How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Huba]

Quality pictures of rail bridge damage. Bending of the metal elements was probably caused by explosion itself not heat from fuel fire.

 

[LongLeftFlank]

57 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

To sum up: new (first?) general commander on Ukrainian front is civilians killer who personally (!) shed blood in Moscow in 1991, corrupted officer who allowed diedovshchina to spread in his units, rather unsuccessful commander and - interesting fact- another friend of Don Don Kadyrov. The last one is only thing that make him different from crowd of Russian high officer corps.

 

 Squeeze, Rabban. Squeeze hard.

Chekisty moving into the high command, surprise. Next stop, blocking detachments.

And after all, appointing Himmler worked out so very well for Heeresgruppe Weichsel in 1945.

 

Edited October 9, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[kevinkin]

More to add to the anaysis. I  don't  Twiiter, so can't get too far into the post, But in a nutshell, "Explosion started and the truck is still intact. It’s how you know it’s not a truck bomb or a seaborne explosion."

 

[LongLeftFlank]

5 minutes ago, kevinkin said:

More to add to the anaysis. I  don't  Twiiter, so can't get too far into the post, But in a nutshell, "Explosion started and the truck is still intact. It’s how you know it’s not a truck bomb or a seaborne explosion."

 

When the Twitter pop up tells you to sign in, click through, and the next popup will let you close it. Until they change the rules again....

[Ultradave]

7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

They base their conclusions that something else must have happened because they don't accept how delicate even the biggest structures can be when the wrong things happen to it.  Therefore, we non-engineers should not be so sure that structural failures have to have very obvious visual cause and effect.

Part of this is suffering what we used to call a "beyond design basis accident"  A structure is designed to accommodate the weight of anything attached to it, moving across it, the vibrations associated with those (no resonance), and likely, or even very unlikely shock effects, and of course it's own weight. 

Take an earthquake for example. An earthquake will impact a structure in known ways and directions. So the decision is how much intensity you design it to take. If a beyond design basis event hits it, all bets are off. The Kerch bridge would not have been designed for a 8.0 earthquake. There is no evidence of that kind of earthquake being a reasonably possible event there, compared to say, Japan. If, let's say, a missile warhead explodes at the top of a pier, well, no bridge is designed for that. Bad things are going to happen.  Truck bomb - probably a small one is within the envelope of earthquake shock. A big one is going to be a problem. It's a different forcing function. High frequency short duration as opposed to low frequency longer duration of an earthquake. And it's at a specific location, rather than affecting the structure as a whole, where it can flex together.

Submarine structures that I worked with of course, are designed to withstand massive shock in multiple directions. But even we have what we would term "beyond design basis" There is a point, where it's not practical to strengthen things any more - the sub still has to operate. That's about all I can say about that subject.

I wouldn't necessarily fault the Russian engineers and designers. If you did the same thing to the brand new shiny Tappan Zee bridge on the Hudson, the same thing would happen, I'd imagine.

Dave

 

[kevinkin]

Doesn't Russia have our equivalent of the NTSB with a cross functional team combing over the site right now? We should expect a preliminary news conference and findings within the next 48 hours.  

PS: thanks for the tip LongLeftFlank

[poesel]

I'd like to talk about the train a bit.

First, it was standing there. If it had been moving, it would have stopped quite a bit behind the event. Why is a train standing in the middle of the Kerch Bridge? I don't think that was a scheduled stop, so someone must have made it to.

Second, why did none of the train cars topple over? They don't even look derailed. Why would a blast that blew off a bridge piece from the piers not even push one car from the tracks?

Third, there is this picture:

https://twitter.com/RoksolanaKrim/status/1579051106235166721/photo/3

How did the guard rails on the far side of the train get bent like that? They would be in the shadow of the train. I have no explanation for that.

[Huba]

17 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

Part of this is suffering what we used to call a "beyond design basis accident"  A structure is designed to accommodate the weight of anything attached to it, moving across it, the vibrations associated with those (no resonance), and likely, or even very unlikely shock effects, and of course it's own weight. 

Take an earthquake for example. An earthquake will impact a structure in known ways and directions. So the decision is how much intensity you design it to take. If a beyond design basis event hits it, all bets are off. The Kerch bridge would not have been designed for a 8.0 earthquake. There is no evidence of that kind of earthquake being a reasonably possible event there, compared to say, Japan. If, let's say, a missile warhead explodes at the top of a pier, well, no bridge is designed for that. Bad things are going to happen.  Truck bomb - probably a small one is within the envelope of earthquake shock. A big one is going to be a problem. It's a different forcing function. High frequency short duration as opposed to low frequency longer duration of an earthquake. And it's at a specific location, rather than affecting the structure as a whole, where it can flex together.

Submarine structures that I worked with of course, are designed to withstand massive shock in multiple directions. But even we have what we would term "beyond design basis" There is a point, where it's not practical to strengthen things any more - the sub still has to operate. That's about all I can say about that subject.

I wouldn't necessarily fault the Russian engineers and designers. If you did the same thing to the brand new shiny Tappan Zee bridge on the Hudson, the same thing would happen, I'd imagine.

Dave

 

Some building equipment and wooden scaffolding hung on the sides of a bridge in Warsaw caught fire in 2015. As a result, the affected steel spans had to be completely replaced, which took half a year.

Perhaps the Kerch railway bridge could remain in use as a wartime contingency, but driving regular passenger trains through it would be criminal. 

[TheVulture]

51 minutes ago, Huba said:

Perhaps the Kerch railway bridge could remain in use as a wartime contingency, but driving regular passenger trains through it would be criminal. 

That was my thought. The bridge may well be structurally unsound, but I'd bet that is a sight more stable than some of the pontoon bridges militaries regularly use. Them's the hazards of war.

[akd]

2 hours ago, kevinkin said:

More to add to the anaysis. I  don't  Twiiter, so can't get too far into the post, But in a nutshell, "Explosion started and the truck is still intact. It’s how you know it’s not a truck bomb or a seaborne explosion."

 

The technical origin of that white bar has been explained here in detail, and has nothing to do with the flash being out of the frame of the camera.  Same for the versions that claim a flash in the sky above the truck. My guess is those were a different phone filming a screen with the same recording, and is a result of the phone exposure adjusting to the white band that appears at the bottom of screen (that they have edited out there) or reflecting off something back onto the screen. And again, there is no way the explosion that caused this damage could be out of the frame shown.

Edited October 9, 2022 by akd

[billbindc]

7 hours ago, FancyCat said:

If I implied in "referencing the past" was to point out a past stances that became incorrect, my apologies I wasn't and did not intend that, and I don't think there is anything wrong in what was considered in the past. It was only to marvel at how Ukraine has done well (what you just stated, I agree with all of it entirely), how Russia's aura has dimmed, and ponder about how the course of the war will go with this trend.

 

This an interesting discussion and gets at something that I think is pretty important. It’s not that Russia has redlines…it’s that there is a lot of ambiguity on where those redlines are. The ambiguity is of course intentional so what Ukraine is doing is exactly what it has been doing in the strict military sense…it is collapsing the ambiguity (i.e. range of choices) available to Russia. The method and the discipline evinced in the method is admirable and it is a very direct war winning one. Clearly Moscow cannot win conventionally at this point. What *can* happen is that the war party in Moscow can lose. That’s the game now and Ukraine is playing it well.

[akd]

1 hour ago, poesel said:

First, it was standing there. If it had been moving, it would have stopped quite a bit behind the event. Why is a train standing in the middle of the Kerch Bridge? I don't think that was a scheduled stop, so someone must have made it to.

 

Actually, you can see it slowly moving in the recording I posted above.

[Kinophile]

1 hour ago, Ultradave said:

Part of this is suffering what we used to call a "beyond design basis accident"  A structure is designed to accommodate the weight of anything attached to it, moving across it, the vibrations associated with those (no resonance), and likely, or even very unlikely shock effects, and of course it's own weight. 

Take an earthquake for example. An earthquake will impact a structure in known ways and directions. So the decision is how much intensity you design it to take. If a beyond design basis event hits it, all bets are off. The Kerch bridge would not have been designed for a 8.0 earthquake. There is no evidence of that kind of earthquake being a reasonably possible event there, compared to say, Japan. If, let's say, a missile warhead explodes at the top of a pier, well, no bridge is designed for that. Bad things are going to happen.  Truck bomb - probably a small one is within the envelope of earthquake shock. A big one is going to be a problem. It's a different forcing function. High frequency short duration as opposed to low frequency longer duration of an earthquake. And it's at a specific location, rather than affecting the structure as a whole, where it can flex together.

Submarine structures that I worked with of course, are designed to withstand massive shock in multiple directions. But even we have what we would term "beyond design basis" There is a point, where it's not practical to strengthen things any more - the sub still has to operate. That's about all I can say about that subject.

I wouldn't necessarily fault the Russian engineers and designers. If you did the same thing to the brand new shiny Tappan Zee bridge on the Hudson, the same thing would happen, I'd imagine.

Dave

 

Ian Bank's "Outside Context Problem",  but for structures

As you state, the design decisions are various points are the key.  Find the trade offs and you'll find the failure. 

The Kerch bridge was a massively corrupt project but its still reasonable that the engineers were left relatively alone. The whole assembly is quite sensible, no visually bad structural design decisions (the bridge clearance is a bit low, but not unsound).  Very little original imagination in the design that isn't imposed by the site conditions.

No matter the corruption,  the damn thing still had to stay up, even just politically, (because Putin). I'm going to lean towards the quality is enough for the basic job of being a bridge in tricky ground and environmental but with very little margin for OCPs. 

A 500lb high explosive airburst is absolutely a structural OCP (as is a truck bomb but those videos make me dismiss that, personally). 

Edited October 9, 2022 by Kinophile

[A Canadian Cat]

1 hour ago, poesel said:

How did the guard rails on the far side of the train get bent like that? They would be in the shadow of the train. I have no explanation for that.

The railing on the left of that picture would have been on the side of the blast. They are likely leaning over because there is significant damage to the side of that span. 

I'm guessing that they are down to one rail line now.

[The_MonkeyKing]

BTR-4 takes out T-80 with the mounted ATGM

49°31'46.0"N 37°55'36.6"E

[poesel]

41 minutes ago, akd said:

Actually, you can see it slowly moving in the recording I posted above.

Ok, I amend that to 'standing or very slow'. Hmm, maybe it was that slow because of heavy winds? That would be an explanation. But that would make the timing of the attack even more complicated.

2 minutes ago, IanL said:

The railing on the left of that picture would have been on the side of the blast. They are likely leaning over because there is significant damage to the side of that span. 

I'm guessing that they are down to one rail line now.

I meant the railing on the right. That would be the far side of the explosion, if I'm not mistaken.

[Zeleban]

Soldiers of the 93rd mechanized brigade entered the positions of the Russians near Soledar and took prisoners

[LongLeftFlank]

Super intense firefight. You must admit this Russian gunner has some balz. You can skip to 0:30 (just FF road movement up to then).

Interesting shell tracks too, for make benefit future CM effects modding!

@Vein , in case you're still out there.

[Zeleban]

Ukrainians crossed M 113 with BTR-80

[LongLeftFlank]

36 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

BTR-4 takes out T-80 with the mounted ATGM

49°31'46.0"N 37°55'36.6"E

Notice one crewman callously leaves his shocked and injured mate to his fate, as the tank brews up a few moments later.

Give it up, Russia. Go the hell home, stop this endless parade of stupid, FFS.  If you won't even fight for your comrades, what's left? You aren't even effing bandits at this point, that implies some form of teamwork.

Edited October 9, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[FancyCat]

I wouldn’t say stunt, but I didn’t know it had two lines so good to know.

 

 

[Zeleban]

The direction of the propaganda strike against Ukraine is becoming more and more obvious. We urgently need to stop Ukraine, otherwise it will destroy the whole world.

[LongLeftFlank]

1. Supply lines.

Besides the rail lines, notice that coastal superhighway.

2.  Defenses.  So, I find this a little odd....

a.  If your 'bridgehead' has shrunk to this, what's the point?  Just withdraw to the south bank.

b.  If your purpose is to deter a UA coup de main to seize the dam, then you'd better keep those trenches properly manned.  Otherwise, haven't you just made it *easier*, not harder, for a small crack force to come in, take and hold it against counterattack, by obligingly digging positions for them?

Edited October 9, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[A Canadian Cat]

52 minutes ago, poesel said:

I meant the railing on the right. That would be the far side of the explosion, if I'm not mistaken.

There are no pictures in the tweet showing the railing on the opposite side. There is a picture looking back the other direction where the blast site is to the right. At least that's how I interpret it.

Edit: oops I ses what you mean now. The train is on the side of the explosion and that railing is on the opposite side. 

Interesting. Could it be from the fire?

Edited October 9, 2022 by IanL
Oops made a mistake

[RockinHarry]

29 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Super intense firefight. You must admit this Russian gunner has some balz. You can skip to 0:30 (just FF road movement up to then).

Interesting shell tracks too, for make benefit future CM effects modding!

@Vein , in case you're still out there.

all ballz, no brains. Folks with brains would´ve bailed at the earliest possible moment. Otherwise they neglect giving the UKR some functioning booty. Very heroic! Some hero of the motherland (or how they call all their fancy sh*t) stuff coming for sure. Posthumously.