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How did divers manage to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline?

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Re: How did divers manage to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline?

#21

Post by themgt »

Yet this could be precisely why the saboteurs used [Andromeda]. To stay undetected and unaccountable — which they managed to do until the charges were made public this week.

It's well worth reading the Spiegel piece from a year ago, which is far more in-depth and goes over a lot more of the evidence and plausibility of the scenario. It's odd to me ARD would put out this highly similar but 90% slimmed down and far less convincing article and not even mention the earlier and more authoritative Spiegel report.

https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/investigating-th...

Re: How did divers manage to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline?

#22

Post by slau »

greenavocado wrote: post #4

While technically possible, carrying a 500 kg payload at depths beyond 50 meters is extremely challenging and would typically involve commercial diving teams, saturation diving techniques, or the use of ROVs. Handling a 500 kg payload is more feasible at shallower depths due to lower pressure and shorter decompression requirements. At 30-50m depths, the challenges increase, and more sophisticated equipment (e.g., lif…

Where does the 500kg figure come from? I don’t see it in the article.

I’m also surprised about the 220lb figure mentioned in the article. Assuming a steel twinset, and 4 extra cylinders, we barely get to 60-70kg. Where do the remaining 30-40kg come from?

Re: How did divers manage to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline?

#23

Post by louthy »

netbioserror wrote: post #16
louthy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s steer clear of saying who it “obviously” was when nobody knows. It’s likely to turn into a flame war unnecessarily.

[flagged]

As far as I am aware, nobody knows who did it, or at least those that do know haven’t made it public. So, it’s hard to hold them responsible.

Also, I doubt a comment thread on Hacker News is going to be the place of reckoning for whomever did it. So, kicking off an argument over speculation isn’t really worth it, imho.

Re: How did divers manage to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline?

#25

Post by voytec »

anovikov wrote: post #12

Only shows how little trust could be put on fixed infrastructure these days. From now on it has to be built in ways much more resistant to sabotage or attacks. In some ways this is already done: for example, renewable energy facilities are too spread out to be vulnerable, it takes too many and too powerful munitions to wreck a solar or wind power plant vs coal-fired one of comparable output. But gas pipelines are an…

> Only shows how little trust could be put on fixed infrastructure these days

You either introduce redundancy to get rid of single points of failure, or you invest in more reliable means to fulfill given requirements, and keep former main "pipe" as backup.

Re: How did divers manage to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline?

#26

Post by 7952 »

netbioserror wrote: post #16
louthy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s steer clear of saying who it “obviously” was when nobody knows. It’s likely to turn into a flame war unnecessarily.

[flagged]

What difference does it make who did it? Unless maybe it was someone unexpected like China.

Re: How did divers manage to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline?

#27

Post by throw10920 »

netbioserror wrote: post #16
louthy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s steer clear of saying who it “obviously” was when nobody knows. It’s likely to turn into a flame war unnecessarily.

[flagged]

Please read the comment that you're responding to before actually responding.

You said "Yes, let's for sure avoid holding the responsible parties responsible", but if you had read the comment first, you would have seen that one of the points was "Let’s steer clear of saying who it “obviously” was when nobody knows." You can't hold someone responsible until you know who did it.

GP is very clearly not saying that we shouldn't investigate (which is an implicit assertion made by your response), but that we shouldn't assign blame until we have very strong evidence as to the perpetrators, which is... extremely obvious.

Re: How did divers manage to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline?

#28

Post by xedrac »

netbioserror wrote: post #16
louthy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s steer clear of saying who it “obviously” was when nobody knows. It’s likely to turn into a flame war unnecessarily.

[flagged]

And who is the unequivocal responsible party?

Re: How did divers manage to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline?

#29

Post by konschubert »

anovikov wrote: post #12

Only shows how little trust could be put on fixed infrastructure these days. From now on it has to be built in ways much more resistant to sabotage or attacks. In some ways this is already done: for example, renewable energy facilities are too spread out to be vulnerable, it takes too many and too powerful munitions to wreck a solar or wind power plant vs coal-fired one of comparable output. But gas pipelines are an…

The substations and power lines are pretty vulnerable.

Re: How did divers manage to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline?

#30

Post by holmesworcester »

greenavocado wrote: post #4

While technically possible, carrying a 500 kg payload at depths beyond 50 meters is extremely challenging and would typically involve commercial diving teams, saturation diving techniques, or the use of ROVs. Handling a 500 kg payload is more feasible at shallower depths due to lower pressure and shorter decompression requirements. At 30-50m depths, the challenges increase, and more sophisticated equipment (e.g., lif…

It sounds like many of these requirements are for safety and reliability.

I can imagine that participants in a war would be much more risk-tolerant than a typical team of professionals would be. Maybe they're okay with a high-ish chance of failure, injury, or death, and so they resource the mission within the limits of what they have, or what they believe will pass unnoticed?

The Germans believe that there were several people. Not 10, but several. The constraint was that they had to be able to pose as vacationers.

Skepticism is warranted for sure, but we shouldn't underestimate what highly motivated and courageous people can do.

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