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This was taken from another angle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTAx8r_090o
Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull
61–70 of 164 posts
Re: Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull
#62The Venezuelan ship had a 76mm gun, maybe one like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OTO_Melara_76_mm Why would you ram when you could shoot up the other ship with 85 to 120 fourteen pound shells per minute, with no risk to your own ship? Maybe they didn't actually have the ammo. Or maybe they decided to play chicken with the cruise ship and lost.
Those shells will do nothing to stop the ship but will just kill a lot of people for no gains. If they wanted to seize the ship, they should have brought a boarding party with them, I'm sure they have trained sailors for that. Source: I'm a former naval officer and I served as an ordnance officer on a ship with that exact 76mm gun. I also acted as the officer of the deck for quite a few boardings.
Would the shells be able to breach the hull and sink it? I know the cruiser had a hardened hull, but I assume that's not exactly shell proof?
Re: Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull
#63This is insane. I can't imagine what was going through the Venezuelan captain's head trying to do this. It's one thing if the shooting is already started to defend yourself. But even if this stunt had worked, you're looking at many months of downtime while your ship is being repaired in drydock. Millions of dollars, and bigtime loss of capability for a small navy. Unless you are an icebreaker, you just don't intentio…
I mean, less crazy than trying to ram a ship with a locomotive I suppose: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... https://in.reuters.com/video/watch/idOVC7T0OCH Strange days.
haha, what's the under/over on this guy being a q-anon freak?
Re: Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, less crazy than trying to ram a ship with a locomotive I suppose: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... https://in.reuters.com/video/watch/idOVC7T0OCH Strange days.
TIL there is actually a specific US federal law against "wrecking trains". https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-2000-t...
A lot of felonious toddlers out there are getting away with it, too.
Re: Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull
#65Well that's embarrassing. Could you imagine being the crew of the cruise ship and having to rescue the clowns that just tried to ram you?
Rescue would likely be an upgrade from conditions in Venezuela for the Venezuelan Navy crew.
Military and law enforcement personnel tend to be pretty high up in the current hierarchy due to corruption and abuse of power i.e: they have easier access to food, for example. Not sure how that applies to the Navy, though.
Re: Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull
#66This is insane. I can't imagine what was going through the Venezuelan captain's head trying to do this. It's one thing if the shooting is already started to defend yourself. But even if this stunt had worked, you're looking at many months of downtime while your ship is being repaired in drydock. Millions of dollars, and bigtime loss of capability for a small navy. Unless you are an icebreaker, you just don't intentio…
Venezuela has a habit (recently) of putting loyalty ahead of meritocracy in government positions. I would not be at all surprised if the captain had minimal actual nautical experience, but a lot of party loyalty.
Bingo. This applies to basically all nationalized sectors due to top-down corruption. It's why PDVSA has been collapsing in on itself over the last 15 years in spectacular fashion. All the competent engineers and administrators are dead, in prison, ex-pats, retired, or sorely out-numbered by professional grifters who have mismanaged the organization into the ground.
It took a generation to train a world-class engineering workforce and a generation to tear it down.
Re: Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull
#67I only ever seem to see stories that look a whole lot like propaganda from thedrive.com. Who's behind this site?
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Re: Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull
#68Re: Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull
#69Since the US is currently trying to invade Venezuela under the guise of the fight against drugs trafficking I understand Venezuelans being more strict with their borders and would not diacard it being a setup.
If the US wanted to invade, apparently we could do it with a handful of cruise ships. Why send carriers when Carnival will do?
This is the comedy gold I was looking for.
Re: Venezuelan ship sinks itself after ramming cruise liner with a reinforced hull
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
So how do you stop a cruiser like that?
With a boarding party via helicopter or specialized boarding craft (fast boats and rapeling?).
And how do you stop a ship if you consider it a biohazard and don’t want it to get near your dock (and also don’t have the equipment to safely board it without effectively throwing your sailors’ lives away), but it’s insistently coming in anyway? (Perhaps because it’s a “ship of the dead”, drifting unmanned toward your port. Or because it’s, say, just a big barge carrying a pile of tires that’s on fire.)
...would a sufficient number of depth charges work?