chrisl

was that in a side thread link?  Or did I miss that in the UKR thread?  I didn't notice that  -- Dude don't stray of the path!  Keep your eyes on the UKR stuff 🤪😀  I done warned you!

Bombing a fuel tank car on a train would take less explosive but be harder to hide on the tank car.  Ideally you'd want a two stage explosive inside the tank - one to blow open the car and create a mist, the second to ignite it, like a big FAE.  Many liquid fuels by themselves don't blow up that well in bulk liquid and you have to create a mist.  Maybe it would have been enough to blow open a car and have it start a fire with oil burning all over the bridge (as happened by luck, anyway).
Hiding it in the truck is easy: You put it in a big crate, fill out a shipping form, and leave it on the loading dock.
And it had the effect of shutting down the bridge, even without destroying it - they got Russia to shut it down and create a big mess for getting into/out of Crimea via Kerch.
And as @billbindcpoints out - there's some pretty good messaging in there for Russia, too.  Before the invasion I was n the "they'll roll over Ukraine in 3 days and it will be 10 years of Afghanistan before they leave" camp.  Had that happened, basically all of Ukraine's attacks would be looking like this now.  Instead they sent a message that's almost like the laws of thermodynamics: a) You can't win b) even if you think you can fight to a draw, you lose, c) You can't quit if we don't let you.

Long thread on Russian logistics. 
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1581023172346118144.html
Nothing new, Russia will need to either repair the bridge, or effectively use the road network via Novoazovsk-Mariupol-Berdyansk-Melitopol to supply the southern front. 
 
 

Bombing a fuel tank car on a train would take less explosive but be harder to hide on the tank car.  Ideally you'd want a two stage explosive inside the tank - one to blow open the car and create a mist, the second to ignite it, like a big FAE.  Many liquid fuels by themselves don't blow up that well in bulk liquid and you have to create a mist.  Maybe it would have been enough to blow open a car and have it start a fire with oil burning all over the bridge (as happened by luck, anyway).
Hiding it in the truck is easy: You put it in a big crate, fill out a shipping form, and leave it on the loading dock.
And it had the effect of shutting down the bridge, even without destroying it - they got Russia to shut it down and create a big mess for getting into/out of Crimea via Kerch.
And as @billbindcpoints out - there's some pretty good messaging in there for Russia, too.  Before the invasion I was n the "they'll roll over Ukraine in 3 days and it will be 10 years of Afghanistan before they leave" camp.  Had that happened, basically all of Ukraine's attacks would be looking like this now.  Instead they sent a message that's almost like the laws of thermodynamics: a) You can't win b) even if you think you can fight to a draw, you lose, c) You can't quit if we don't let you.

1.  So how's that reverse slope defence on the west bank of the Krasna river working out?  Hmm, maybe not so great, when your positions just get flanked and wiped out (those that don't just surrender) by veteran UA combat groups who don't care much about mud and rain.

2.  Kraken clearing the 'all weather' road to the outskirts of Svatove (DefMon is *very* conservative about his control zones).


3. Noel's feed is more up to the minute, but his maps are way too 'Arrowy-Flaggy' to be useful.
4. A quick look at the ground....
5.  Dab For Effect!
 

Yep, that was my point above. We spend a lot of time parsing Putin's signaling but Ukraine is doing it all the time and with more subtlety. A truck bomb is not something that's hard to bring to Moscow and with support for the war already shaken, it's a very clear statement about what the Kremlin can expect should Putin drop a nuke. That's just one layer, of course. A truck bomb says something else about the ability of Russia to protect key assets, is a further blow to morale in Kherson, illustrates the mismatch between Russian and Ukrainian ingenuity, etc. Even the fact that Ukraine doesn't feel the need to tout exactly what it did and how must have a pretty sinister cast as seen from Russia. 

https://oalexanderdk.substack.com/p/the-cause-of-the-crimea-bridge-explosion

Allow me to edit: "I would cast Matthias Schoenaerts Gollum to play Putin in "The Death of Putin" . 

We need to take all the theories from here and elsewhere, work them into a movie script, and get it shot and released before the mundane true story gets out.

Hey I'm going with this was really a hit on Sergei Maslov by Kadyrov for messing with his eldest daughter and the bomb on his car went off as it so happens right near a truck loaded with explosives.  
 

And Zelensky has to play himself: an actor acting as themselves as an actor who acted the part of a president and then became one and really acted the part*...
 
* To avoid confusion, I'm using the expression "to act the part" in the sense of "stepping up and doing the job well", not in any sense implying that Zelensky is some sort of "face" for shadowy parties using him as some sort of puppet.

I would cast Matthias Schoenaerts to play Putin in "The Death of Putin" . 😁

 

We need to take all the theories from here and elsewhere, work them into a movie script, and get it shot and released before the mundane true story gets out.

I think, given the contradictory information available, that the obvious and only answer is that the Ukrainians inadvertently targeted an FSB false-flag operation that was pre-chambered with highly volatile dog-propellant. They - the Ukrainians that is - used a hrim smuggled into and launched fro the Kuban on a life raft recovered from the Moskva. This liferaft later accidentally broke free and drifted under the bridge in the high winds just before impact, almost ruining the operation.
The FSB, meanwhile, were intending to use their truck bomb IED to help dig an anti tank ditch, oriented south, across the neck of the Crimean peninsula to prevent weak willed holiday makers cutting short their summer holiday, thus depriving the FSB of kickbacks from local businesses where the tourists should be spending their assignats. This explains why the Russians were able to so quickly identify it as a truck bomb - it was *their* truck bomb.
The combination of the hrim hitting the top of the truck bomb explains the airburst and the large yet weird explosion and damage patterns.
Both sides are obviously still a bit confused about this inadvertent confluence of two otherwise completely separate operations.

Maybe there is an "off plank"?

But about those termite chunks…I don’t think there’s any wood in the bridge.

To me - this strikes me as an opportunity of the century - literally - to remove Russia from the Big Boys  table once and for all and put them into a position where they need to start trading  off nuclear material again  to  be  a part of the  Modern Global economy . The US should be using this opportunity to reduce the capabilities of Russia Permanently .

Fill yer галоши, mate!
Specs (in Russian) are at front, drawings at the back.
(I'm not a research genius -- well actually I am not bad, I just hit my event horizon of caring about the Bridge whodunnit a while ago. Anyhoo, it was embedded in some tweet or other)

Drone evolution has an analogue in WWI aircraft - at first for observation, then dropping - by hand - bombs, then air-to-air fighting.  Where this will diverge is the need for the WWI aircraft to return home with their crew.
Regarding shotguns, too much recoil.  Besides, why not kill it with fire?

So it begins:
 

No (or too little) rebar in a primary load bearing structure, built on unreliable and quake prone ground conditions.
That aggregate looks off too. 
TiR. 

I know, I was playing along

That's just the wind direction.,no? Standard stuff wind in a coastal strait type. 

It's the wrong time of day, for one thing, and has different vehicles on the road. It's fake.