chrisl

That was fake.  The attack was pre-dawn.

Part of the truck lodged on the bridge structure:
 

That's obviously not a real bomb.  It doesn't say "Acme" on it.

Crexit? #GrabsCoat

Clearer view of the road surface damage at the edge of the blast site on the Kerch bridge:
 

ok, I'm going to turn down the snark...(no,  don't believe it was a fake second wheelset on the truck) 
If we assume that the FSB didn't get the idea for the blame (legit shipment with a valid shipper) from my posts here over the past couple days, Russia now has what can be called a "TSA Problem" only worse.
They have to check every shipment that's going across the bridge for explosives, and they have to do it like they mean it: no liquids, laptops out of bags, shoes off, pants down, bend over, the whole thing.  
But there's a catch: they need to ship enormous quantities of explosives across the bridge to support the Special Military Operation.
So now (as before), some of the explosives going across the bridge are legitimate, and some may not be.  And some of the "bad" explosives have good papers.  And even some of the good explosives with good papers might have special "gifts" that someone snuck in to turn them into bad explosives.  And they have the same problem with all the oil tank cars - someone could drop a two-stage bomb into one and turn it into an FAE on the bridge.
Or they can be Russian about it and not do all that, and suffer another explosion or three on the bridge.
So even without the whole bridge going down, losing one lane to a truck bomb does almost the same thing, but it makes them do it to themselves, just like the lines at the TSA.
(FWIW: I've long maintained that neither the shoe bomber nor underpants bomber were supposed to explode.  Each of them may have thought so, but whoever set them up was just triggering the TSA to do more intrusive things.)

BTW, resort towns and bar districts here in Asia (Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand) now have a noticeable influx of Russian men in their 20s and 30s.  Sat next to a couple of loud but happy drunks last night.
At least they're spending money and not killing anyone, including themselves.

That's obviously not a real bomb.  It doesn't say "Acme" on it.

That's obviously not a real bomb.  It doesn't say "Acme" on it.

ok, I'm going to turn down the snark...(no,  don't believe it was a fake second wheelset on the truck) 
If we assume that the FSB didn't get the idea for the blame (legit shipment with a valid shipper) from my posts here over the past couple days, Russia now has what can be called a "TSA Problem" only worse.
They have to check every shipment that's going across the bridge for explosives, and they have to do it like they mean it: no liquids, laptops out of bags, shoes off, pants down, bend over, the whole thing.  
But there's a catch: they need to ship enormous quantities of explosives across the bridge to support the Special Military Operation.
So now (as before), some of the explosives going across the bridge are legitimate, and some may not be.  And some of the "bad" explosives have good papers.  And even some of the good explosives with good papers might have special "gifts" that someone snuck in to turn them into bad explosives.  And they have the same problem with all the oil tank cars - someone could drop a two-stage bomb into one and turn it into an FAE on the bridge.
Or they can be Russian about it and not do all that, and suffer another explosion or three on the bridge.
So even without the whole bridge going down, losing one lane to a truck bomb does almost the same thing, but it makes them do it to themselves, just like the lines at the TSA.
(FWIW: I've long maintained that neither the shoe bomber nor underpants bomber were supposed to explode.  Each of them may have thought so, but whoever set them up was just triggering the TSA to do more intrusive things.)

Nice ferry you have there. Would be a shame if something happened to it.

That's obviously not a real bomb.  It doesn't say "Acme" on it.

https://twitter.com/CaptainBlackSe1/status/1580099332048826368?s=20&t=oKNCH7pU4G3_R28qge2QKA

And a funny from DarthPutin:
 

I think he was being ironic. I.e. if Russia says/does something, any other answer must be true.

Collecting them as part of Russian victory conditions.

Collecting them as part of Russian victory conditions.

Collecting them as part of Russian victory conditions.

Collecting them as part of Russian victory conditions.

but we need a washing machine flavor item for sure

The Kerch straight also has a max depth of less than 20 m (at the Black Sea entrance), and depth of 10 m at the Azov entrance, with a lot of it less than 6 m deep.  So nobody is sneaking a big sub underneath.  From the way the road is sitting it doesn't look like the water is very deep under the part that blew.  It's hard to find depth maps online in a minute or less, but there's a really old British map that shows a long shallow spit under the route where they built the bridge.  That would also partly explain why they built the bridge on the long route that they did. They have to dredge the ship channel regularly and the depth will change fast as you get outside the channel.

That looks like a newer version of SOPHIE. I was playing around with those, heck, it must have been 15 years ago now, and even then ISTR it could derive remote grids, although I assume that all the things you'd expect - power consumption, interface, reliability, accuracy - have improved.
Hmm, could that one derive remote grids? I'm second guessing myself now. It could certainly do polar missions really quickly and easily, which is great since polar is a superfast way to get rounds on target from a cold grid.
Edit: yeah, I'm sure it could do remote grids, but as I recall you had to plug it into a GPS unit, it didn't have that natively. But the remote GPS combined with SOPHIE's LRF and gyros did the business.

So maybe China thinking a peaceful, stable world is good for China?  Seems so.  

There was a huge spray of water, but it came after the bridge hit the water.
All that stuff that much of twitter is calling "burning material" raining down is almost certainly just water droplets from the splash being swept back over the bridge (and through the field of view of the camera).  You can tell from the various video before & after the explosion that there was a strong gusty breeze coming from the northeast (the road side), and there are tons of lights all over the bridge.  The water droplets will scatter a lot of light (think laser light show, or using fog to make a laser beam visible) and will also retrotrflect light (why you don't use high-beams in fog) so that the light reflected back from lamps near the camera will make them appear very bright.
The bent deck is pretty well scorched, consistent with the neighboring deck.  This pic shows it, though the segment closest to the explosion is at an angle where you can't see the surface.
 

It doesn’t have to be nearly that hot to lose strength.  Even ~200 C you have to derate it by about 10%, and about 50% by 500 C, depending on the steel.  So you can relax out the prestress at temps much lower than where it gets soft.