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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?

#61

Post by stefan_ »

jaynetics wrote: post #53
themgt wrote: post #21

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 les…

I guess the ARD take is intentionally more on the side of infotainment. There's also this WSJ article from a few days ago which purports to know some very specific facts and even to have quotes from participants of the operation: https://archive.ph/Ka8HB

It also of course claims

> In the wake of the attack, which took out three of the four conduits forming the pipelines, energy prices surged.

which is trivially disprovable, not least because the pipelines were not transporting any gas and hadn't for a while. They are too busy writing fiction they don't bother to verify even the most basic things.

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

#62

Post by greenavocado »

holmesworcester wrote: post #30
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 sever…

Losing a 500 kilogram bundle of explosives in the Baltic Sea is also not an acceptable mistake.

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

#63

Post by dtquad »

DevX101 wrote: post #51

It was enlightening to read/watch the realtime assessments of the sabotage from US leadership. The original storyline from American leadership was that Russia did it. That this story got any legs was an insult to the intelligence of any thinking person. The pipeline was a major revenue source for Russia, and probably a major reason why Germany was slow to back Ukraine. Eventually leadership realized that this was a t…

Nobody from the "American leadership" said Russia did it.

They pushed back against disinformation spread by Russian propagandists like Seymour Hersh who were baselessly blaming the US and Norway without providing any credible proof.

Seymour Hersh were later exposed to be a unknowing useful tool for Russian handlers because his "US security source" was using Russian idioms that no Westerner would use.

Google "poor waif in his underwear".

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

#64

Post by greenavocado »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #41
IshKebab wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you need 500kg of explosives? That's massively overkill.

Indeed, describing a gas pipeline which already wants to explode. You just need to provide the ignition. You do not want to make a second attempt, but something more modest seems like it would have been just as effective.

A 85-95% methane, ethane, propane, and butane environment like that which was found in Nord Stream 2 is not flammable because there is no oxidizer present (typically oxygen) under water. Carbon dioxide and Nitrogen are non-combustible and made up the remainder of the gases in the pipeline.

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

#65

Post by postalrat »

greenavocado wrote: post #62
holmesworcester wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sever…

Losing a 500 kilogram bundle of explosives in the Baltic Sea is also not an acceptable mistake.

Worth the risk. That's like a single bomb.

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

#66

Post by jaynetics »

stefan_ wrote: post #61
jaynetics wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the ARD take is intentionally more on the side of infotainment. There's also this WSJ article from a few days ago which purports to know some very specific facts and even to have quotes from participants of the operation: https://archive.ph/Ka8HB

It also of course claims > In the wake of the attack, which took out three of the four conduits forming the pipelines, energy prices surged. which is trivially disprovable, not least because the pipelines were not transporting any gas and hadn't for a while . They are too busy writing fiction they don't bother to verify even the most basic things.

> which is trivially disprovable, not least because the pipelines were not transporting any gas and hadn't for a while.

This doesn't disprove anything. Energy prices could still have surged for multiple reasons, e.g. because countries might have worried about similar attacks on other, active pipelines and might have become more eager to boost their reserves. We'd have to look at some actual stats, but even then it might be hard to tell apart any effects from the utter market chaos at the time.

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

#67

Post by greenavocado »

ofrzeta wrote: post #42
slau wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It was an estimation made up early in the coverage by experts when they didn't even know what kind of explosives were used (it's Octogen).

If its HMX (Octogen) then two kilograms is a bit more than sufficient to get the job done. Even 1.2kg is likely sufficient.

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

#68

Post by anovikov »

voytec wrote: post #44
anovikov wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't work with gas pipeline, especially not with undersea ones. They scale down terribly poorly, becoming incredibly expensive to build and operate per bcm/y if made thinner/"smaller" to have many of them for redundancy. Also too long, equally well attacked at any point, thus impossible to defend, and impossible to fix once attacked (saltwater getting inside -> pipes are wrecked after a few days, long before they…

My point is that you don't need gas specifically, but energy. Find ways to get energy without dependency on gas if the source is unstable.

That's true. We should depend less on things that are so vulnerable. LNG is partially a solution though - a liquefaction or regasification terminal is easier to protect, and defence of shipping at sea is a well-debugged thing since WWI.

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

#69

Post by greenavocado »

postalrat wrote: post #65
greenavocado wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Losing a 500 kilogram bundle of explosives in the Baltic Sea is also not an acceptable mistake.

Worth the risk. That's like a single bomb.

I still don't understand why Denmark and Sweden said they believed that “several hundred kilograms” of explosives were used. It's bizzare.

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

#70

Post by im3w1l »

What about this approach? Put the payload on an inflatable lifeboat. Anchor the boat, and try to get the anchor to land directly on top of the pipeline. Keep trying until sonar confirms succes. Thread the rope through a loop on the lifeboat. Partially deflate the lifeboat so that it slowly descends. The rope serves as a guide. Use sonar to check whether the charge is acceptably close to the pipeline. Cut the rope and leave.

If it was close enough, activate the charge remotely. Otherwise, just leave it there without activating it.

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