How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[FancyCat]

Where the hell is the fire department? Longer that burns. Also I see cctv cameras staring at that bridge. Wonder if it caught anything.

[LongLeftFlank]

Just now, FancyCat said:

Where the hell is the fire department? Longer that burns. Also I see cctv cameras staring at that bridge. Wonder if it caught anything.

Yeah, no problem lol, just drive along the tracks, then pick your way on foot past the fully laden tank cars that haven't caught ablaze yet, and train your hoses on the.....

 

(Perhaps if we built this large wooden badger)

[Battlefront.com]

Holy crap!  That's a WAY better birthday present than a tractor.

OK, so what do we have for reporting on what dropped the bridge?  From the looks of it the road segments don't look damaged.  Instead, it looks like there were multiple piers that collapsed.  Kinda like dominoes.  The rail bridge appears to be a well timed strike (of some sort) of a fuel train. 

There is the possibility that Ukraine had nothing to do with this.  The bridge was built in a hurry by one of the most corrupt governments on the planet.  Who here remembers Sochi's various facilities that were constructed in haste by the same government?  Exactly.  So it is possible that the added strain of constant military traffic caused the bridge to be weakened and some sort of fuel tanker accident caused the road bridge to collapse.

Arguing against the "smoking" theory is the timing of Putin's birthday and that the bridge was so close to collapsing that a couple of tanker cars blowing up was enough to set off a chain reaction.  Possible?  I suppose so, but I'd say not probable.

Yet, I don't see a clear cause/effect to support a Ukrainian attack.  The road bridge collapse does not appear caused by something like Hrims-2 or ATACAMS.  Too clean. 

The rail bridge, however, is something that could have been done by special forces.  Some explosives placed on a car with a remote detonation device would set the train on fire quite nicely.  But that's only half the equation unless the explosion was enough to collapse the road bridge.

Steve

[FancyCat]

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, chrisl said:

I kind of wonder if it was more effective than planned.  That it's a burning fuel train isn't a surprise - if they have an insider they could put a GPS triggered bomb on a fuel car far from the bridge, without necessarily even knowing approximately when it would get there, and set a train on fire on the tracks.

I read an article a while back - I don't recall if it was linked here or I found it on search - that pointed out that the bridge is poorly constructed. I may have found the article because I was digging around and the bridge was built way too fast to believe that there was complete engineering done for the seabed mounts.  

Here's a link to the 2017 article I'd read before: Russia’s Crimea Bridge Could Collapse Anytime

And a second article from 2018: Kerch Strait Bridge to "snap in one moment": Expert explains "point of no return"

Looking at the pictures in the OSINT post it's hard to sort out how many places the road is collapsed. The first picture shows two steep "ramps" but the ones that show the rail bridge burning up close show a supported span that's ramping down to one of the landfalls and that's had several of the road spans collapse.

Ha!  You Ninja'd me

Yup, if I had to place a bet it is that Ukraine blew up the rail cars (most likely sabotage) and the explosion was sufficient enough to push the road bridge to the point of collapse.  So Ukraine got two for the price of one.

Steve

[chrisl]

4 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Where the hell is the fire department? Longer that burns. Also I see cctv cameras staring at that bridge. Wonder if it caught anything.

And does the local fire department have trains?  And how are the spans supported - will having a few spans out make it easier for adjacent spans to drop?

Firefighting boats might be the best option, but unless they have foam to mix in, all they're going to do is mix flaming fuel around.  They could maybe cool down adjacent cars and the road to keep more tank cars from going up and the rail spans from weakening further.

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Where the hell is the fire department? Longer that burns. Also I see cctv cameras staring at that bridge. Wonder if it caught anything.

It is likely the fire has already severely compromised the bridge's structural integrity.  Steel reinforced concrete is not designed to handle intensive heat like that.  Twin Towers gave us a lesson on what happens when large quantities of fuel get burning steel and concrete.

Steve

[FancyCat]

Oh nevermind, I rechecked, pretty sure the whole bridge is out of action, Russians will have to fly and get a boat back to Russia to get off Crimea.

What a coup by Ukraine. Frankly, all NATO states should apply to Ukraine to renew their membership.

[LongLeftFlank]

11 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Firefighting boats might be the best option, but unless they have foam to mix in, all they're going to do is mix flaming fuel around.

My boat's capsized it's gonna sink to the bottom / I can see the lights on the shore getting farther away / I don't know if I'll make it home tonight /  but I know I can swim under the Tahitian moon.....

...I promised Steve not to overmeme the Thread, but the band name is just too perfect and you know, feeling kinda giddy right now.

Edited October 8, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[chrisl]

This view is good.  But I'm questioning my burning road theory - something on the road should be on fire if it's correct. But it just dropped.

Alternate theory is that the road segments are just resting atop the piers with lateral constraints, but no longitudinal constraint (to allow for expansion) and no vertical constraint (because bridges are heavy and gravity pulling it onto the pier would hold it in place) and the exploding rail car caused enough displacement that the adjacent road segments came unconstrained laterally and moved enough to drop.

 

[chrisl]

7 minutes ago, FancyCat said:

Oh nevermind, I rechecked, pretty sure the whole bridge is out of action, Russians will have to fly and get a boat back to Russia to get off Crimea.

What a coup by Ukraine. Frankly, all NATO states should apply to Ukraine to renew their membership.

I think the technical term is "That bridge is completely f$$%ed"

[FancyCat]

Wow. It's all screwed up.

 

[chrisl]

Here's a good one from the same guy showing the intact segments in the water

(clipped out the tweet because @FancyCat beat me to it by seconds)

 

Being Russian and having no regard for safety, they could crane those segments back onto the piers in a couple of days and be driving trucks across it by the middle of next week.

Edited October 8, 2022 by chrisl

[Battlefront.com]

Just now, chrisl said:

Here's a good one from the same guy showing the intact segment in the water

Being Russian and having no regard for safety, they could crane those segments back onto the piers in a couple of days and be driving trucks across it by the middle of next week.

A couple of days?  Maybe after months of getting the barges and cranes in place to do the lifting.  Nope, no quick fix for this at all.

Steve

[Jace11]

OMG, there is going to be panic in Crimea. They freaked when that airfield got hit.

[Kinophile]

Where the hell us everyone?  Y' know, everyone who would respond to a major,  structurally destructive fire (with large booster amounts in fuel still adjacent) on a critical  piece of national infrastructure, that's also vital to an ongoing invasion? 

What Emergency Services doin'? 

[Calamine Waffles]

 

[chrisl]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

A couple of days?  Maybe after months of getting the barges and cranes in place to do the lifting.  Nope, no quick fix for this at all.

Steve

Just you watch them try...

[Battlefront.com]

6 minutes ago, chrisl said:

This view is good.  But I'm questioning my burning road theory - something on the road should be on fire if it's correct. But it just dropped.

This isn't a problem.  Shock wave from the tankers would be the thing to affect this sort of collapse, not the fire.  We don't have a good sense of which span started the apparent chain reaction, but I'd certainly be looking for a scorch mark.  However, the likely suspect is the span that's in the water completely, so examining it would require underwater cameras.  Fat chance we're going to get that sort of OSINT!

6 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Alternate theory is that the road segments are just resting atop the piers with lateral constraints, but no longitudinal constraint (to allow for expansion) and no vertical constraint (because bridges are heavy and gravity pulling it onto the pier would hold it in place) and the exploding rail car caused enough displacement that the adjacent road segments came unconstrained laterally and moved enough to drop.

This is what I'm thinking as well. The bridge was likely not designed to have lateral pressure applied, which could have come about from the detonation of the fuel tanks.  Now, a well designed and properly executed bridge would take into consideration the possibility of hurricane type forces, but given Russia's love of short cutting and how unlikely 100+ mph winds would hit the bridge, my guess is the bridge simply wasn't up to that sort of challenge.

Steve

[chrisl]

I've been watching LAX crane together the guideway for the new people mover for the past couple years.  They're doing lifts like that on the regular, but it's after more than a decade of engineering and planning (because California and probably being designed for a 9.0).  But they're not doing them over water.  

I suspect those segments are lighter and more flexible than they should be so that they could slap together the whole bridge as fast as they did, and the flexibility contributed to them coming out of place.

[dan/california]

 

3 hours ago, cyrano01 said:

The Light Brigade would like a word, Crimea - first time around.

Exception that prove the rule...They over paid

2 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Just you watch them try...

And watch the air burst version of the  ATACAMS or whatever this was hit the repair job at the worst possible moment.

[Canada Guy]

There was a terrible oil rail car explosion in Canada a few years ago. The blast radius was 1km and was devastating incl destroying 30 buildings.

Lac-Mégantic rail disaster

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-Mégantic_rail_disaster

I cannot see this getting better for Russia.

[FancyCat]

7 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Where the hell us everyone?  Y' know, everyone who would respond to a major,  structurally destructive fire (with large booster amounts in fuel still adjacent) on a critical  piece of national infrastructure, that's also vital to an ongoing invasion? 

What Emergency Services doin'? 

Guess that's it, just let it burn out.

 

[chrisl]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

This isn't a problem.  Shock wave from the tankers would be the thing to affect this sort of collapse, not the fire.  We don't have a good sense of which span started the apparent chain reaction, but I'd certainly be looking for a scorch mark.  However, the likely suspect is the span that's in the water completely, so examining it would require underwater cameras.  Fat chance we're going to get that sort of OSINT!

This is what I'm thinking as well. The bridge was likely not designed to have lateral pressure applied, which could have come about from the detonation of the fuel tanks.  Now, a well designed and properly executed bridge would take into consideration the possibility of hurricane type forces, but given Russia's love of short cutting and how unlikely 100+ mph winds would hit the bridge, my guess is the bridge simply wasn't up to that sort of challenge.

Steve

If it were properly designed it also would have to take into account earthquakes moving the ground underneath in all axes with the road on top wanting to stay in place due to inertia and the longitudinal constraint.  Looks like they probably didn't account for that...

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

 

I don't think this is what we're seeing.  If there had been a blast in the circled area, we'd also see something on the collapsed section.  Yet it appears clean.

Steve