"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (5 Viewers)

Denniss · Jul 28, 2023

its quiet easy to damage the road bridge section with blast damage from above or below due to its rather lightweight structure - the rail bridge section is much harder to take out as its stressed to withstand lots of weight so its massively reinforced with steel. It would need a direct hit with a large bomb from above or some rocket from the side. Both may be not feasible.
The real damage will be done by taking out a support strut/bridge pillar as that will be much harder to replace but that may be just impossible.

buffnut453 · Jul 28, 2023

Admiral Beez said:
It does seem to be a bridge too far for the Ukrainians. And kudos to the Kerch bridge designer for rapidly throwing up a bridge that is seemingly (to date) indestructible. Truck bombs, boat bombs, throw whatever you have at it, and it still stands and operates. I am reminded of the Thanh Hóa Bridge in Vietnam where as part of 1965's Operation Rolling Thunder the USAF targeted the essential bridge, launching hundreds of attacks but still took until 1972 to finally destroy the bridge - which the Vietnamese quickly rebuilt. Who would have thought that in today's age of PGMs a bridge can still hold out.

Well, let's recognize that the Kerch Bridge isn't "a bridge" (singular)...it's actually 3 bridges (a rail bridge plus two 2-lane road bridges). I say this because I could completely destroy one side of the road bridge but the other side would still be operable. Kerch Bridge is very large and heavily constructed, and is actually quite a hard target to take out. You'd likely need a couple of PGMs to take out each side of the road bridge, plus another 1-2 to take out the rail bridge...and those are bare minima just to create a single break. To really complicate things for the Russians, you'd ideally want to drop multiple spans and perhaps topple or undermine a number of the bridge supports.

We shouldn't treat the truck bomb as a PGM because it's effect mechanism--largely blast--was delivered above the bridge surface rather than inside it. As such, it would be far less effective than an air-delivered PGM which, depending on fuse setting, may penetrate a portion of the surface before exploding and hence have far greater effect. A weapon that can penetrate the bridge surface will also generate heave within the structure which can be far more destructive.

The maritime attack against the bridge did appear to generate some heave, resulting in one of the spans dropping slighting on one end. The problem with such attack mechanisms is that you're hitting the bridge supports which are the strongest part of the bridge. It would take a LOT of explosive to take one of those out. That said, the latest attack was far more effective than prior attempts.

Admiral Beez · Jul 28, 2023

Denniss said:
The real damage will be done by taking out a support strut/bridge pillar as that will be much harder to replace but that may be just impossible.

Sounds like an opportunity for a repeat of Operation Chariot, where HMS Campbeltown was filled with explosives. So, fill a grain carrier or other cargo vessel, sail under Russian colours under the bridge, abandon ship, blow it up.

SaparotRob · Jul 28, 2023

Arggh Matey, I be liking the cut o' yer jib! We takes one of their scows and we gets close to that foul, cursed bridge of Satan, we hoists the Jolly Roger!

buffnut453 · Jul 28, 2023

SaparotRob said:
Arggh Matey, I be liking the cut o' yer jib! We takes one of their scows and we gets close to that foul, cursed bridge of Satan, we hoists the Jolly Roger!

Oh dear, SaparotRob's been at the rum again, hasn't he? You know, one sniff of the barmaid's apron and he's 3 sheets to the wind!!

SplitRz · Jul 28, 2023

Admiral Beez said:
It must be. Though the Royal Marines make do with the British Army's Apaches. Here's the former RN assault carrier HMS Ocean.

View attachment 731348

Doh. Can't delete this darned accidental post

SaparotRob · Jul 28, 2023

buffnut453 said:
Oh dear, SaparotRob's been at the rum again, hasn't he? You know one sniff of the barmaid's apron and he's 3 sheets to the wind!!

Izzat that what that was? I feared it might have been something more blackmail able.

WARSPITER · Jul 28, 2023

SaparotRob said:
Arggh Matey, I be liking the cut o' yer jib! We takes one of their scows and we gets close to that foul, cursed bridge of Satan, we hoists the Jolly Roger!

In future posts, please remember to include the English translation.

SaparotRob · Jul 28, 2023

buffnut453 said:
Oh dear, SaparotRob's been at the rum again, hasn't he? You know one sniff of the barmaid's apron and he's 3 sheets to the wind!!

I intended on posting a serious, sober reply, basically agreeing with The Admiral. Then the voices took over.

Thumpalumpacus · Jul 28, 2023

buffnut453 said:
Oh dear, SaparotRob's been at the rum again, hasn't he? You know one sniff of the barmaid's apron and he's 3 sheets to the wind!!

I heard this stuff'll make him dip rails:

Thumpalumpacus · Jul 28, 2023

SplitRz said:
Doh. Can't delete this darned accidental post

Backspace over it in the reply box, and when the box is completely and entirely empty, press the "post reply" button. You'll get the "oops" message, but it should remove the accidental quote from your reply cache.

JDCAVE · Jul 28, 2023

Thumpalumpacus said:
I'm not so sure. It's an air-burst weapon that relies upon a shock/pressure-wave for its effect. It doesn't leave a crater. Little Boy, over Hiroshima, detonated at 1800' AGL, and left no crater, despite being an order of magnitude more powerful.

The mines themselves making craters? Sure, small ones which are easily crossed by tracked vehicles, which were introduced by the Brits in 1916 precisely to cross cratered terrain. Broken terrain is why tanks were introduced in the first place.

Perhaps, but I wasn't sure about the nature of this weapon. I thought it was a bunker buster. Certainly I don't think you would be driving a tank down a crater left by a WWII Tall Boy or Grand Slam.

JDCAVE · Jul 28, 2023

buffnut453 said:
Oh dear, SaparotRob's been at the rum again, hasn't he? You know, one sniff of the barmaid's apron and he's 3 sheets to the wind!!

Well, I've been making inroads on this during my counter clockwise circumnavigation of Vancouver Island..l

Admiral Beez · Jul 28, 2023

SaparotRob said:
Arggh Matey, I be liking the cut o' yer jib! We takes one of their scows and we gets close to that foul, cursed bridge of Satan, we hoists the Jolly Roger!

Here's the Russians showing how it's done.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjc5MKNhorw
The Ukrainians would though need to get under all three bridges. Flank speed, Captain Phillips' style should get it done.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJr7649ST2c
The Somalis in this scene can play the bungling Russians in their shoddy boats.

SplitRz · Jul 28, 2023

Thanks Mr Thumps! It worked!

SplitRz · Jul 28, 2023

Pirates Disease - theres a lot of it about:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAlXjqWIJjM

MiTasol · Jul 28, 2023

Thumpalumpacus said:
Backspace over it in the reply box, and when the box is completely and entirely empty, press the "post reply" button. You'll get the "oops" message, but it should remove the accidental quote from your reply cache.

Thanks for that - I have deleted text and then typed in something like posted in error multiple times and your way is much easier.

Now I just have to remember it

MiTasol · Jul 28, 2023

My favourite rum bottle.

This was only made for a short time in the early 00's and I only bought this bottle after it went out of production. Surprisingly it was an excellent drop. I refill it with a very nice local bootleg drop.

Admiral Beez · Jul 28, 2023

MiTasol said:
My favourite rum bottle.

This was only made for a short time in the early 00's and I only bought this bottle after it went out of production. Surprisingly it was an excellent drop. I refill it with a very nice local bootleg drop.

View attachment 731493

I learned a trick here on the forum. After you post you can go back and edit to change the image size. Like I just did below. I use this feature mostly when I want to post multiple images within one post and want them all to be the same size, and also to eliminate any huge images taking up the entire screen.

MiTasol · Jul 28, 2023

Thanks Beez

I do that normally and must have been having a senior moment when I posted that - corrected by clicking on image and pulling top handle diagonally - is that the method you use?

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