201–210 of 347 posts
The effect/kinetic energy of the water involved would be comparable to that released by a nuclear explosion. Total madness. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/nova-kakhovka-... "The reservoir it contains holds an estimated 18 cubic kilometres of water, about the same volume as the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Bursting the dam could send a wall of water flooding settlements below it, including Kherson, which Uk…
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Sad how much destruction war brings.
War as an impersonal phenomenon doesn't bring anything inherently, saying so simply blurs individual responsibility. It's up to the belligerents, up to the individual commanders, units and members of armed forces to decide what and whom they target. Targetting a dam by the Russians is a war crime per Art. 56 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
- settlements on river banks will be swept away - the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe, ZNPP, won't be restarted due to lack of cooling - Crimea will lost access to fresh water - First line of defence for both sides are swept away. - it will be harder for Ukraine side to mount an amphibious assault So it's a lose-lose situation for everyone.
I'm kinda happy for that power plant not to be restarted though. It's much better for it to be in a shutdown state if it finds itself in the middle of combat again. I know Ukraine needed the power but it getting damaged could cause problems far beyond Ukraine. One Chernobyl was enough. But I hope it has enough cooling water to cool its storage reservoirs. All the other effects are terrible of course :( And all favour…
To be clear, I'm not saying that this wasn't a strike, or a demolition, just that it could be an unintended failure caused by precision strikes performed on targets very near to the dam.
“That latter point means that, like all concrete structures, concrete dams will crack. These cracks will be tend to be vertical, since the concrete is free to grow and shrink in the vertical dimension, while the canyon it spans is of a fixed dimension. While an arch dam will have the pressure of the water pushing these vertical cracks closed, a gravity dam has no forces acting along its axis--well, except for the temperature changes. The easiest way to deal with this is to provide a known place for the concrete to crack. Therefore, the dam is divided into monoliths, where each monolith is a separately-placed block of concrete that is more or less structurally independent of the monoliths next to it. The dividing lines between monoliths are contraction joints, and will open and close with temperature changes, sometimes quite dramatically. This is the same reason sidewalks are cut into squares and concrete highways have the joints that go "ba-dump" as you drive over them--the concrete will crack, so provide a way to make it crack in a controlled, pretty manner.
[...]
This will hold true for all of the concrete, but once you get to the foundation, it gets a bit tricker. The soil is not a relatively well-controlled material like the concrete. It's typically full of joints and is permeable. At the base of the dam, it's typical to assume that the full pressure of the forebay is acting at the heel and the pressure of the tailwater is acting at the toe. The total force acting upwards is typically pretty large, which is a problem: this pressure will reduce the forces acting on the foundation, and therefore the force squeezing any joints in the rock. If you remember from high school physics, it's typically assumed that frictional forces are proportional to the force squeezing two surfaces together. Therefore, this uplift pressure can reduce these forces enough that a wedge of foundation rock will slide with the dam in a foundation failure. This is the typical cause of failure in a large gravity dam.
I've shown with a dashed line what that uplift pressure would look like under the monolith, if we let it reach its natural state. However, we have some tricks that we can use to dramatically reduce this uplift pressure. I've drawn a grout curtain and foundation drains extending from the bottom of the dam. The grout curtain is a "wall" of portland cement grout, formed by drilling through the bottom of the dam from the drainage gallery and injecting the grout under pressure. It's typically much deeper than I've shown here, as I ran out of room on the paper. This curtain will increase the path length for flow lines, which will primarily serve to reduce the volume of water flowing under the dam. ”
-- “Effort Post: Concrete Gravity Dam” https://www.datasecretslox.com/index.php/topic,215.msg3582.h...
(see also parts II and III at https://www.datasecretslox.com/index.php/topic,1012.msg19813... and https://www.datasecretslox.com/index.php/topic,1359.msg31228...)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Russia was in control of the dam, had mined it, and had in recent weeks let water levels go up to unprecedented levels. Something like 80 settlements will be completely inundated, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe loses its cooling reservoir and attacks over the river will be impossible for weeks. I don't think Ukraine did it. (getting information from the thread in /r/worldnews).
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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't confuse "pro-Russian" with "anti-bullshit" stance. Finding Russia to be the aggressor and Ukraine to be the victim doesn't automatically imply you have to throw away all your mental faculties and gobble up wartime propaganda without questioning, reducing yourself to a binary classifier - "it says Ukraine good == it's good; otherwise, it's pro-Russian trolling". War time is literally the last moment you want to…
Anyone who values STEM and the legacy of enlightenment that has made STEM possible should definitely pledge allegiance to the Western side in a conflict with Russia or China, even if that includes repeating wartime propaganda at times. I find it perfectly rational.
We can debate the merit of the idea of sacrificing the thing you value the most in order to protect it - but it's neither here, nor there. People on the ground, fighting to defend their homes, are going to do whatever they feel necessary, including plenty of nasty, ugly, underhanded things - as it has always been in the history of war. But people far away, safe from any ongoing conflict, have no excuse - they're not sacrificing anything but intellectual integrity, and they're not doing it for survival, but rather for internet points or a leg up in some domestic political games.
Russia must be punished for doing this or allowing it to happen.
If I were in charge I would blowup a similar dam in Ruzzia. Let the bastards know that there ill be consequences for this war crimes.
Glad you're not in charge. Maybe you feel cool saying you'd ok an operation which would result in the deaths of more innocents, but that's an abhorrent position.
Say some piece of shit country would drop nuclear bombs on a city full of civilians, and I should not do the same back because for morality? Will not that encourage that evil country t drop more nuclear bombs?
What is your opinion then, if you are losing a way with an enemy that plays dirty you give up and accept your annihilation? Your children will be brainwashed by the enemy and send t fight more evil wars.
This attack is a flagrant violation of the Geneva convention and a war crime. Russia must be punished for doing this or allowing it to happen.