🧵With this statement Russia is closing one of the final two natural gas pipelines into Europe for Russian natural gas.
The pipelines through Ukraine have been transporting around 38 million cubic meters of natural gas a day.
1/
Tweeter is Oliver Alexander, journalist and analyst who has written for Reuters, Washington Post, Der Spiegel...
So yeah, not just one person with this scoop.
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Grudgeblessed is the mind too small for doubtRegistered Userregular
I guess the gist of it is that Gazprom hasn't actually cut the gas... yet.
They are just preparing to do so.
This, combined with the sabotage of the Nordstream pipes, looks like a new attempt to manipulate the price of gas (and electricity). Remember, after the initial speculation bubble, the prices started to stabilize a couple of weeks ago.
Again, a gas station run by the mafia is an apt description.
Huh? The borders are still open, even though not for all
But goverment takes notice of the situation:
Volodin claims that goverment makes list of all who flees and even alludes to confiscating their property, so it can be gifted to families of those who has gone fighting
Source: Russian news https://www.interfax.ru/russia/865261
And head of Federal Commission for Defense of National Sovereignty announced that everyone who flees will face "several moral consequences" upon return
Source: his telegram https://t.me/rusaccent/670
Long term lurker first time poster. I do commercial diving and saturation diving ask me anything /reddit. First thing to remember is that virtually all of us are former military. It's the only place you can go to get trained on the job and have someone pay for it. The pipeline is brutal. Most people are familiar with what the SEAL candidates go through but the Army and Marines have similar setups. There are also the Navy EOD program (brutal) and Navy Diver program (bat shit insane). Once through it though the sky, or should I say floor, is the limit.
Leaving the service is not fun. All your recruiters will be for underwater construction and demolitions. It's dangerous as hell but that's what you know how to do, pays like crazy as well (nice six figure job with no degree and a great group of guys, and you only work a few months a year!). It's not that hard to destroy something in this game, it's hard to do it and not cause yourself or others problems. It's damn hard to fix things. Most of your work will be oil and gas lines, also we do deep sea fiber optics so that's a plus. Our community is small. And many of us work for odd firms like legal firms (when you burn out but advise on things) or or consulting firms (when you just want to cash in and your buddies know the deal). You rotate through this path. Operational, advising, consulting. But short of formal military training you are getting nowhere close to it.
So if anyone wants to know the how and what to build or blow something up underwater, that's my wheel house! I'm former US Navy. I'll comment on what happened re the pipeline after I get a chance to look over it. But, stuff doesn't really break down here. It tends to be overbuilt as hell because the cost is so high to set it up there's no point in cheeping out on what you set up. But who knows!
P.S.
I jumped in because I don't like people make bad assumptions of how this all works. We do a lot of good work that people just don't grasp. It's not rocket science, but there is a lot of math, also you have to be insane!
Long term lurker first time poster. I do commercial diving and saturation diving ask me anything /reddit. First thing to remember is that virtually all of us are former military. It's the only place you can go to get trained on the job and have someone pay for it. The pipeline is brutal. Most people are familiar with what the SEAL candidates go through but the Army and Marines have similar setups. There are also the Navy EOD program (brutal) and Navy Diver program (bat shit insane). Once through it though the sky, or should I say floor, is the limit.
Leaving the service is not fun. All your recruiters will be for underwater construction and demolitions. It's dangerous as hell but that's what you know how to do, pays like crazy as well (nice six figure job with no degree and a great group of guys, and you only work a few months a year!). It's not that hard to destroy something in this game, it's hard to do it and not cause yourself or others problems. It's damn hard to fix things. Most of your work will be oil and gas lines, also we do deep sea fiber optics so that's a plus. Our community is small. And many of us work for odd firms like legal firms (when you burn out but advise on things) or or consulting firms (when you just want to cash in and your buddies know the deal). You rotate through this path. Operational, advising, consulting. But short of formal military training you are getting nowhere close to it.
So if anyone wants to know the how and what to build or blow something up underwater, that's my wheel house! I'm former US Navy. I'll comment on what happened re the pipeline after I get a chance to look over it. But, stuff doesn't really break down here. It tends to be overbuilt as hell because the cost is so high to set it up there's no point in cheeping out on what you set up. But who knows!
P.S.
I jumped in because I don't like people make bad assumptions of how this all works. We do a lot of good work that people just don't grasp. It's not rocket science, but there is a lot of math, also you have to be insane!
The main question could be: If is actually possible for a commercial diving company (or any other kind of non-State actor) to have done an explosion this big underwater?
Long term lurker first time poster. I do commercial diving and saturation diving ask me anything /reddit. First thing to remember is that virtually all of us are former military. It's the only place you can go to get trained on the job and have someone pay for it. The pipeline is brutal. Most people are familiar with what the SEAL candidates go through but the Army and Marines have similar setups. There are also the Navy EOD program (brutal) and Navy Diver program (bat shit insane). Once through it though the sky, or should I say floor, is the limit.
Leaving the service is not fun. All your recruiters will be for underwater construction and demolitions. It's dangerous as hell but that's what you know how to do, pays like crazy as well (nice six figure job with no degree and a great group of guys, and you only work a few months a year!). It's not that hard to destroy something in this game, it's hard to do it and not cause yourself or others problems. It's damn hard to fix things. Most of your work will be oil and gas lines, also we do deep sea fiber optics so that's a plus. Our community is small. And many of us work for odd firms like legal firms (when you burn out but advise on things) or or consulting firms (when you just want to cash in and your buddies know the deal). You rotate through this path. Operational, advising, consulting. But short of formal military training you are getting nowhere close to it.
So if anyone wants to know the how and what to build or blow something up underwater, that's my wheel house! I'm former US Navy. I'll comment on what happened re the pipeline after I get a chance to look over it. But, stuff doesn't really break down here. It tends to be overbuilt as hell because the cost is so high to set it up there's no point in cheeping out on what you set up. But who knows!
P.S.
I jumped in because I don't like people make bad assumptions of how this all works. We do a lot of good work that people just don't grasp. It's not rocket science, but there is a lot of math, also you have to be insane!
The main question could be: If is actually possible for a commercial diving company (or any other kind of non-State actor) to have done an explosion this big underwater?
*covertly*
As I'm sure it would be child's play for a commercial company to go and do it, but to do it without getting caught and in a small community of divers it not get out who did it.
Long term lurker first time poster. I do commercial diving and saturation diving ask me anything /reddit. First thing to remember is that virtually all of us are former military. It's the only place you can go to get trained on the job and have someone pay for it. The pipeline is brutal. Most people are familiar with what the SEAL candidates go through but the Army and Marines have similar setups. There are also the Navy EOD program (brutal) and Navy Diver program (bat shit insane). Once through it though the sky, or should I say floor, is the limit.
Leaving the service is not fun. All your recruiters will be for underwater construction and demolitions. It's dangerous as hell but that's what you know how to do, pays like crazy as well (nice six figure job with no degree and a great group of guys, and you only work a few months a year!). It's not that hard to destroy something in this game, it's hard to do it and not cause yourself or others problems. It's damn hard to fix things. Most of your work will be oil and gas lines, also we do deep sea fiber optics so that's a plus. Our community is small. And many of us work for odd firms like legal firms (when you burn out but advise on things) or or consulting firms (when you just want to cash in and your buddies know the deal). You rotate through this path. Operational, advising, consulting. But short of formal military training you are getting nowhere close to it.
So if anyone wants to know the how and what to build or blow something up underwater, that's my wheel house! I'm former US Navy. I'll comment on what happened re the pipeline after I get a chance to look over it. But, stuff doesn't really break down here. It tends to be overbuilt as hell because the cost is so high to set it up there's no point in cheeping out on what you set up. But who knows!
P.S.
I jumped in because I don't like people make bad assumptions of how this all works. We do a lot of good work that people just don't grasp. It's not rocket science, but there is a lot of math, also you have to be insane!
The main question could be: If is actually possible for a commercial diving company (or any other kind of non-State actor) to have done an explosion this big underwater?
Technically yes. But as I said I don't know squat about what happened here yet. I woke up to this. Again, easier to break something than build something. If you can build it, inherently you know how to break it. Also keep in mind a ton of us are ex military and thus contracted by the military for all sorts of things. There's just not that many ways to get hundreds of thousands teaching you how to do this. There's sub 5k commercial divers in the US, so everyone knows the drill and finding someone without a Navy anchor tattoo is like finding hens teeth.
But private actors do not engage in sabotage like this. However there have been edge cases of stupid sea stunts when the IC end ran the DOD and just contracted a firm.
Look any diving company is going to have demolitions to start with, if they are at that level. If only just to clear space for what you are actually doing. This is just how construction companies use demolitions when clearing space for houses. Nobody bats an eye at it. So you have a business that's run by ex military and staffed by them, with access to any demolitions they want, trained on it, and nobody can see what they are doing?
IMHO when I see stuff like this I think state actor because the goal of commercial diving is commerce. We generally don't take the boom boom to other peoples stuff. There's also sorts of reasons legal, ethical, and safety not to do it. It's a serious group of people. It's not just "here's 100k, go blow this up" that's insane.
Long term lurker first time poster. I do commercial diving and saturation diving ask me anything /reddit. First thing to remember is that virtually all of us are former military. It's the only place you can go to get trained on the job and have someone pay for it. The pipeline is brutal. Most people are familiar with what the SEAL candidates go through but the Army and Marines have similar setups. There are also the Navy EOD program (brutal) and Navy Diver program (bat shit insane). Once through it though the sky, or should I say floor, is the limit.
Leaving the service is not fun. All your recruiters will be for underwater construction and demolitions. It's dangerous as hell but that's what you know how to do, pays like crazy as well (nice six figure job with no degree and a great group of guys, and you only work a few months a year!). It's not that hard to destroy something in this game, it's hard to do it and not cause yourself or others problems. It's damn hard to fix things. Most of your work will be oil and gas lines, also we do deep sea fiber optics so that's a plus. Our community is small. And many of us work for odd firms like legal firms (when you burn out but advise on things) or or consulting firms (when you just want to cash in and your buddies know the deal). You rotate through this path. Operational, advising, consulting. But short of formal military training you are getting nowhere close to it.
So if anyone wants to know the how and what to build or blow something up underwater, that's my wheel house! I'm former US Navy. I'll comment on what happened re the pipeline after I get a chance to look over it. But, stuff doesn't really break down here. It tends to be overbuilt as hell because the cost is so high to set it up there's no point in cheeping out on what you set up. But who knows!
P.S.
I jumped in because I don't like people make bad assumptions of how this all works. We do a lot of good work that people just don't grasp. It's not rocket science, but there is a lot of math, also you have to be insane!
The main question could be: If is actually possible for a commercial diving company (or any other kind of non-State actor) to have done an explosion this big underwater?
Its possible but it would be very difficult to do it in a way that wasn’t extremely obvious.
Long term lurker first time poster. I do commercial diving and saturation diving ask me anything /reddit. First thing to remember is that virtually all of us are former military. It's the only place you can go to get trained on the job and have someone pay for it. The pipeline is brutal. Most people are familiar with what the SEAL candidates go through but the Army and Marines have similar setups. There are also the Navy EOD program (brutal) and Navy Diver program (bat shit insane). Once through it though the sky, or should I say floor, is the limit.
Leaving the service is not fun. All your recruiters will be for underwater construction and demolitions. It's dangerous as hell but that's what you know how to do, pays like crazy as well (nice six figure job with no degree and a great group of guys, and you only work a few months a year!). It's not that hard to destroy something in this game, it's hard to do it and not cause yourself or others problems. It's damn hard to fix things. Most of your work will be oil and gas lines, also we do deep sea fiber optics so that's a plus. Our community is small. And many of us work for odd firms like legal firms (when you burn out but advise on things) or or consulting firms (when you just want to cash in and your buddies know the deal). You rotate through this path. Operational, advising, consulting. But short of formal military training you are getting nowhere close to it.
So if anyone wants to know the how and what to build or blow something up underwater, that's my wheel house! I'm former US Navy. I'll comment on what happened re the pipeline after I get a chance to look over it. But, stuff doesn't really break down here. It tends to be overbuilt as hell because the cost is so high to set it up there's no point in cheeping out on what you set up. But who knows!
P.S.
I jumped in because I don't like people make bad assumptions of how this all works. We do a lot of good work that people just don't grasp. It's not rocket science, but there is a lot of math, also you have to be insane!
The main question could be: If is actually possible for a commercial diving company (or any other kind of non-State actor) to have done an explosion this big underwater?
Its possible but it would be very difficult to do it in a way that wasn’t extremely obvious.
Commercial diving is both demolitions and construction. The two are linked. But yeah if you went and did it you'd get caught fast. The stuff you tear down is stuff you are asked to tear down. I don't think most people get how much stuff is under the sea other than that singing crab who's name I don't remember.
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But yes RoV from the rear of a ship seems like the most obvious answer. But you could also maybe just drop a charge over the side and let it sink. Put a long enough wire from it to your ship and steer it to its target. You wouldn’t even need a motor.
Safe to assume Britain has the SAS enroute to begin enforcing their one true red line.
Sure, going back over the recordings. Maybe there’s even a live analysis done checking motor sounds against gps tracking. Maybe it flags weird machine noises like ROV impellers.
But it’s not as if the sea, let alone the sea floor, is as monitored as say a city with linked security camera systems.
Maybe the US hears a lot more, but they don’t seem to share it.
I know several NATO countries fly drones or small planes to keep tabs on shipping (to spot pollution and drug smuggling). So I think the expectations of people regarding what would have been ‘seen’ are perhaps a bit optimistic.
At the same time, NATO is doing exercises in the Baltic, so I think a Russian submarine would have been spotted.
Again, no info means no info.
Video of Dagestan troops in Donbas, no gore to be seen but still spoiling.
Freeze frame from video showing RPG about to be fired. What's that dangling from the tip?
Ohh it's the safety pin.
Training? Who needs training.
i don't know much about pipeline construction but it sure seems like a bad design that the failure state due to rupture appears to be "idk empty entire contents into the ocean i guess"
I bet it's going to be, how to phrase it, a hefty contribution to the unpleasantly familiar though.
Ain't nobody paying for environmental safety unless they are made to. Ever.
I think any sort of remote controlled valve underwater would introduce a point of failure rather than add much to the safety.
But on to the real meat and potatoes; this is now a fait accompli, and so much the better. Will it actually sway the German attitude regarding future trade relations with Russia?
That’s the more interesting question. Going to start reading the German papers again…
Hello, brand new person. This is not up to the standard of posting we expect around here.
- Who is the "your" to whom you are referring, and what country do you purport to be from?
- What do you imagine that bankers have to do with anything? That word has certain very specific connotations. You don't get to just throw it out there.
- Do you have any sources to cite or lines or argument to make? A one-sentence declarative post doesn't cut it.
And, uh, welcome to the PA forums.
German government has been busy to find replacements for Russian gas for months and last week Scholz was visiting several countries to make deals for LNG deliveries. All upstanding and way more ethical than Russia of course. Let's see: Katar, hmmm, Emirates, hmmmmmm, Saudi Arabia, hmmmmmmm. Cool, cool, cool.
Might even keep the last three nuclear plants running a bit longer. Bavarian minister and part of the opposition was clamouring for it anyway. Oh what's that? The one in Bavaria had a valve failure this year and would need extensive repairs to keep running after the end of the year, and the Bavarian government knew about it and kept quiet? Surprised Pikachu.
'someone' blows up the nord stream pipelines and then the Russian government decides to restrict other gas pipelines' deliveries.
Certainly an interesting timing there, Russia. Not suspicious at all, no no.
Sooner or later industry closures will have to be put on the table, and it’s going to be an extremely ugly fight.
Most of that gas, if not all of it is going to Russia's allies so this makes no sense.
Don't know much about gas pipelines in particular, but for subsea oil and gas wells (and enormous attached facilities), you absolutely have tons of safety valves there.
Some of them are controlled from topside (i.e., platform or on-shore facility) and some fully automatic subsea (much less common). They'd all be fail-safe upon loss of communication from topside, though.
And you absolutely do have thousands of valves subsea who are actively controlled from topside to do things like flow regulation (i.e., not safety on/off valves but variable flow choke valves etc.).
I guess, and bear with me, Putin is deranged. So in his worm addled brain, by sabotaging two useless pipelines he thinks he now controls the only active one(s) (I'll be honest I ain't know shit about Russian or European pipelines) so he has a greater bargaining chip should he need to burn the whole thing to the ground when the Wicked Armies of NATO inevitably invade to seize his precious petrochemicals and eat his flesh?
Like, there is now one active pipe that I can hold hostage? Maybe?
Maybe he's actually just an idiot? Like, the trend throughout this last decade or so is that actually most world leaders are really monumental, just absolutely mammoth buffoons.
Edit: or he's a petulant child that thinks after all this Europe will come crawling back to him, mewling for their gasies (well, Germany might) but because they've scorned him so, wounded him so deeply, he must show them that he is very angry and they shan't have any supper.
I'll be shocked if the remaining pipe wasn't just a detonation failure. However this was done, it wasn't a simple operation. A reasonable guess would be timed charges on the pipes - hence 2 explosions detected (i.e. 4 charges, but placed in 2 separate operations so the timers are only locally synced).
Good god I hate social media.
and the gengars who are guiding me" -- W.S. Merwin
in case anyone was worried about the potential for disaster.
oh and another thing to mention in case it wasn't is that this happened on the same day as Baltic Pipe, a new pipeline from Norway to Poland, was officially opened.
That is true - it's shallow as compared to subsea operations I usually hear about in the north and norwegian sea. It's an easy task, a depth not requiring the super specialized divers nor highly advanced ROVs
but yes, by that I don't mean "so somebody with a scuba cert could do this", I mean that it's not terribly difficult to find a company that can do work at that depth. Easy for the actual professionals who do this.
Yeah if Putin can’t win this he wants to be the greatest failure of Russian Leadership history has known
I think he can do it
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
why does Ragip Soylu ring a bell?
oh right that's the one who was going SWEDEN TO EXTRADITE KURDS and other utter bullshit that wasn't in the text about the documents signed between turkey and sweden back then who made me read the entirety of that rather dull document because it sounded like horseshit.
because hey guess what isn't mentioned in the orange text even once: that Gazprom is to cut gas supply! Stop spreading misinformation!
this is Gazprom and Naftogaz fighting over payment, like they have for a while.
at least read tweets you share before you share them.
Russia has used pricing disputes as a pretext to cut gas supplies to Ukraine previously: https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-cuts-gas-to-ukraine/ (2014).
I can go with the tweet commentary being ahead of time, but that's rather specific timing.
Tweeter is Simone Tagliapietra, professor of energy and climate policy at Johns Hopkins.
Tweeter is Oliver Alexander, journalist and analyst who has written for Reuters, Washington Post, Der Spiegel...
So yeah, not just one person with this scoop.
They are just preparing to do so.
This, combined with the sabotage of the Nordstream pipes, looks like a new attempt to manipulate the price of gas (and electricity). Remember, after the initial speculation bubble, the prices started to stabilize a couple of weeks ago.
Again, a gas station run by the mafia is an apt description.
Remember when that jet liner got shot down over luhansk?
"This was so obviously Russia's doing that it MUST have been the Americans" was a line that was unironically trotted out
But goverment takes notice of the situation:
Volodin claims that goverment makes list of all who flees and even alludes to confiscating their property, so it can be gifted to families of those who has gone fighting
Source: Russian news
https://www.interfax.ru/russia/865261
And head of Federal Commission for Defense of National Sovereignty announced that everyone who flees will face "several moral consequences" upon return
Source: his telegram
https://t.me/rusaccent/670
LNR and Kherson has officially asked to join Russia
Source: Russian news
https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/15893515
https://ria.ru/20220928/saldo-1820033590.html
Leaving the service is not fun. All your recruiters will be for underwater construction and demolitions. It's dangerous as hell but that's what you know how to do, pays like crazy as well (nice six figure job with no degree and a great group of guys, and you only work a few months a year!). It's not that hard to destroy something in this game, it's hard to do it and not cause yourself or others problems. It's damn hard to fix things. Most of your work will be oil and gas lines, also we do deep sea fiber optics so that's a plus. Our community is small. And many of us work for odd firms like legal firms (when you burn out but advise on things) or or consulting firms (when you just want to cash in and your buddies know the deal). You rotate through this path. Operational, advising, consulting. But short of formal military training you are getting nowhere close to it.
So if anyone wants to know the how and what to build or blow something up underwater, that's my wheel house! I'm former US Navy. I'll comment on what happened re the pipeline after I get a chance to look over it. But, stuff doesn't really break down here. It tends to be overbuilt as hell because the cost is so high to set it up there's no point in cheeping out on what you set up. But who knows!
P.S.
I jumped in because I don't like people make bad assumptions of how this all works. We do a lot of good work that people just don't grasp. It's not rocket science, but there is a lot of math, also you have to be insane!
The main question could be: If is actually possible for a commercial diving company (or any other kind of non-State actor) to have done an explosion this big underwater?
*covertly*
As I'm sure it would be child's play for a commercial company to go and do it, but to do it without getting caught and in a small community of divers it not get out who did it.
Technically yes. But as I said I don't know squat about what happened here yet. I woke up to this. Again, easier to break something than build something. If you can build it, inherently you know how to break it. Also keep in mind a ton of us are ex military and thus contracted by the military for all sorts of things. There's just not that many ways to get hundreds of thousands teaching you how to do this. There's sub 5k commercial divers in the US, so everyone knows the drill and finding someone without a Navy anchor tattoo is like finding hens teeth.
But private actors do not engage in sabotage like this. However there have been edge cases of stupid sea stunts when the IC end ran the DOD and just contracted a firm.
Look any diving company is going to have demolitions to start with, if they are at that level. If only just to clear space for what you are actually doing. This is just how construction companies use demolitions when clearing space for houses. Nobody bats an eye at it. So you have a business that's run by ex military and staffed by them, with access to any demolitions they want, trained on it, and nobody can see what they are doing?
IMHO when I see stuff like this I think state actor because the goal of commercial diving is commerce. We generally don't take the boom boom to other peoples stuff. There's also sorts of reasons legal, ethical, and safety not to do it. It's a serious group of people. It's not just "here's 100k, go blow this up" that's insane.
It's a fun job if people are interested.
Its possible but it would be very difficult to do it in a way that wasn’t extremely obvious.
Commercial diving is both demolitions and construction. The two are linked. But yeah if you went and did it you'd get caught fast. The stuff you tear down is stuff you are asked to tear down. I don't think most people get how much stuff is under the sea other than that singing crab who's name I don't remember.