Nord Stream Pipeline

[raw nexus]

Looks like it will do another loop

[sand delta]

It will stay there for a longer period

Peep the company

Nice Equipment hha

[elfin cradle]

Maybe Gazprom hired it?
There seems to be a Danish military ship in the area and some Swedish coast guards, and maybe a Swedish survey ship on the way.

[sand delta]

KBV003 AMFITRITE (IMO 9380465) is patrolling

• 2-3 „fishing“ vessels

[inner sandal]

My latest post on Nord Stream looks at questions raised by the seismological data https://link.medium.com/yJkwUCHzvyb

[raw nexus]

Interesting thx

[little zinc]

this aircraft is directly north of bornholm, if i recall correctly there are no blast-sites directly in the north of the island. looks like it could be above one of the main shipping routes there?

[eager moss]

Interesting; do you know when the papers will be made publicly available ?

[velvet rain]

We can add the aircraft paths to that map later, if it helps 🙂

But yeah, definitely not near the explosion sites.

[elfin cradle]

I wonder what Hersh will say now...

"An obvious explanation might be that all three bombs were set to be detonated simultaneously by a single trigger signal, but that doesn’t quite fit the seismological evidence. "

[inner sandal]

Links to the abstracts are at the end of my post. The EGU conference is 23-28 April and I'm assuming the full papers will become available when they are presented. If you open one of the abstracts you will find links to more information about the conference at the top of the page.

[eager moss]

yes, had read the abstracts; interested in reading the full papers when available. 👍

[elfin cradle]

This is exactly why I started to look at the Seismographic data last Friday. Trying to find any divergence when the bomb exploded.

[sand delta]

Yeh sorry was too quick to judge as I am at work but the flights look sus

[raw nexus]

Is it known if the damaged pipes were above or on the ground?

[velvet rain]

Just bringing that map back into focus. Roughly eyeballing it, it looks like the flight was circling directly over one of the lanes of the TSS.

[velvet rain]

Judging from the underwater footage of the explosion sites, it seems like the pipeline was exposed in these locations.

[elfin cradle]

According to a twitter convo I had with someone that worked on NS, he said that NS2 was much less buried than NS1.

[raw nexus]

Thx

[elfin cradle]

The bad sea floor were one of the reasons they wanted to change route of NS2 and not go the same path as NS1, until they change the route due DK law.

[raw nexus]

I've seen footage from the pipe above the ground and the first thing came to my mind was that could cause a discrepancy of the seismo data, but that's just my unprof thoughts

[eager moss]

At the NS2-A pipeline rupture location south of Bornholm the pipeline would have been on the seabed with very little embedment; as is seen on the ROV recording. The ROV recording near the NS1-A rupture location shows a significant amount of sedimentation on either side of the pipeline. This is consistent with both the time difference since the pipelines were installed and the expected extent of sediment transportation around Bornholm. At the location of the NS1-A explosion there is a crater which might make it appear as though the pipeline isn't embeded.

[junior moat]

It's a further cover-up .. the Swedish seismologists were instructed by the CIA to lie to all their colleagues 🤪 by now there is at least 2000 European experts, police officers, journalists involved in this cover-up. But only Hersh knows this.

[next lagoon]

https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/aussenpolitik/id_100149758/nord-stream-russia-may-have-operated-a-submarine-before-the-explosions.html

Some interesting details here I hadn't seen raised yet

[lethal rivet]

found the article they mentioned: https://function.mil.ru/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12438912@egNews

translation:

[inner sandal]

Am I right in thinking a sonar buoy would be the only way to trigger a bomb remotely under water?

[sand delta]

Sort of. VLF radio transmissions (which the major submarine powers have to communicate with their subs) are only really "good" to 40m (depending on salinity/frequency used).

But there is other ways.

[serene grove]

this is what I would use https://evologics.de/acoustic-modems

[sand delta]

As stupid (and provably wrong) as Hersh's hypotheses are, obviously dropping a sonobuoy and having the charge listen out for that particular frequency is the "easiest" way to suggest it was done.

But yea, there's systems like JANUS.

https://www.cmre.nato.int/rockstories-blog-display/398-janus-the-cmre-underwater-communication-protocol-becomes-a-nato-standard

[serene grove]

also I love how goofy looking underwater hardware always seems to be

[sand delta]

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7017134

All quite similar to sonar technology, admittedly, but there's plenty of ways to achieve a remote detonation.

And there's also using magnets

[inner sandal]

That seems more likely. Incidentally, some of them look quite like that "antenna" that Putin was going on about. I wonder if he thought it was an acoustic modem.

[elfin cradle]

Lets say that the bombs were sonar activated, technically they could be detonated by an unknowing third party that is just happens to transmit on that special frequency, right?

Stupid, just read about JANUS.

[raw nexus]

The whole story is so weird that this sounds like another legit scenario

[elfin cradle]

What do you mean?

[raw nexus]

What you wrote doesn't seem stupid after months of weird stories

[elfin cradle]

@pure finch damn you! As always you find stuff first!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn8YWIPPM1s

[pure finch]

Hey I wouldn't even be looking at this subject if it wasn't for you and your leads 🙂

[elfin cradle]

Okay, sonar detonated bombs is not as complex as I believed it was. The COTS on the market is much smaller and advanced with multiple types of digital modulation.

Looking at the Popoto´s site, and these small things have a range of 1-8km. And its basically just dropping it into the sea and you can communicate.

I dislike when some aspects of Hersh story is plausible, just not in the way he presented it.

[pure finch]

I just wish we had a hydrophone recording off Bornholm ~26 September 😦

[elfin cradle]

Damnit, not again. That actually looks like "the thing"...

[raw nexus]

That's what @inner sandal said also

[elfin cradle]

Sorry, I have missed it.

[pure finch]

A newly updated animation with a number of vessel tracks between 05 - 14 September.

Still a work in progress - but folks may find it of interest, as is

Thanks as ever to @velvet rain and @sand delta who have helped me improve my maps over time and dug up a lot of the overlays used in this: note the MJ following the TSS arrows and staying out of the marked lane while it drifts.

I'd like to add more vessels of interest between 1-26 September, so if you have any MMSI's that you would like us to add, just reply. It takes time to generate these maps, so bear with me!

https://dbmee.breadmen.ac/redo.mp4

[velvet rain]

I refuse to take any credit for this. This is entirely your amazing work!

[sand delta]

Likewise, Púca is GIS god.

[pure finch]

GIS god** nerd**

[sand delta]

Dumb question, is there any nine 9s MMSI tracks in the area.

That's the usual MMSI used by naval vessels who want to broadcast AIS for the benefit of mariners around them, but not identify themselves to anyone who is watching.

[pure finch]

I did not know this! OK... hmmmm!!!

[sand delta]

That's the MMSI used by the US vessel

Remember, the ship that Marine Traffic was calling the Elona/i

#1072947857654554624 message

[stark palm]

Still no explanation from MarineTraffic as to why the Swedish warship has suddenly disappeared

They just said that the first recorded position in their database is on 21 March 2023.

https://tenor.com/view/lie-lies-liar-bullshit-so-that-was-gif-15334130

[serene grove]

do you still have a copy of the data or just the map?

[stark palm]

I have screenshots of the track

A lot of the track is also still available in the downloaded Danish AIS data

[serene grove]

you could show them the screenshot and see what they say about it I guess

might convince their tech support people to dig deeper

[pure finch]

Just quote what they said in their own About Us section: "Our mission to bring about transparency and meaningful change to the maritime world "

[stark palm]

I have, we are waiting for a reply

[tired monolith]

they probably prefer as much transparency as google did when they came up with dont be evil 😛

just need the marketing to work until the payoff

[serene grove]

what would the payoff even be for deleting a random ship

it's not like sweden govt threatened them to take it down or something (I hope?)

[elfin cradle]

Why else would they claim that they have not had any data before now

[serene grove]

"the first recorded position in their database is on 21 March 2023" does not say that they didn't have the data before

technically that just says they don't have it now

my theory is that someone doing quality checks found some discrepancy with the data and cleared it

[tired monolith]

yeah remains to be seen as to why in this particular case - was more a stab at the marketing of too many companies end up being meaningless other than for them to earn more

[pure finch]

Here's that disappearing Swedish ship getting up close to a... familiar vessel that was on its return leg at the time, I guess.
https://dbmee.breadmen.ac/redux.mp4

[eager moss]

A different subject but one that was raised a few days ago : Salinity in the Baltic Sea. The chart shows average salinity (1900 - 2005) through the water column in both summer and winter; there were two monitoring stations near the rupture sites. Interesting impact of river water with a consistent density in the top 50 metres and a mixing between 50 metres and 100 metres water depth.

[serene grove]

Booooooo https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-nord-stream-4398a755a2de6c09846362a1038badd8

Oh wait sounds like Russia was trying to do something sketchy actually

[elfin cradle]

Yes, reading between the lines it would have said that Sweden, Germany, Denmarks government arnt transparent and trustworthy enough to conduct their own investigations. And indirectly blame US. Nebenzia literarily said “As we say: liar, liar, pants on fire.” about US. Very mature...

Ending remarks of the UNSC meeting. https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15243.doc.htm

[elfin cradle]

Oh yeah, this is also important in a broader context. Russia is trying to seed distrust in UN and OPCW (again), and accuses it to be politicalized.

https://russiaun.ru/en/news/opcw_240323
And the 80 page long document is almost purely comical and it feels like an intern has put it togethr:
Salisbury: Five Years of Unanswered Questions
https://telegra.ph/SALISBURY-FIVE-YEARS-OF-UNANSWERED-QUESTIONS-03-03

[serene grove]

russian govt ending up on the permanent security council is one of the weirder things that has happened but makes sense considering the situation at the time

gonna be paying for that mistake for the foreseeable future

uk+france instead of germany only happened because of the circumstances as well

[pure vine]

the whole point of the p5 was to be strategic nuclear powers

[serene grove]

that's a non-sequitur :p

the first non-US nuclear test was in 1949, the UN security permanent security council was formed in 1946

(and the soviets only got the bomb that fast because klaus sold em the plans)

[inner sandal]

Does anyone know the date when the Andromeda crew reserved the yacht? Presumably they would have booked it in advance rather than just turning up on the day of departure.

[velvet rain]

According to Mola's rental contract, full payment is required 8 weeks before departure. While this tells us nothing about whether rentals on a shorter notice are possible, I think it's reasonable to think in that time frame.

[inner sandal]

Thanks for that. It seems to confirm the trip was planned well in advance. My estimate is that the bombing (by whoever) would have taken 3-6 months to plan and prepare, and that planning most likely started before Russia began messing about with the gas supplies in mid-June. Anyone think differently?

[stark palm]

Probably around March when the Yaroslav Mudry was sniffing around the pipeline

[limber hinge]

Some additional submarine/pipeline related news, not specific to NordStream.
https://eurasiantimes.com/russian-nuke-submarine-caught-red-handed-on-critical/

I get the (sick) feeling there is a whole lot more going on than we realize. RE: Ukraine/ Russia/NATO

[serene grove]

gill you've seen the hisutton video on russian seabed warfare capabilities right?

[limber hinge]

Yup.

[serene grove]

he did a good job separating known russian capabilities from the others

[limber hinge]

Part of the issue is we have built out this critical infrastructure supporting our Western life. The Vandals have little to no such infrastructure. Asymmetrical vulnerabilities.

[serene grove]

I have said that exact thing so many times to certain bosses who have been like "now we can hack back!"

yeah great idea genius we're gonna start a war with whatever country russia hacked to use as a jumpbox

or whoever, russia is just on my mind these days for reasons completely unrelated to this channel

[limber hinge]

It may explaine in part the veil of silence over NordStream, if the public understood the risk and vulnerability it would freak out.
MAYBE. Very speculative.

[serene grove]

I mean it's actually pretty difficult to screw it up, I think you could drag most anchors into it and it would be mostly ok

there's a reason people are figuring a few hundred kg explosives minimum

so, new angle, I've been looking at the seismograph data and it looks like there's no major explosion before the big pipe rupture...what if no explosives, just a drill or something?

everyone was figuring there would be a big crack from high explosives and then the major signature from the gas release

but that first crack doesn't actually show up in the seismic data

does a shaped charge maybe not put enough energy outwards to create a blast signature?

[inner sandal]

The effect of the sudden gas release is still unclear but seismologists are working on it. https://medium.com/@brian-whit/nord-stream-attack-seismologists-puzzle-over-explosions-3600d2883180

[velvet rain]

Just curious, what are your qualifications for determining this?

[elfin cradle]

So they planned this at the start of the war, or rather when they realized that they would not take Kyiv.

[pure vine]

wouldnt surprise me if the blocks were in place for a long time

[elfin cradle]

No, it would not be detected on a seismograph.

[eager moss]

anchor damage to a large diameter pipeline such as Nordstream would be mechanical impact damage to the concrete ie might break the concrete off in chunks if the anchor was big enough and moving fast enough. It might result in a small dent to the steel pipe wall but unlikely to affect the pressure containing capacity of the pipeline. Lots of work was done on this a few decades ago 🙂

[elfin cradle]

The explosions are pretty clear. iirc there is some disagreement if they could see 2 or 3 blasts at the northen site.

[eager moss]

it would be much easier, quicker and less conspicuous to place a shaped charge than to try to drill through the pipeline.

[velvet rain]

Drilling would also seem a bit like suicide.

[raw nexus]

As a kind of emergency setting for political earthquakes?

[eager moss]

yes, much less conspicuos; maybe I shouldn't be so obtuse 😉

[pure vine]

contingency in general

you have a powerful geopolitical tool

id be surprised if they didnt have any kind of planning on how to blow it up

[raw nexus]

You have a point here

[velvet rain]

This makes me wonder: Has anyone considered the relative feasibility of attacking the pipeline in the water instead of going after the receiving station on the German side?

[elfin cradle]

Isnt that what they have done now?
Sorry, I read that the wrong way.

[velvet rain]

Oh, sorry, what I mean is whether anyone here has compared both scenarios in terms of feasibility.

Bad phrasing, my bad.

[elfin cradle]

NS1 Risk Assessment:
Based on these analyses, no gas release is expected in the case of dropped objects or anchors.
For dragged anchors, 30% of the damage cases are assumed to result in gas release (all full
bore ruptures). In the case of damage from sinking or grounding ships, all damage is assumed
to result in gas release (the majority of which are assumed to be full bore ruptures).
https://www.nord-stream.com/download/document/75/?language=en

[raw nexus]

That would be Lubmin?

[elfin cradle]

It feels like history is repeating...
Unnamed intelligence sources, UNSC meeting, unknown ships, the german intelligence warning, only "a foreign power" could have done it, etc.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/28/politics/nord-stream-pipeline-leak-russian-navy-ships

[raw nexus]

First on...🤔

[elfin cradle]

Already back then we knew of sus russian ships but it seems that few did any deeper investigation by then. Its funny how the current news make the "discovery" of russian ships as something new.

[raw nexus]

Without a doubt CNN changed into worse since the new board took over.

[eager moss]

yes of course; large ships grounding or dragging anchors are a potential threat but the consequences of gas release that are stated are the assumptions used in the subsequent risk analysis. That risk analysis then shows that the pipeline failure probability and gas release probability are small and within the acceptance criteria. This is almost always the case for large diameter pipelines. If this had not been the result of the risk analysis then the initial assessment of the damage caused by anchor dragging / ship grounding would have been repeated with more sophisticated modelling to better assess the possible damage caused. If the assessed risk was still unacceptable then the analysis would be repeated for a range of mitigation measures.

[stark palm]

the new part is the actual ID of the ships

which just so happen to be the exact ships you would want to use for this operation

from my understanding the ships were initally spotted (possibly not completely IDed) and then forgotten about and now recently have been looked at again

[junior moat]

I guess we have to differentiate between (1) military/NATO intelligence/surveillance (2) investigators with access to all kinds of information and (3) journalists/news

(1) pretty sure knew about these ships already when CNN reported it
(2) investigation probably had the 'russian submarine operation' theory very much on top of their list (among other theories)
(3) can only report after digging up information themselves, which is much harder than it is for (1) and (2)

[limber hinge]

What is new is Oliver's support work. Changing the story from "someone said" to "recorded data indicates".

[rocky wolf]

Russian submarine related
https://www-tv4-se.translate.goog/artikel/2H3mSHs15B90pWQT08jUTh/nya-uppgifter-spetznaz-ubat-kraenkte-gaevle-hamn?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

[rocky wolf]

According to https://corporate-trust.blog/2022/11/17/scandinavians-took-a-hard-look-days-before-nordstream-exploded/ "Visby" left in a hurry on the morning of the 22:nd

I've been AFK for a number of days. Mir was on the site on the night of the 21st

Visby has a MMSI of 265500330

Have I missed something ? Scandinavian spook leak ?

[sand delta]

The suggestion that the bankroller is a formerly politically very important person, a major businessman, born on September 26th, was attributed to “rumours in Scandinavian intelligence circles” in different articles.

[rocky wolf]

Thanks, I thought something new surfaced

My gut feeling is that the DK AIS/MMSI-logs might reveal something. Might have to download the whole year worth though

[elfin cradle]

The thing on the images found here?
https://kkrva.se/frammande-undervattensverksamhet-i-gavle-hamn-2017-06-29-analys-av-ekolodsbilder/

[rocky wolf]

yes

[elfin cradle]

I have hard time to see that as a NN Triton, rather than a Swedish SEAL carrier.
https://twitter.com/CovertShores/status/1640767927749148693?s=20

H I Sutton (@CovertShores)

@balticjam I fear that someone could embarrass themselves on this ID.

I’d need a lot of convincing that it’s not a JFD SEAL Carrier

Twitter · Mar 28, 2023, 5:28 PM

[rocky wolf]

Haven't looked into it myself, just replicating what the story is

The correct vessel ?

The sonar image

doesn't look like it

[stark palm]

The Danish military seems to be sticking with the statement that the P524’s trip up to NS was completely normal and something it does regularly, even though there is no evidence that it has ever happened before

plus the fact that we have the Swedes and Germans in the area at the same time

[rocky wolf]

Given that DK and SE are neighbours it would make sense that they share what happens in the Baltics, perhaps investigating something odd happening

"and completely normal" could possibly be in the context of something odd happening

[pure finch]

This is based on the DK AIS and shows 265500330 #1072947857654554624 message

My earlier post also shows it briefly.

[rocky wolf]

Ehm, what? How do you gather that Sweden, Germany and Denmark's governments aren't transparent or trustworthy enough? I must have missed something

[elfin cradle]

That is what the Russians are implying. Read the meeting notes.

[rocky wolf]

Okay now I'm on track, yes of course they would say so. They want to be able to gather info about what everybody knows, possibly influence the investigation and create their own narrative as usual. I'm not saying Russia did it.. but it sure looks like a lot points towards it. But anyways.. that's right out of their playbook. And look at the nations commenting..

Brazil, Russia, China, Albania, Malta, Ecuador, Ghana, Gabon

and then you have the US, France, Switzerland etc (Might argue that Switzerland should be on the other list btw)

[elfin cradle]

Well, the German Navy's held Northern Coasts (NoCo) basically whole September, instead of its usual 2 weeks. Its usual in Kiel - Denmark strait, but seems to been even to Estonia this time.

• The USS Kearsarge in the Baltics (May-Oct) seams to have lead to longer/more naval exercises than usual (questionmark).
  Been surprisingly little officially said about NoCo this year, compared to last year.

[rocky wolf]

But this is in the context of a Russian invasion of Ukraine as well.

USS Kearsarge and German Navy would for sure stay in waters for several reasons while they are already there..

Kaliningrad being one of the accessible Russian ports from the Baltics

[stark palm]

oste came back from NoCo early leaving the area where the exercise was happening at around 03:00 UTC on the 22nd and headed right towards where the NS site was and stopped not too far away for two hours at the same time as the Danish and Swedish ships were looking at the area

[elfin cradle]

It dosnt look too close? But you maybe have better data than this.

[rocky wolf]

Mir was there on the 21st

Sedov on the 22nd

[junior moat]

this picture is from 9-14 Sept ... before the ships went to Lithuania ... Oliver is talking about their jouney back to Germany on the 22nd

[serene grove]

none, but I was looking at other explosions that have been picked up by seismographs and trying to see if there was one or two explosions in the signature, I could only find one at each timestamp

[serene grove]

do you have a link to that analysis? must have been before my time

but yeah a cutting charge would be too small to show up so it makes sense...I was just hoping to find sometime that I could specifically say "that's a high explosive detonation" and pull clues about the nature of the pyrotechnics from amplitude and waveform

I would also dearly love to get hydrophone data from the sub hunting networks but there's no way in hell that's going to happen

that would be so much more detailed than the seismic data

[velvet rain]

I would just recommend that you add a disclaimer saying that before you make strong claims like that. It's totally fine to be new at something (I'm new/bad at most of the things I'm doing here), but it's also important to separate the facts from the speculation.

[serene grove]

I mean I have a pretty good understanding of the subject matter, just no qualifications per se

if there do happen to be any geologists about, make yourselves known! I have questions for you about groundwater stuff too haha

[sand delta]

The leaks sites had disturbances measured at 2.3 and 2.1 on the Richter scale.

[serene grove]

currently I'm attributing that main signal to the gas doing gas things

I'm trying to separate the explosion signal from it to see how big it is

but I can't disentangle the signals because either they're smudged together temporally or one is just too small and got lost in there

it's really an academic exercise, I don't think there's anything particularly useful information-wise to be gained from it

[sand delta]

Where is that Swedish and Danish data websites

[pure finch]

The Defence Forces scrambled to deploy ships and aircraft this week after spotting two Russian government vessels (Umka and the Bakhtemir) off the west coast equipped with technology capable of interfering with subsea cables.

Suspicions were raised when the ships were spotted loitering near a newly operational communications cable linking Ireland and Iceland.

Both ships had been involved in the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, resulting in them being sanctioned by the US government.
...
However, later analysis determined the ships’ unusual movements were probably a result of efforts to avoid bad weather, rather than anything sinister.
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/03/29/defence-forces-scramble-aircraft-after-russian-government-ships-spotted-off-west-coast/

[sand delta]

Avoiding weather where?

I've sailed/anchored in that area, you kinda need to be close to the coast to get much benefit.

Unless the article means its waiting for poor weather to clear from an area further on in its route?

[serene grove]

https://www.iris.edu/app/station_monitor/#2022-09-26T00:00:00/DK-BSD/webicorder/

[pure finch]

Within Irish EEZ, somewhere close to this:: https://www.submarinecablemap.com/submarine-cable/iris

Both ships left the Irish Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) on Monday and are currently sailing south to the port of Malabo in Equatorial Guinea on the west coast of Africa. They departed the northern Russian port of Murmansk three weeks ago.

The ships appeared to double back on themselves several times in the general area of the cable.

Suspicions were heightened after an Air Corps aircraft observed one of the ships towing a large platform. This was later confirmed to be a 100m long cable-laying barge.

[sand delta]

Interesting that the MT position is from a receiver on another boat thats feeding to MT.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:5679144/mmsi:273418880/imo:9797577/vessel:BAKHTEMIR

[serene grove]

they wouldn't be crazy enough to tap a cable inside an EU EEZ would they?

[sand delta]

Under UNCLOS, any country can lay a pipeline/underwater cable in any other countries EEZ without permission.

[pure finch]

@serene grove the Yantar played over a sub cable off Ireland a couple of years ago. They are showing their interest.

[sand delta]

But to your point, the Irish Navy has no sub-surface capability.

[serene grove]

oh I'm not worried about it causing a military incident just a diplomatic one

[sand delta]

Only causes an incident if you get caught, I suppose.

It's Navy consists of 4 UK-built OPVs with 2 ex-NZ coastal patrol vessels incoming, iirc.

[pure finch]

Yeah, there are another two vessels - Roisin class, P50's that are also OPV's but mothballed due to lack of available crew.

[sand delta]

Dutch Navy: you can't just steal my homework and change the name

AIS Source: RV Celtic Explorer

(Interesting source of the MT data, this is a research ship feeding data)

[serene grove]

makes sense that scientists would be interested in feeding public data collection projects 😄

[pure finch]

One of the (two) CN235's used for MARPAT got whacked by a towed PC-12 a couple of weeks ago as well... so all is not well...

But a couple of C295 replacement maritime patrol aircraft are due to arrive this year.

[pure finch]

that's a really neat observation!

[sand delta]

Oh finally!

Yaddnet becomes useful

Bakhtemir's MMSI is 273418880

http://www.yaddnet.org/index.php

It was communicating quite a lot with Malin Head, Valentia and Norwegian coast guard radio in recent days.

Or well, maybe not communicating per se.

It just seems very interested in carrying out radio checks.

[serene grove]

is that unusual?

[sand delta]

You only necessarily have to do it weekly.

[pure finch]

Hmmm, well one possibly unusual thing - I'm not sure that Irish coastal stations Malin & Valentia are equipped for HF - yes they can do MF freqs, but HF... not sure, need to look at it.

[sand delta]

https://www.itu.int/mmsapp/CoastStation/list

[pure finch]

MF < 3 MHz so 2182/2187.5, HF > 3 MHz and it appears Bakhtemir was trying to raise them on 6312

[sand delta]

Seems like they only have MF yea.

6312 is a designated DSC frequency admittedly

While there are reserved frequencies for distress HF DSC calls, there is no prohibition against broadcasting non-distress, "routine" calls on other DSC-designated frequencies, which are defined in ITU M.541 as:

2177, 2189.5 kHz
4208, 4208.5, 4209 kHz
6312.5, 6313, 6313.5 kHz
8415, 8415.5, 8416 kHz
12577.5, 12578, 12578.5 kHz
16805, 16805.5, 16806 kHz
18898.5, 18899, 18899.5 kHz
22374.5, 22375, 22375.5 kHz
25208.5, 25209, 25209.5 kHz

There is a general consensus for routine calls to use 2177.0, 4208.0, 6312.5, 8415.0, 12577.5, and 16805.0 kHz (the first frequency listed above in each band).

https://www.comreg.ie/media/dlm_uploads/2015/12/ComReg0890R3.pdf

[pure finch]

That is good info - given the size of Ireland's EEZ, HF would seem to make sense...

[sand delta]

I don’t have the ALRS with me so I can’t check for certain

But I presume they can listen out on 6312.5.

https://www.itu.int/net/ITU-R/terrestrial/docs/mars/2_ListIV_compilation.pdf

[pure finch]

There is no technical reason they couldn't keep a listening watch to HF freqs, none - christ a single SDR with an active whip would cost nothing and take up no space and serve all stations. But coastal/maritime management & monitoring around Ireland is a bit of a clusterfuck: https://assets.gov.ie/194535/9ceb5774-57d7-4ea6-815e-c72e6f8d3fb7.pdf

[boreal plover]

RA FTW.

[sand delta]

The amount of tests is ridiculous yea.

I checked both sides of the transmission and whilst Bakhtemir sent a lot of DSCs REQs, they never broadcasted an ACK back to it

Or at least, it was never archived.

[pure finch]

Given it was HF, and it looks like those tests were received by stations in the Netherland and Italy - I wonder if a ship sends a call addressed to an Irish coastal station on HF and it gets picked up by a maritime radio station in another country, if that data is routed back to the Irish station over the net to deal with, or just gets ignored altogether?

[sand delta]

It would just get ignored.

The only calls that are ever relayed are Maydays.

The lack of a response is either a gap in the archive or the stations not being able to respond and the Russians being idiots and just repeatedly doing it, not thinking that there might be a reason behind the lack of response.

[pure finch]

Wow, looks like there are no HF coastal stations active in the UK either

[sand delta]

https://www.yachtcom.co.uk/comms/mrcc/index.html

I think there's only a couple that do.

[pure finch]

Ah, ok none listed on: https://www.itu.int/mmsapp/CoastStation/list

[pure finch]

Yeah, the Russians still lean heavily on HF comms, while west has largely moved on towards satcom for oceanic stuff.

[sand delta]

Yep.

[sand delta]

How do you get historical data on ADSB again?

[pure finch]

https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=4ca13e,4ca13f&lat=52.995&lon=-8.802&zoom=6.6&showTrace=2023-03-27 🙂

[sand delta]

So it flew out and then turned off it's ADS-B (or at least went out of coverage)

[pure finch]

I'm guessing it went out of coverage, flies around 15kft and these aircraft don't use mode-S so are located via MLAT

[serene grove]

Definitely out of range, you can see it fade in and out

[sand delta]

Odd that it flew out over the Shannon Estuary, whilst the Bakhtemir was apparently over IRIS which comes out of Galway Bay.

[pure finch]

Yup it appears to line up better with what you spotted on Marine Traffic - I guess the article refers to the vessels double-backing a number of times.

[sand delta]

It's a rather substantial vessel

and is towing something

Worth a try at SAR?

[pure finch]

Yup, should be easily detectable with Sentinel 1, but I'll wait till tomorrow... getting near 3am and work in the morning 😦

[sand delta]

Very good idea 🙂

[rustic bay]

Hey all, your friendly pin administrator checking in. How do the pins look? Still up to date?

[sand delta]

Hiya Sarah, looks gucci 🙂

[cobalt valley]

“Object” near NS2 pulled up by Danish authorities yesterday https://via.ritzau.dk/pressemeddelelse/objekt-ved-nord-stream-2-rorledningen-er-bjaerget?publisherId=13560344&releaseId=13675951&lang=da

So… What’s this?

Energistyrelsen in Denmark says: “en tom røgbøje” - an empty surface marker buoy

[pure vine]

https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1641077008070324225?s=20

Oliver Alexander (@OAlexanderDK)

The Danish authorities have recovered the unknown object near the Nord Stream 2 pipe. It was recovered at a depth of 73m with a representative of Nord Stream 2 AG present.

They state that the initial investigation shows that it is an expended marine location marker.

Twitter · Mar 29, 2023, 1:57 PM

yeah oliver confirms it

[raw nexus]

Oh dear, Putin was wrong

[limber hinge]

@sand delta
SailMail is a subscription service and is run for recreational sailors. I have a subscription @ $250US/year. Test comes is limited, if you broadcast too much you get cut off. World wide coverage. They also provide free acces to GRIB files, via net or radio.

[sand delta]

Oh?

[limber hinge]

I know nothing about the others.

On sailmail I have a sailmail web mail address, I can send and rx (small text) email via HF.
It is a neat service, you get a PC app that connects to my HF via a Pactor modem, selects the best frequency and transmitts and receives the traffic.

They provide GRIB's for free via the net.

[limber hinge]

@sand delta
BTW,
Thanks for the Yachtcom.co link.
Useful.

[sand delta]

No problemo.

https://www.rt.com/news/573727-china-nord-stream-un/ 🤡

https://cepa.org/article/nord-stream-deep-dive-finds-putins-fingerprints/

[serene grove]

it blows my mind that putin is actually enough of a cynical asshole to order this even though it'll hurt his wallet

the article says that gazprom makes more money this way but I don't think the high prices are actually offsetting the lost volume

not to mention the $300m worth of gas that was a total loss

also I was under the impression that now most of gazprom's sales are to china at a discount from pre-war levels

[limber hinge]

To understand Putin you need to think like Putin, which is extremely difficult because it goes against all of your cultural norms, and those are VERY strong taboos.

This is a bit of conspicuous consumption. Think of a guy, a braggerd, with a bit of money, and an ex-jock. He is in a bar and downs 4 shots, and is then willing to fight. The "logic" from his perspective is "I am such a bad ass I can knock down 4 shots and still kick your ass". Putin is somewhat similar.

Something like:
"I am a such a crazy and dedicated nutter that I will blow up my own stuff just to prove to you I am complelty willing to blow up all of your stuff. Do 't mess with me 'cause I'm a nutter!"

The West response is to be calm and not respond, to not rise to the bait, to deflate his ego. This screws with his (Putins) head. It will set him off balance because he expects the world to behave in a certain way. And when it does not he is confuses.

In short, think like a KGB agent who is used to getting his way through intimidation. That is Putin.

[serene grove]

honestly that makes a whole lot of sense, thanks

I met some people like that in middle school lol

thankfully most grow out of it

[tired monolith]

to add, he of course was in KGB - so in that sense its perhaps not so new information - But he managed to mask it well enough for a long time and also the west did not pay enough attention + have their own skeletons (albeit fewer) in the closets that helped him fly under the radar to a higher degree than he should

[sand delta]

I mean Putin started the war hoping that Ukraine would fold so fast that the West wouldn’t have time to (a) support it in any meaningful way and (b) have the opportunity to impose any meaningful sanctions, more or less presenting Europe and the Western bloc more broadly with a fait accompli.

By the time of September 2022, (I’ll use the current figure because it’s likely not changed much), approximately 300 billion dollars of Russian Central Bank reserves are frozen in Western countries.

When you add in private Russian assets frozen, between the obvious properties in London, superyachts, and so on and so forth, you’re easily reaching 500 billion, if not more.

Compared to losing those assets, it’s not nothing, but I suppose it’s a pretty effective way of screwing with European energy supply, shaking confidence in Europe (“you’ll all freeze”) and mess with Western support for Ukraine because it wouldn’t be that hard to blame it all on them.

[eager moss]

the assets are not necessarily lost if they can be repaired; repair costs will be significant but it's not as though the entire pipeline needs to be replaced; only the length that's been damaged and possibly an additional length where unacceptable internal corrosion has occurred due to sea water ingress which could be a relatively short length. The lost revenue from failure to deliver on gas contracts will be significant over a period of 2 years or more.

[sand delta]

I mean moreso the 300 million worth of gas in the recently (late 2021) pressurised NS1A.

The damage to the pipeline as you said could relatively easily put right, but whether that can happen depends on the results of surveys which aren’t public, and if the countries involved want to let it happen.

[eager moss]

It's most likely to be a political decision rather than a technical issue as to whether the pipelines are repaired. Gazprom reportedly exported 168 billion cubic metres of gas in 2020 through Nordstream 1 pipelines (whatever that's worth at contracted prices) and Nordstream 2 pipelines apparently cost US$11 billion. So there's an incentive to repair the lines if there's the political will - which i very much doubt.

[limber hinge]

I assume the Western thought process, goal, is that the pipelines will be restored under the new, ex-Putin, regiem.

[rapid copper]

Personally, I think the CEPA article shows a motive at most. 'Russia did something similar before' is hardly a fingerprint, is it?

[limber hinge]

Yes a motive, and Oliver's work shows the circumstantial evidence. Both are needed and buttress one another. I suspect NATO has the hard evidence but are sitting on it to use if and when they want.

[inner sandal]

The oracle has spoken. Again. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/03/seymour-hersh-usa-returned-to-nord-stream-explosion-site-to-remove-unexploded-bomb/

[inner sandal]

1. Hersh claims the Alta class minesweeper (which wasn't there) had a secret decompression chamber on board for the divers to use.
2. BIzarre stuff about Andromeda and AIS.
3. Re the fourth undamaged pipe: my view is that the saboteurs were unable to complete their task in the northeast, so planted explosives at the southern location to compensate but got the wrong pipe. In other words, they would already have known there was a problem and didn't need to wait for the explosions to find out. Attempting to remove a defective bomb a couple of days after the explosions in what had been declared an exclusion zone would be very hazardous because of all the gas pouring out of the damaged pipes.

[raw nexus]

When you land at Jim Hofts far right schidd outlet, the only step more low is Alex Jones

[serene grove]

that's an interesting theory but I've never heard of someone immediately going to retrieve unexploded ordinance since...idk, explosives were invented?

I get that someone who isn't familiar with battlefield forensics would think "unexploded bombs are evidence!" but so are exploded bomb bits lol

[inner sandal]

Hersh is surprisingly vague about the explosives. In his original article he mostly talks about "mines" and occasionally about "shaped C4 charges". He gives the impression they could be easily manouevred by divers but the current consensus is that hundreds of kg of explosive were used.

[pallid moat]

I hate it when they turn off the OSINT https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1641479533051232256

Oliver Alexander (@OAlexanderDK)

He once again shows that he doesn’t understand the concept of OSINT by again stating “they only use signals” and talking about how you can “turn off” OSINT to hide his claimed Alta-class.

I have yet to hear any explanation on how they snuck the vessel into the Baltic undetected

Twitter · Mar 30, 2023, 4:36 PM

[elfin cradle]

Depending on seamine they can be pretty big. The mine that were found near NS2 alterantive route were a bottom mine of 800kg

Maybe a German RMA mine:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/German_RMA_bottom_mine_Forum_Marinum.JPG

But if you have a ship with a crane you can just lower one of these down at each pipeline and your done:
http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/naval-systems/shipborne-weapons/mdm-3/

well, now we know approximate the range of a Russian mini-sub.
http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/naval-systems/submarines/bester/

[inner sandal]

Hersh indicates they used naval mines with a shaped charge. Is that plausible?

[sand delta]

ig i can relate mine was turned off this whole time and idek:

[stark palm]

I am personally more interested in the Swedish investigation than Danish/German one

[elfin cradle]

Nah, a shaped charge dont work into water as the water absorbs the kinetic energy (not for along distance). Big bottom mines rely on "bubble jet effect" that is basically as a shaped charge but instead of metal its an air bubble (super simplified).

That is why sea mines make so high splash.

[elfin cradle]

And we can eliminate the theory about shaped charge (at least of the pipeline we have seen).

1. It would only require a few tens of kg (just look how bearly 2kg explosives in a NLAW can punch through a tank).
2. A small shaped charge would not throw around debris as much.
3. It would made clean cut, not bend metal inwards.

[pure finch]

A bunch of vessels during September, in 6 minutes - suffered a glitch 1/3 way through this, but it'll do:
https://dbmee.breadmen.ac/septemberar.mp4
*edited to show explosion/leak times

[serene grove]

steel cutting charges are the most likely type of explosive used imo, they're easy to get and would work extra well underwater

https://www.scopex.fr/en/products/razor-semtex-linear-cutting-charges/

[serene grove]

I'm pretty sure that's the opposite of how that works, the non-compressibility of the water prevents the blast from moving away from the pipe like air would let it

this is why torpedos work so well

[serene grove]

that was what I thought until I dug into the force of the gas escaping and came to the conclusion that the vast majority of the damage could be due to that, not the primary explosion

did we ever get pictures of the recovered pipe sections? I do know that the clean cut shown in the ROV videos is because they cut it to haul up for recovery

[sand delta]

Nope.

[elfin cradle]

Im undecided about this. The pipe is built to withstand a pressure much higher than its operating pressure, and it has a sleeve of rebar reinforced concrete. I have just a hard time to see the pipeline explode as a banana peel. I really hope we get more video and pictures on the pipes soon.

[eager moss]

Yes, the steel pipe wall is capable of withstanding internal pressures significantly greater than the operating pressure; but an initial rupture could be quite small which then results in the internal pressure inducing excessive pipe wall stresses that cause the rupture to increase. . . . .

The concrete coating is primarily for weight not structural strength; it also protects the external coating from mechanical damage during transportation and installation and the pipeline from mechanical damage when on the seabed. The concrete will crack as it is installed because the concrete has very little tensile strength and the S-lay configuration means that the concrete will be placed in tension. The weight coating is not reinforced concrete in the usual sense - the purpose of the steel bar mesh is to keep the concrete intact as the pipeline is installed. The tension required to install the pipeline by S-lay is largely determined to ensure that the steel pipe stresses remain within allowable levels, which are equivalent to a high % of allowable operating stress, which indicates the severity of the bending stresses induced during S-lay.

When in operation on the seabed, if the steel pipe wall does start to rupture then the concrete would offer little resistance to prevent the steel wall from further rupturing.

[eager moss]

Where is it reported that the pipeline was cut to enable recovery of pipe sections and that pipe sections have been recovered ? I would be very interested in reading those reports.

[serene grove]

someone posted the source last time I asked, I'll try to find it...it was either Sweden or Denmark statement iirc

[junior moat]

new findings by investigative journalists .. apparently both(?) German VfS and BND were investigating the yacht Andromeda much earlier than federal police
https://twitter.com/FlorianFlade/status/1641723034166763521

Florian Flade (@FlorianFlade)

News re #NordStream investigation: German spy agencies were investigating the sailing yacht „#Andromeda“ last year, weeks before police conducted a search and found traces of explosives. Did #BND & #BfV receive a tip-off? Our report ⬇️ https://t.co/F0wCpTcz4b #NordstreamSabotage

Twitter · Mar 31, 2023, 8:44 AM

"third-party rule" means intelligence agencies are not allowed to pass on information to police, or prosecutors etc if it was received from partner countries' intelligence agencies

[stark palm]

this just gets weirder. So the Polish company is just a shell corporation, ot exactly the hardest to create if you wanted to create a false flag

also why are they now saying the passport is Romanian?

[velvet rain]

I think the claim that the type of explosive from Andromeda matches samples from the explosion sites is also new.

[junior moat]

yeah I was asking the same to the journalist .. I think some people are just not good at paying attention to detail... Romania, Bulgaria .. it's all south-eastern Europe 😄

[raw nexus]

I thought we discussed that.

[raw nexus]

Something's wrong when you can't diff that in Rostock

[limber hinge]

I assume a "shaped charge" is something that requires certain precision in placement. Even an anti-tank missle is assumed to be on contact with the armor when detonated. So a shaped charge must be very close to the pipe and pointed in the right direction. All of this implies some implies a higher degree of care in placement.
A BAC (BIG Ass Charge) on the other hand would weigh more but be simpler to place, close enough is good enough.

Then there is the other side view point, if we are struggling to understand the effect of pressure loss would not the saboteurs have similar concerns? Why go to all the work to have an iffy response?
It may be just my personality but if I were going to blow this thing I would get a best estimate of what is required and use 5x that amount.

Who would want to report to their boss that they failed?

[elfin cradle]

This demolition expert has a good article about shaped charge vs not shaped charge.
https://sprengtechnik.de/sprengung-nordstream/

[limber hinge]

Link not working

[elfin cradle]

Works for me even in private browser. Try copypaste it?

[velvet rain]

Link definitely works

[raw nexus]

https://web.archive.org/web/20230331111538/https://sprengtechnik.de/sprengung-nordstream/

[limber hinge]

Sent link to my iPhone, then it opened. Interesting stuff but I need more tie to absorb it, in translation. Not a German speaker.

[little zinc]

information sharing between intel. services and police is generally restricted in germany https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trennungsgebot_zwischen_Polizei_und_Nachrichtendiensten

[inner sandal]

My latest blog post, discussing Seymour Hersh's claim that the US retrieved an unexploded bomb from Nord Stream https://medium.com/@brian-whit/seymour-hersh-and-the-nord-stream-pipe-that-wasnt-blown-up-dc48bcbc039b

[sand delta]

How unashamed can a man be.

His arguments really sound similar to flat earthers who will just come up with a new explanation every time their old argument is proved false.

[deft stone]

The amount of brainwashed people believing it is insane, too.

[elfin cradle]

Kinda funny that many of them are q-anons and anti-vaxxers. Its almost that you can do a venn diagram.

Btw, I found some more info about one of the coming seismographic papers that will be published the 23th ish.

sauce: https://www.helsinki.fi/assets/drupal/2022-10/JointNordicEPOS_53NSS_2022-abstracts_0.pdf

If 880kg is maximum combined of 3 explosions plus a bit overestimated, so if we lets say its 800kg, split in 3 bombs, that is 266kg, that is not too far from 240kg that the first event was. Is it reasonable for us to assume then that all the explosives had the same amount, somewhere around 250kg?

[limber hinge]

I don't know, perhaps he is just loosing it mentally, cognitive decline. I am more inclined to being distrustful of the agencies reporting what obviously has minimum merit.

[velvet rain]

If you look at the e-mail replies he sent to Oliver, it's pretty obvious that he's currently at the tail end of a long cognitive decline.

(If you're reading this, Sy, pls don't sue me.)

[pure finch]

Minor update of September AIS timelapse:
https://dbmee.breadmen.ac/septoq.mp4

[serene grove]

I wanna see sy prove in court that he's not losing his marbles

[velvet rain]

The 2022-09-07 06:30 turn of MJ still confuses me. They turn significantly earlier than usual (still quite a distance away from TSS/12nm) and head directly to one of the explosion sites.

[pure finch]

Yup, it's odd. The idea of the Minerva Julie just happening to be there and then the Andromeda allegedly arriving & joining it. All the while Oste & Schleswig Holstein are just lurking over the horizon. What does any of it mean, if anything? 🤷

[serene grove]

I mean the baltic can get kinda crowded I guess...

[elfin cradle]

@pure finch How close does HSwMS Vinga / 265500330 pass near the northen site at the 24th?

[stark palm]

It was the Visby. The MMSI has been used by a bunch of Swedish vessels

At times it travels at lot faster than anything but the Visby can realistically sustain

+27kn

[elfin cradle]

I thought Visby was 265823000. But yes, the winga makes max like 15kn or something.

[vocal violet]

The joys of conspiracy thought

[stark palm]

they mix up MMSI a lot in the Swedish Navy

[sand delta]

That seems like more or less a constant speed the entire way?

[pure finch]

Yup, it didn't hang around ~15kts

Danish AIS coverage in the area is kind of spotty, it, or a vessel using the same MMSI, seemed to pop up in the general area a few times during the month.

[sand delta]

https://vxtwitter.com/D__Mitch/status/994275476947554304/

Just for some context on what a Visby is equipped with.

I'd curious, do Swedish Navy ships have their own social media presence

For example, from personal experience, I know that a couple Dutch vessels do, in addition to Belgian ones.

https://twitter.com/Bemanning_Rood
https://twitter.com/Commandant_Cstr
https://twitter.com/Commandant_Polx

Obviously, it goes without saying that they aren't going to be posting about what they did on a super secret mission, but you may be able to do a bit of open source sleuthing for added context.

[pure finch]

Yup, I followed HMS Enterprise on Twitter when it went snooping near Novaya Zemlya last autumn.

Alas nothing too juicy.

[sand delta]

https://twitter.com/auonsson/status/1576678442078154752/

Markus Jonsson mastodon.world/@auonsson (@auonsson)

Swedish navy in force at northern Nord Stream sabotage site.
Coast guard KBV003, sub rescue ship HMS Belos and a Visby corvette guarding the area. A second Visby left a few hours ago. French and Danish navy also in the area.

Twitter · Oct 2, 2022, 9:00 PM

Would be nice to identify the French ship over the area.

[pure finch]

Hmm..
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/03/31/russian-ships-return-to-west-coast-despite-appearing-to-depart-for-africa/

[boreal plover]

people vulnerable to disinfo are, er, vulnerable to disinfo

[limber hinge]

It is one thing for some guy to spout nonsense. It is another for major news outlets to push the story. What is their agenda?

[limber hinge]

Just a thought.

Visby running at 27 knots is not trivial. 27 knots will likely limit her to a range of between 1,000 and 1,500nm, assuming full tanks at the start. Half tanks and her range would be half. High speed operation is rough on ships and crew.

Visby class have, by WIKI, 2,500nm range at 15 knots. Top speed and calculated hull speed are about 35k.

Fuel efficacy will fall off dramatically as the boat approaches higher hull speeds. It is more like a square relationship. Doubling her base speed will VERY approximately quadruple fuel usage

[boreal plover]

which outlet, Substack? *confused

[limber hinge]

@boreal plover
Any of them. I think it started with the NY Times, but others passed it around like a virus.
Some of this is just trying to feed extremist in the US political space. Really has nothing to do with reporting. Typical BS in USA.
But we are way off topic.

[stone wadi]

Might been posted previously but this seismic graphs
https://twitter.com/CPPGeophysics/status/1574907821421785088

Jascha Polet (@CPPGeophysics)

Analysis of seismic data from event at Nord Stream gas lines appears to indicate explosions according to scientists quoted in https://t.co/0LBPsgRP2D

Likes

207

Twitter · Sep 27, 2022, 11:44 PM

writeup by SNSN (in Swedish)
https://www.snsn.se/stora/Events_20220926.php

[stone wadi]

something potentially interesting about the few seconds between explosions
EEVBlog Dave talked about that when he worked with underwater semeiology equipment they had problems with the clock chips having slight drift based on what orientation they ended up in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UksWKuVFFo

so they might been set to expolde at the same time, but the bombs ended up in different directions so the time drifted

[elfin cradle]

For example?

[sand delta]

A lot of data on Marine Traffic is fed by countries maritime safety authorities.

[elfin cradle]

It was much activity in the Baltics whole Sept. Bundesmarine yearly autumn exercise + Russian navy with 15-20 ships that had to do exercises at the same time.

Too bad that there isnt an adsbx but for ais. Easier to check independent records.

[sand delta]

You’ll notice a lot of the sources (especially outside the US) are Coast Guard stations.

And a lot of Coast Guard stations use Marine Traffic too.

[stone wadi]

that is not odd
usially one side do an exercise and the other do a exercise to be able to spy on the first one

[stone wadi]

that is what they admit about it 😄
also the main base for both the Visbys and the Gotlands are not far from the locations of the expolsions 😄

[serene grove]

there are a lot of reasons that oscillators go wonky but orientation is a new one to me...it's certainly true that this is more of an issue underwater because no GPS or NTP

I could see oscillator drift by a few seconds over a few days for sure

(I am actually qualified to talk about this one, did an internal study at a car company to figure out how to sync their clocks up reliably)

[stone wadi]

yeah, confused him and his colleges untill they figuerd that out 😄

[stone wadi]

for CAN bus use or before that?

[serene grove]

ended up doing it over the onstar data link

GPS was too easy to spoof

tbh no idea how the timing info made it around once it got to the telecoms unit

they weren't super worried about the security side of things on the internal vehicle networks...there are much more effective ways to mess with a car than hacking if you have physical access to it

yeah this guy is talking about a really nice temperature-calibrated GPS-disciplined oscillator, they're not gonna be using something like that for a bomb timer unless the timing is super critical (which it really isn't in this case afaict)

a shitty RTC chip will get you close enough and they will keep to within a second or two a day

(also even russia can still get those lawl)

[elfin cradle]

The Soviet VPZ-1 firing device seams to be able to detonate if its in close proximity of an underwater explosion. But I think the distance if too far and not right to explain the 7-8second delay.

https://cat-uxo.com/explosive-hazards/firing-devices/vpz-1-firing-device

[stone wadi]

yeah

[stone wadi]

7-8 secunds would be around 12km away

(if audiable trigger)

[sand delta]

Just from my own personal experience, I dunno if you should place much weight on the Visby’s or any other naval vessels having left quickly/in a hurry.

[stone wadi]

your personal navy experience or personal experience about the visby boats?

[sand delta]

The former.

Whilst a months long deployment to the Middle East or elsewhere would be announced months in advance of course, if you’re just doing Maritime Defence and Security Patrols, you try to be unpredictable.

(I’m a naval reservist, just for clarity)

[stone wadi]

mm
I would not really put any waight on them doing anything at all most of the time
they will mostly just sneak around and beeing seen when its useful for them

(or when they feel like it)

[sand delta]

Yep, they only tend to “always” turn AIS on in heavy traffic/in or near TSS’s, beyond that there’s probably a political/diplomatic/etc purpose to switching it on.

[stone wadi]

most of the baltic is heavy traffic
but they will likely most of the time turn AIS when they know something is close enough that they should make that ship aware of them being in the vicinity (as the point of the Visbys are to not be seen on radar)

[sand delta]

If the Visby’s work like OPVs do here in the Netherlands, there’s probably two watches/shifts assigned to to it.

(Obviously this is side context), but one shift will be out able to go on patrol as and when they want to, whilst the other is in the base doing tasks there, training, etc.

[stone wadi]

I still think we should have as policy to throw a oil drum filled with concreate over bard when we find a russian sub hiding where it should not be
and make a sport of trying to hit the russian sub 😄

[stone wadi]

The Holland-class?

[sand delta]

Yep

https://twitter.com/bemanning_rood

[stone wadi]

looks to be more a combi navy/cost guard ships

[sand delta]

The watches sometime even have separate social media.

[stone wadi]

from what I can see the holland calls is a bit hard to hide though

[sand delta]

Hehe, yea, it’s a bit shit, but that’s not the point 😉

My point is moreso that regardless of if the order is preplanned or being done at short notice, a naval ship only needs a couple hours to get underway.

[stone wadi]

I forgot that we built this once upon a time 😄
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSwMS_Smyge

[stone wadi]

The Visby might well been there to allow use of its substantial sensors....

[sand delta]

Indeed.

[stone wadi]

I suspect less so when you use waterjet for propulsion

[elfin cradle]

This article is almost 10 years old, but it seams to have a nice sonar system. Comfy chairs on the bridge.

https://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.567321/att-se-utan-att-synas--korvett-typ-visby--del-1

https://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.567480/att-se-utan-att-synas--korvett-typ-visby--del-2

[stone wadi]

Yeah, I was actually looking for some even older stuff.

[limber hinge]

FWIW
I was trying to find something more specific about Russian submarines MUNITIONS, such as stealth mine laying capability. So far nothinging. Well the Posidion, but that is just terrifying.

In the meantimebI made a little index of H I Suttion articles that may have some relevance to this line of investigation. Nothing earth shaking.

http://www.hisutton.com/Russian-Intervention-Underwater-Drone.html

http://www.hisutton.com/4th-Leak-in-NordStream-Attack.html

http://www.hisutton.com/Yantar.html

http://www.hisutton.com/Russian-GUGI-Evgeny-Gorigledzhan.html

http://www.hisutton.com/Russian-Spy-Submarine-BS-64.html

http://www.hisutton.com/Iranian-Warships-Seen-Leaving-Baltic.html

[inner sandal]

A new interview with Seymour Hersh, by Patrik Baab https://www.thepostil.com/our-interview-with-seymour-hersh/

[inner sandal]

In the Postil interview Hersh reveals that he had an editor and a fact-checker for his Substack article:

"I’ve hired one of the best editors I work with here in Washington, New York, and also in the London Review. And I have a fact checker. The New Yorker had superb fact checkers. Every line was checked. I hired the very best fact checker that worked with me ten years ago when I worked at The New Yorker."

I wonder who they are. It doesn't seem to have occurred to the "very best fact checker" to question whether Jens Stoltenberg was really working for the Americans as a teenager. Among other things.

[sand delta]

https://cepa.org/article/protect-or-perish-europes-subsea-lifelines/

[sand delta]

What the hell was fact-checked lol.

Especially since his article seems to come from his “well placed source” in the U.S. government, this seems like he’s polishing a turd

[inner sandal]

I can see how that could happen if timers were set running by the people who planted the explosives, because there would have been a long delay before detonation (days, or even weeks). But I don't see how it would make much difference if a remote signal set timers running for only a few minutes or hours before detonation.

[stone wadi]

to do remote signal under water you basically need to use a unbroken signal cable the whole distance
(or you can get fancy with audio triggers)
Radio don't work at all

[stone wadi]

have to been really deep cover 🤣
As leader of AUF, Stoltenberg helped to ensure that AUF was no longer on a collision course with the parent party to the same extent as before. AUF's opposition to Norwegian membership in NATO was first adopted in 1969, and the position was reaffirmed at every national meeting until 1987, when it was replaced by a goal of "close combat" within NATO for a non-aligned and nuclear-free Europe. At the same convention, his proposal to accept grades in secondary school was defeated.

[inner sandal]

You can do it with an acoustic modem dropped in the water, or some other kind of acoustic signal.

[stone wadi]

yeah, but that would be "being fancy"
and also be really obvious to anyone listening

[boreal plover]

Many people are saying Hersh has the greatest fact checker ever, it's a beautiful thing...

[stone wadi]

hm, the baltic fleet only have one Kilo class submarine (that one can deploy mines
Iranian Kilos are capable of anti-ship operations using their six 530mm torpedo tubes (include 2 tubes capable of launching Russian type wire-guided torpedoes) or mining. 1,000 naval mines capable of being laid by the Kilo were sold by Russia to Iran along with the submarines.

hehe
good luck with that 🤣
On Russia's "Navy Day" on July 31, 2022, President Putin reportedly indicated that the Baltic Fleet was to be prioritized for modernization in the coming years. The pending entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO - in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine - would significantly strengthen NATO naval forces in the Baltic, particularly taking into account the strength of the Swedish Navy's submarine fleet. Russian commentators suggested that a modernization and expansion of Russian submarine forces in the Baltic would therefore likely be a priority in the coming years.

they are working on the Lada class submarines though

they also whve whatever this is, that they tried to sneek into one of our harbors with

gets better, it was detected during a inspection of dedging work 🤣

[inner sandal]

If Russia did it, this is a very likely candidate. It was in the vicinity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priz-class_deep-submergence_rescue_vehicle

[stone wadi]

still nothing new with random russian subs getting "lost"

Between 1980 and 1994, approximately 4,700 observations of submarine-related objects of various kinds were recorded in Sweden:

1980 - The Swedish submarine crisis begins when a Soviet submarine is discovered at Utö in the Stockholm archipelago.
1981 - The Soviet submarine U 137 runs aground outside Karlskrona.
1982 - An intensive but unsuccessful submarine hunt begins after an incident in Hårsfjärden.
1983 - Submarine hunt in Sundsvall and suspected submarine near Karlskrona.
1984 - Suspected submarine and foreign divers in Karlskrona.
1988 - Suspected submarine attacked with depth charges at Hävringebukten.
1992 - Suspected submarine is attacked with a torpedo, in addition to which a large number of observations are made.
During the mid-1990s the submarine observations fade out.```

[stone wadi]

lol
Typical odd russian construction
The titanium hulled vessels

none of those should be close by

assuming that russia havent modified some random boat to be able to deploy Priz class vehicles

[tired monolith]

easy mistake to make, they were aiming for the Atlantic / US and just got a little out of course and hit Sweden... only recently the tech caught up so they managed to thread the needle with the subs through the strait 😉

[stone wadi]

you areant alloved to enter or exist those submerged
(and you are not really able to ether given how shallow they are)

[sand delta]

For what it's worth, the Priz class is of a size where it is transportable out of the water.

The NATO equivalent is air/road transportable.

[tired monolith]

thats never a problem when you are always out of course to get out that way 😉

[limber hinge]

No needfor divers, just snuggle one of these puppies up close.

Russian MDM-1 naval mine
Can be deployed from a Kilo class sub
They can carry up to 24
1070kg for sub hydraulically launched variety.

"MDM-1 Mod. 1 sea bottom mine

The mine can be laid by submarines equipped with 534mm torpedo tubes and ships fitted with mine-laying rails/ramps or mine-scattering systems. Surface ships can lay the mines at speeds of up to 15 knots, and submarines – at speeds of up to 8 knots."

http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/naval-systems/shipborne-weapons/mdm-1/

[elfin cradle]

They would likely use a Kilo-class submarine.

Smaller subs would require a special surface ship in the vicinity (15km) i.e AS-26 submarine with ship SS-750.

http://www.hisutton.com/Spetsnaz_exercise_in_Mediterranean.html

http://www.hisutton.com/Naval Spetsnaz in Hybrid Warfare.html

http://www.hisutton.com/Russian-Spetsnaz-Attack-Ukraine.html

https://topwar.ru/190730-minnyj-antikvariat-rossijskogo-flota.html

http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/naval-systems/shipborne-weapons/mdm-1/

[limber hinge]

Breaking craft
Great minds think alike! LOL

[stone wadi]

Transportable out of water don't mean that much in a USSR context though
https://twitter.com/NavalInstitute/status/1508247166103478273

[elfin cradle]

huh, I seems to have found the manufactures of the mines website.
They have cooking classes for young engineers!

https://gidropribor.ru/press/newspages/kulinarnyy-master-klass-dlya-molodyh-inzhenerov.html

And Parties!
https://gidropribor.ru/press/newspages/molodezhnyy-sovet-podvel-itogi-goda-i-nametil-plany-na-buduschee.html

[stone wadi]

and becouse nothing is ever new`

- "We were very surprised, have we found anything else here other than another submarine?" asked Peter Lindberg.

But after more experts looked at the images, most of the evidence now suggests that it is a submarine from the First World War. A Russian submarine that sank to the bottom of the sea with its crew in 1916, 99 years ago.```
<https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/6220653>

[limber hinge]

Breakingcraft,

Bit more on the MDM-1 bottom mine.

There is an interesting bit about a mine detonator that waits a set time and then turns on the sensor.

I wonder.....
Set thr sensor to be very sensitive.
Set the detonator on all mines to the same date and time.
Set the mines.
Then as soon as they turn on they explode!
https://en.topwar.ru/190442-sovremennye-rossijskie-morskie-donnye-miny.html

[stone wadi]

That is also why the idea that the US sent in a submarine to blow up the NS pipelines are just ridicoulous.
any such entery and exit would be well reported

[elfin cradle]

If US did it they would needed to use a friendly countries submarine. But then you would have awfully many people that needed to shut their mouths.

[stone wadi]

more likely that one of the other submarine operators blow it up on their own inisiative than

lol
this assume that anyone would tell Billström even if they know

[elfin cradle]

This sounds interesting, in the range of right weight too, and transportable underwater due zero buoyancy?

"Floating mine MNP-2was created in 1979 in the Special Design Bureau of the Engineering Plant named after. Kuibysheva in Kazakhstan under the leadership of Yu.D. Monaco. MNP stands for a mine of zero buoyancy. The adjective « floating » has disappeared from the name, as floating mines were prohibited by international agreement. MNP-2 is designed to destroy surface ships and submarines in harbors or anchored near the coast, as well as to destroy various kinds of hydraulic structures. Mine carriers are self-propelled special-purpose underwater vehicles controlled by battle swimmers. « » vehicles are delivered to the combat area by supersmall or conventional submari"

http://war-russia.info/index.php/nomenklatura-vooruzhenij/386-vmf/oruzhie-vmf/miny/yakornye-statsionarnye-i-reaktivnye-i-plavayushchie-miny-minnye-kompleksy/2327-diversionnaya-mina-mnp-2-1979g

[limber hinge]

I believe you are still making it too complicated. No need for divers at all. A Kilo class submarine comes up to the pipe, spits out a MDM-1, and leaves. It may need a smaller sub to manipulate it into place, or perhaps a Diver if you must.

But ou want a BOTTOM mine, one that does not float.

The only modification is to the detonator, buy they have a suitable detonator for a different sub. All it really needs is a 3 or 4 day timer.

[stone wadi]

I think that divers wold be usefull to place the bomb

[topaz mortar]

Not sure if this has been addressed yet or not.. Has anyone got any tracking data for Polish and other Baltic Nation ships, minelayers and submarines during the Rekin 22 Naval Exercise which started in mid to late September 2022? I could only find one English source which mentioned it, but not much detail. I asked @stark palm but no response yet.

[topaz mortar]

as he mentioned it briefly in his recent substack article https://oalexanderdk.substack.com/p/osint-analysis-six-russian-ships "At the same time as this Poland and several other countries launched the naval exercise Rekin-22, also in the southern Baltic. Several vessels from this exercise are caught on Sentinel 2 imagery just off the coast of Poland heading east at 10:05 UTC on September 22nd."

Rekin 22 (Naval Exercise) 16 Sep 2022 Note participation of:

"sapper battalions, mine-carrying ship, anti-mine actions"

https://polandatsea.com/manoeuvres-codenamed-shark-22-will-take-place-in-the-baltic-sea12479-2/d-shark-22-will-take-place-in-the-baltic-sea12479-2/

I am not sure yet if the submarine Orzel participated in Rekin 22

"ORP Orzeł is one of the 3 Navy submarines It can submerge to a depth of up to 300m, has six torpedo launchers with the ability to "erect" (sic) sea mines"

https://polandatsea.com/largest-submarine-of-the-polish-navy/

Orzel is equipped with the Sikora:

"This mine can be placed underwater using a submarine launcher. ORP Orzeł torpedo tubes were used during tests. The mine is the result of the Sikora program of the Polish Naval Academy (NAM)"

https://altair.com.pl/news/view?news_id=229

Although Poland's Navy has decayed, its naval mine capacity is surprisingly well developed.

https://polska-zbrojna.pl/home/articleshow/30070?t=Three-Pillars-of-Mine-Warfare

That's all for now, I am researching the Polish navy's naval mine research and capabilities and will update as soon as I can. In the meantime if anyone has any more detailed tracking data on the Polish ships during Rekin 22, that would be useful.

[elfin cradle]

I have already requested AIS data from the Polish and the German civil Maritime Administration's, but they dont share it. You can try to contact Polish Navy´s HQ in Gdynia and ask them if they can share anything more about the exercise.

[topaz mortar]

Thanks, oh dear, not looking hopeful then.

[elfin cradle]

It seems that Orel was out of service the whole last year for life-time modernisation as it is one of the oldest Kilo class (37 years). It was planned that the modernisation would cost 22 mil, and be ready 2021 but were delayed du covid and shit. But it seems that the cost went up to 50+mil and were done March 30, 2023, just a few days ago.

https://www.o2.pl/informacje/orp-orzel-nadal-wylaczony-prawdziwy-problem-moze-dopiero-sie-zaczac-6841748277090848a

[topaz mortar]

it seems that the Orzel was in operation in April/May 2021 and was spotted harrassing Russian pipelaying vessels near the location of one of the later explosions on the NS Pipeline

The project operator complains about provocations of Polish ships

https://archive.ph/6Sn7z

Unidentified submarine less than one mile from Fortuna

Polish Warship Krakow maneuvering around Fortuna

Polish anti-submarine aircraft PZL-Mielec M-28B1 Rbi regularly overflies the work area at a low altitude & close to the pipe-laying vessel https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4753097

https://twitter.com/BillyBostickson/status/1630688511497236480

Billy Bostickson 🏴👁&👁 🆓 (@BillyBostickson)

270. Photos & Videos from Telegram

https://t.co/s7IgNutvUp

https://t.co/CrsRGE69LK

https://t.co/Frg1lXVqKF

▶ Play video

Twitter · Feb 28, 2023, 9:56 PM

but then in May 2021 a letter from submariners on Orzel was allegedly sent complaining of dangerous working conditions

https://www.o2.pl/informacje/poruszajacy-list-otwarty-polskich-marynarzy-nasze-zycie-jest-zagrozone-6643909017066080a

"Powdering a Corpse" https://www.o2.pl/informacje/orp-orzel-blisko-katastrofy-pudrowanie-trupa-6644155113933632a

Then as @elfin cradle pointed out it was sent for repairs https://www.o2.pl/informacje/koszmarna-sytuacja-w-wojsku-marynarka-podwodna-polski-przestala-istniec-6695857931811424a

and has not been operational/seaworthy (as far as we know) since.

[velvet rain]

Please be aware that Rule 5 here restricts self-promotion. Just want to make sure you're aware.

[topaz mortar]

OK, I will just copy the text next time, thanks./

I just checked Rule 5

5. No spam or self-promotion (server invites, advertisements, etc.) without permission from a staff member or server moderator. This includes DMing fellow members. When in doubt, please DM a staff member. We'll almost always say "yes!" to your request.
   A. Sharing crowdsourcing campaigns for money is not allowed in this server.
   B. Advertising paid services or products is not allowed in this server.

seems a reasonable rule, but I was not trying to promote myself, rather posting three links to videos of the encounters.

[hushed bay]

I think the issue J_K may be raising (correct me if I'm wrong J_K) is that the self-advertisement in this case is undisclosed, because you're linking to your own Twitter account without explaining that it's your own Twitter account.

(Again correct me if I'm wrong J_K)

In any case, I think it's not an issue for now, so we don't need to get into it further here so as to not clog up the channel.

As always, feel free to DM me if you have any questions/comments/concerns.

[topaz mortar]

Maybe you could add "links to your twitter or social media accounts" inside the brackets after self-promotion, just to make things clearer for us newbies

[hushed bay]

Something to consider, thanks!

[sand delta]

The difficulty we have is that there’s numerous credible possibilities to explain the incident.

Besides the Baltic Three, all the other Baltic coastal states (especially Russia) have a credible sub-surface capability, and that’s before you involve states outside of the Baltic (Netherlands, France, Britain, United States), and by the time you identify all the naval vessels capable of being used, parsing what vessels are missing from their base during the period (particularly since they can be doing a lot of things) becomes very difficult and is by no means conclusive.

And that’s before we pull other threads like the Andromeda, the Minerva Julie, as fanciful as such a plot appears.

[elfin cradle]

The perfect time to plant the bombs from a western submarine would be under some large naval exercise. Would not look weird if a sub were missing from its port.

[sand delta]

https://youtu.be/wcHysuEJ9n8?t=421

That's an Oste-class behind Akhmedov's seized yacht Luna, I think.

[tired monolith]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/03/nord-stream-bombing-yacht-andromeda/

[scarlet star]

I came to share this as well. What, if anything, could it mean?

[pure finch]

ORP Toruń appears briefly in the Danish AIS data within the Polish 12nm limit on the morning of the 30th of September - but I have no idea what it was doing before that.

[tired monolith]

In the absence of concrete clues, an awkward silence has prevailed.

“It’s like a corpse at a family gathering,” the European diplomat said, reaching for a grim analogy. Everyone can see there’s a body lying there, but pretends things are normal. “It’s better not to know.”```

like mentioned before I think thats the main reason that we dont know - noone who possibly have the answer currently has any upside from giving it out

so have to find a missing link or some thing out in the open that they have missed to get anywhere

[scarlet star]

My main takeaway from that report is that the investigators are openly raising the following possibilities: 1. that the Andromeda and its occupants were either there supporting an operation that could only be undertaken from a much larger ship 2. that they were decoy or 3. the implicit possibility that the tip-off was an intelligence failure

And more reinforcement of the idea that it was not some rogue group of "pro-Ukrainian patriots" as previously reported, but a state actor

( quotes are from an older Guardian report)

[stone wadi]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/10/divers-used-chartered-yacht-to-sabotage-nord-stream-pipelines-report
bah
the "Danish and Swedish goverment" link is just to an other article with this line Denmark and Sweden have said leaks from the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea were caused by blasts equivalent to the power of “several hundred kilograms of explosive”.
I don't think that the goverment have said that
If anything a few specific semiologists have said it

[scarlet star]

Yeah, though I have seen similar guesstimates in this thread

[tired monolith]

yeah most of explosives talk seems deceptive and more talking to the outcome in terms of visual material and seismic registration

so in reality a comment on the result and missing anything but setting some upper limits of the effect of whatever was used

[scarlet star]

it's just speculation, but do you guys think there has been any feet-dragging with regards to the investigation? I assume that the Washington Post is credible when it cites unnamed officials and diplomats, and the report seems to conclude that europeans would prefer the culprit not be named

[tired monolith]

a lot of the big US publications have a mix of better and worse so it really depends, not sure how great they are at all times on finding multiple independent sources that confirm the same things vs just taking it from one or a mix of sources that could easily use them to get information out as well

not really a new thing with media, but the speed of the internet favors faster over more accurate if money is what you care about

but yea in the current situation I dont think there is any upside to placing blame on anyone or even talk about it for anyone who realistically would be sitting on conclusive proof

[stone wadi]

The Swedish investigation won't tell anyone (including the government) anything untill they decide its time.

a lot of the information might be derived from abelites that are not widely known to be available

[scarlet star]

Do you think that the hush-hush nature of the West's response is strong evidence for ruling Russia out? I think such an argument makes some sense.

To elaborate, there is no worry of negative fallout among NATO allies if evidence of Russian involvement in blowing up the pipeline is found, and publicizing such evidence would also discredit Russian claims that the pipeline was attacked by a NATO member.

[tired monolith]

depends on your geopolicial view

I would argue that as long as NATO and US doesnt want to engage harder in a full UA victory and are scared of worse options than Putin ending up in control of RU they have no need to dogpile on RU but rather save that ammo for later if it should be needed

[stone wadi]

other way around

[scarlet star]

Could you explain this? It seems counter-intuitive to me that the pro-Ukrainian alliance would seek to keep Russian involvement under wraps. Unless you mean to imply that they would not like to advertise how vulnerable energy infrastructure is to Russian attacks.

[tired monolith]

currently the only ones who have a clear gain by publishing proof is people involved in legal matters around the pipeline (which probably will go on for years and have no rush) and involved actors that wants to weaken UA

[stone wadi]

No one would really mind that much if Ukraine had blown it up and it would be more a "good work accomplashing that" reaction
if Poland for example did it, it would be more a question about "why did you do this?"
If russia did it it would more or less necessitate a really strong response and it is not unlikely that type of escalation are not something that is wished for right now.

• if russia did it than accuse them in a credible manner even if no secret abilites was given would allow russia to estimate the range of certain abilites allot better then they are able to now.
  and those type of abiliteis would not be that sensetive to tip of the US about on the other hand

[elfin cradle]

If it were a western country behind, would Swe/Den/Ger investigation admit that and risk to show the rest of the world how untrustworthy the west are. Or would they try to say it was a false flag operation by the Russians, or a third party as a scrapegoat?

[stone wadi]

Sweden and Denmark would have absolutly no problem accuse the US if it was the US that did it

[scarlet star]

Isn't the crux of the issue that it seems likely that it was a Ukraine-aligned NATO member like Poland who is responsible - per the WaPo article, as well as some early speculation on Ukrainian capabilities - and not that Ukraine acting alone did it? I agree that if it were the case that ukraine or even Poland did it, it would not likely cause a serious rupture in relations. But it wouldn't be great to advertise that one NATO nation blew up another's pipeline...

[stone wadi]

also "untrustworthy"?
actually following through on that would show that trust that the truth is higher than alliances

[limber hinge]

This video does a good job of explaining.

https://youtu.be/EeP_ZZbBIl4

[stone wadi]

which article?
the lates one posted is a bit short

[tired monolith]

yeah that video is great

[scarlet star]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/03/nord-stream-bombing-yacht-andromeda/

[elfin cradle]

Not in the geopolitical sense. It would be exactly as Russian have said all the time. That the west are willing to destoy stuff only to make it look like Russia did it, etc.

[elfin cradle]

Yes but US could not possible done it themselfs. In that case they must have done it via a proxy like Swe/Den/Ger/Pol.

[scarlet star]

the relevant bits

[tired monolith]

you are not following the script! it was Norway 😉

[stone wadi]

yeah
but that is just becouse its always russia that destory stuff 😛
If it was anyone excepth russia it would been allot easier to point out who it was

[stone wadi]

bah
the article only shoved the first paragraphs when I had Javascript turned off
full article without paywall
https://archive.is/9rZwL

[scarlet star]

Interesting video, though I have some objections to the section on "denying Russia the hybrid possibility"

[stone wadi]

Poland is unlikely as the blasts was rather close to both the danmerak poland pipeline and the sweden poland power line

[scarlet star]

I use a browser extension called "bypass paywall", highly recommend. I often forget the links I share had paywalls in the first place!

[stone wadi]

I agree

[stone wadi]

thanks for the tip
I usially want to be able to share articles so I tend to use archive.is

[scarlet star]

yeah i should do that for sharing as well. the extension is free on github, covers most major news sites

[stone wadi]

anyway if Ukraine managed to take out nordstream it would

1. been rather unnecessary (as the pipelines was not transporting anything)
2. that capability would be better used elsevare
3. they have nothing to gain from it at all.

I don't think Poland have the actuall capability to do somethign like this (IIRC their one submarine is not sea worth)
germany have no real reason to do it, they could just blow up the on shore facility on primetime tv
Denmark don't have any submarines

[tired monolith]

only person I could see currently of the big actors that would release conclusive proof is Putin, and we can clearly see he either doesnt have it or doesnt want to (UA would have but not likely they would have a clue unless they were involved themselves and then they obviously wouldnt direct blame back on themselves)

[stone wadi]

as said before the US don't have any subs that can sneek into the Baltic

[tired monolith]

yeah you need to set a million conditions for that to perfectly align to a credible story

[stone wadi]

that leaves two nations that operates submarines in the Baltic...

Sweden could blown it up
but Sweden don't have any reason to blow at all or if they did why blow it up right outside the main navy base
why not blow it up right outside st petersburg instead?

russia have the ability and history to do this kind of things
and while this is in a well traficed area, it is likely less survaled than for example around Gotland (russia like to threaten to invade Gotland so...)

[elfin cradle]

Russia have a 100 billion USD large motive. Dont need to pay penalty for non-delivery of gas. The "turbine problem" would not counter as "force majore".

[tired monolith]

the most credible story you can make seems to me points to Russia, yeah - but if there is conclusive proof people sitting on it have no current reason to be wanting to talk about it in correlation to find whos responsible

but speculation in all direction helps out with delaying having to make that final decision without causing much harm

(further harm, after it was destroyed it was basically a very costly on off switch band aid that got ripped off but nothing to do about it than to mitigate the European effect and adapting)

[scarlet star]

Why are we assuming it was conducted by submarines? I don't think we can rule out state actors based on whether they have submarines or not.

[stone wadi]

right
I rembered that it was something like that, but not exactly what it was

[stone wadi]

ever done any deep diving?

this would be considered excellent visibility in the Baltic

[elfin cradle]

I find it unlikley to do the operation from a larger boat (able to have a ROV that can transport 100kg or divers and equipment for multiple dives) without anyone getting suspicious. Especially if they have AIS off. And you would need to be pretty ballsy to plant the bombs from a ship when there was NATO/western ships almost non stop in the Baltics last year. We have one ship that has acted really crazy but what more do we know.

[elfin cradle]

Yeah, just look in the ROV videos from Nord Stream and you will see how turbulent the water is 😦

[stone wadi]

its also cold as fuck
2-4c would be expected

maybe 8c if you are really lucky (but that would be more likely during summer)

[elfin cradle]

I wished that we had access to EUs SafeSeaNet, common AIS history database, plus some other things.

https://www.emsa.europa.eu/ssn-main.html

I like this paper... But I wonder if the system works in practice, it should have marked Minerva..

https://earth.esa.int/eogateway/missions/saocom

[scarlet star]

If it is so apparent that it was done by a submarine, I wonder why German investigators would devote weeks to chasing down a yacht?

I'm just dying to know which nation game them the tip-off...

[rustic bay]

Hey all, please make sure you're posting links to stuff and not just screenshots. If you're trying to point out something specific in the article, a link and a screenshot is fine!

[stone wadi]

no clue, but anyone diving that late in the year was obviousy up to no good
but might be as simple as raiding old ship wrecks

[elfin cradle]

Because they are easy played? 😛

Its not without coincidence that so much rumours are spreading from the German investigation.

[stone wadi]

apperently not only old stuff that gets stolen
https://www.livescience.com/who-stole-underwater-baltic-observatory-germany-geomar.html

also so a good notification to always blackup anything important
Even if it is underwater

[elfin cradle]

lul

"It was located north-northeast of its original location, upside down on the seabed at a depth of about 20 metres."

https://www.geomar.de/en/news/article/rack-of-the-missing-boknis-eck-observatory-found

[stone wadi]

lol
sounds like someone stole it not really knowing what it was and than dumped it when it got so much attention

might well been a trawler out fishing in locations they shouldent fish in

[sand delta]

For what it's worth, I've worked with someone to do a data request from EMSA.

The issue is that it will take 15 working days to get a response.

[stone wadi]

but yeah peaple stealing from Baltic wrecks are a real problem
their are ate last 20 000 ships from all kinds of time periods from Viking ships loaded with millstones to cold war ships and planes (+ older and newer stuff)

[elfin cradle]

I hope that the investigators has found out that it exist.

[stone wadi]

the investegators likely have access to better systems...

[sand delta]

I have yet to hear back from the person regarding the response (but the 15 days ended around now), but just from a structural point of view with how the system works...

It isn't a central database, each country owns its portion of the data, and when you request it its just a massive table of EMSA members with "Yes" or "No" next to their names.

And if X vessel is a subject of an investigation (or they don't want to share it), they'll just say No.

[elfin cradle]

You crushed my hope now 😦

[tired monolith]

with all the information we have discussed in here I would be very surprised if there isnt info that are deliberately withheld that is either conclusive or with a high level of confidence (for whatever reason)

[sand delta]

And a significant portion of SSN data (I've used the system myself) is GDPR-protected.

Most of what the ship submits is the personal data of the ships crew, plus data like how much oil/DG is onboard, what classes of DG is being carried, etc.

[sand delta]

https://www.emsa.europa.eu/publications/data-request-procedure.html

[elfin cradle]

Yeah saw that. 😦

[sand delta]

On the topic of underwater stealing, a couple of Dutch WW2 warships (war graves, mind you) in Indonesia, at a depth of about 65-75m, just vanished into thin air.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170415203303/https://www.maritiem-erfgoed.nl/sites/default/files/field_attachments/report_verification_mission_feb_2017_java_seapublic_210217.pdf

Off topic, and obviously quite sad that a major part of our naval history has been desecrated, but on the topic of doing stuff at that depth, it's not too difficult.

[stone wadi]

hm
that is the kind of thing that you expect to stay put
even if pre atom bomb ships's steel are valuble for radiation detectors, the need for that is not that large

[lethal rivet]

It’s hard for me to believe that it could be Poland. I mean my country is very much capable of doing random unexpected stuff but I don’t believe we have any boats that could actually do it. Problem pointed out earlier about how dangerous it is to swim in the submarines that we do have is known for ages.
Second, current ruling party is rather close to Russia. Many politicians is receiving money from Kremlin. I would be surprised if we would decide to blow up NS and if so, it wouldn’t be our decision alone. Rather another country involved in that as well.
Worth mentioning that before event, Russia threatened to cut gas supplies and it created panic in Poland.

[tired monolith]

yeah, its the things that keep pointing back to the most plausible being a submarine of some sorts too, how would any of these other actors pull it off unless everyone was in on covering it up? theres so much things that could monitor and so much traffic (including an idling RU-connected ship directly on top of the site) that is seems very unreasonable a larger open air activity was behind it

the path to sailboat, larger ship platform with capabilities or activity brought in through the straight is very long it seems

[sand delta]

Because it's our only open source lead

What would be useful to know about the Andromeda/Minerva Julie

[boreal plover]

@sand delta shipwrecks / wargraves from many nations were looted / desecratdesecrated. https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03/worlds-biggest-grave-robbery-asias-disappearing-ww2-shipwrecks AIUI the pre-nuclear steel market has dropped off as time since last atmospheric tests increases.

[boreal plover]

useful to know about MJ: is there any possible practical role it could has carried out except top cover? IIn the top cover scenario, who would gave needed to know - presumably no-no-one on board, only at head office ( Greece?) How many ppl there - is there just one ship manager who can randomly tell a vessel to drift around a location without anyone asking why? Would all their managers / directors need to know the explanation? If not, would they now be asking awkward questions of whoever gave those instructions?

would it be usual for head office to instruct a master to "hold a position around lat x long y", or would it just be "sail in circles anywhere convenient for a few days, location at your discretion"?

[elfin cradle]

iirc it had never done that before nor after. It isnt that usual for ships to wait for instructions. But that happens near a harbor and somewhere they can anchor not drifiting in the middle of the open sea as now.

[serene grove]

also they're not supposed to anchor near the pipes right? although if they're there to blow them up no need to worry about anchor damage hahaha

[stone wadi]

I don't think that anchor chains are 100m long

[serene grove]

oh right

[stone wadi]

And even if they whare you wouldn't be anywhere close to holding a stick position with that long chain

[serene grove]

any chance they had a really really long chain and that's why they were moving around so much? I doubt it but idk how big boats work

[velvet rain]

No.

[serene grove]

yeah the geometry doesn't work at all

[velvet rain]

We know exactly how the drift pattern looked. There definitely wasn't an anchor involved.

Especially the parts where she repeatedly travelled on engine power when she got too close to the TSS or the 12 nm around Bornholm.

[serene grove]

also it's just too wide, it's like a 15km wide area at least

man I can't get over how weird that stuff was

it's a search pattern if I ever saw one

[velvet rain]

I know.

[velvet rain]

It is not.

[serene grove]

oh huh

I totally got search pattern vibes

[velvet rain]

Why would you drift for a majority of the time? That's rather inefficient.

[stone wadi]

apperently a 100m anchor chain is not odd
still would have you move a fair bit anyway
https://dieselship.com/marine-technical-articles/ship-safety-and-naval-architecture/ship-anchor-complete-information/

[serene grove]

to keep quiet so a sub can't hear you and hide?

[velvet rain]

But you can't really do a search pattern if you don't control where you're going.

[serene grove]

it's the one in green right?

I mean you can control where you drift to with a bit of meteorology

it looks to me like it's scanning back and forth across the pipeline route

[velvet rain]

Yes, but this is useless here. It shows neither speed nor heading. Which are important if you want to derive intent.

[serene grove]

also the motor status we just know from AIS, you can just go on the radio and lie lol

[velvet rain]

Not true here. She wasn't moving on engine power during the drift phases. You can clearly see that when you compare heading and course over ground.

[serene grove]

ah ok

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess it was under power when it started following the pipe here lmao

could also just be a coincidence

[velvet rain]

No need to speculate when you can just check.

[serene grove]

as I said I don't know how big boat work

I just know about some underwater things because I talk to a lot of divers around here

and used to build submersible things for surveying my parents' lake lmao

[velvet rain]

#1072947857654554624 message

That's what I mean by check.

[stone wadi]

I don't think this have been posted
but this show the sea lane too

[serene grove]

that makes sense based on the heat map

[serene grove]

#1072947857654554624 message

[velvet rain]

@pure finch has the TSS markers in all recent animations, if that's what you mean.
#1072947857654554624 message

[serene grove]

ugh these in thread links aren't working right most of the time

did they change something?

[velvet rain]

There's also a version of the heat map with TSS markers overlayed somewhere.

[velvet rain]

Restart your Discord client. Should work then.

Something just gets out of sync sometimes.

[stone wadi]

nice
the ones I posted one have a bunch of other stuff so might be useful even if the quality is crap

[velvet rain]

I'm sure Púca will be happy to make a custom map if you need any other information in higher quality.

[stone wadi]

still right over the three brakes might not be that odd of a "holding position" as its right of the sea lane and basically not too close to anything else

[serene grove]

oh wow finally got that video to load...yeah that makes a lot more sense now

(also I love that most of @pure finch videos are titled something like "redo.mp4" or "wider.mp4"...lotta effort goes into this stuff, lotta trial and error)

[velvet rain]

The results are always very impressive. Even more so from someone who (as far as I know) only does these as a hobby.

[serene grove]

yeah it's really cool, they should do a talk or something about their toolchain

[elfin cradle]

Search after https://dbmee.breadmen.ac/ in this channel and you will find the videos. There are a bunch of them.

[pure finch]

I'm very much an amateur with QGIS, but have become kind of addicted to it!

The timelapses/animations really kill my laptop the more data I put in, e.g. 30 days worth of AIS tracks for 10 ships...

Also have to again add that @elfin cradle @velvet rain and @sand delta have all made the maps above significantly better with their input.

I will try and put something together on the process - anyone could do it, but it takes time.

[limber hinge]

An additional role might be acoustic cover? Although they were frequently drifting they were still running engine, idling. And they they would power back over the site, sometimes after a short drift.

[sand delta]

Is the head office supposed to involve itself in such minutiae, not really
Is it terribly odd for such an instruction, not really

https://gcaptain.com/ship-captain-believes-chatgpt-told-him-to-change-course/

Beyond the usual business types, some of the head office will be ship's captains, chief engineers, chief mates who have come ashore, and are acting as Designated Person Ashore (DPA), Marine Superintendent, other ship management roles.

[elfin cradle]

This may be of interest:

Reuters: Exclusive: German insurers renew cover for blast-damaged Nord Stream gas link
https://archive.ph/vs3A0

[limber hinge]

Sara,
Have you ever read the accident investigation of rhe El Faro, sunk in a hurricane off San Salvadore Island, Bahamas? Some interesting attempted comms with the DPA.

[sand delta]

The shitshow about the DPA not knowing if they were abandoning or not?

[sand delta]

Normally, there's probably a couple people in contact with a ship.

DPA/Designated Person Ashore: Point of contact for safety management.

Marine Superintendent: Responsible for ensuring the ship is kept in good working order, spares are provided, does incident investigation reports, etc, would be a source of guidance for navigational matters

Often, these two roles are combined.

Besides that, you're probably not going to be getting a phonecall/email from the CEO, but you'll be getting emails saying "congratulations on the fleet going X days without a lost-time incident (aka, an accident)"

[sand delta]

(Whoops, wrong chat)

[limber hinge]

Worked for me. LOL

[sand delta]

Nah, I posted stuff about something unrelated lol.

[pure finch]

As there was some discussion about Minerva Julie's behaviour/drifting relative to the TSS etc - here's a zoomed in view of MJ in the area showing its speed & heading.

One thing to note, as I've separated this into 15 minute segments, the label refers to the speed & reported heading at the beginning of the segment - the position/top arrow shows the position and heading/bearing at the end of the segment.

Speed is colour coded - green/blue faster, orange/red slower - this is based off of work done by @velvet rain - I just went and added the heading data.

[boreal plover]

the El Faro report is quite something. I used to read accident reports for the unexpected relevance to my infosec work: Piper Alpha, Columbia, Chernobyl, aviation accidrnts,.. all have lessons beyond the particular field. Also can't recommend Charles Perrow strongly enough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_Accidents /OT

[limber hinge]

Try reading some if accident reports from the 3 Arleigh Burke collisions. Or that Norweigan naval ship. It is not such a consequence of technology as lack if competence.

Which brings us back to Nordstream.

The difficulty I am having with this entire affair is I am not yet seeing any slip ups. Generally with something of this magnitude it is very difficult to keep things from getting out. As Eisenhauer said there is always some idiot who does not get the memo.

Yet here security seems air tight.

That is one strong indicator this was a small simple operation. Or at least a small simple operation clouded by a "normal" and unknowing operation.

Could Minervia Julia been an actor? Likely ONLY if it was just the Captain who was involved.

Speaking of which, who was the Captain? What do we know of him?

[boreal plover]

thanks for the Ashleigh Burke tip.

my Qs about MJ were relating to the number of people who would have to (a ) know the full story, or (b ) would be in a position to think "this is really odd". As you say, the more ppl who know the score, the greater the chance of rumours / leaks.

( h/t @TheGrugq )

Perrow is very clear that it's not tech fail, it's humans and systems. Deepwater Horizon another great example. Lack of NS op leaks makes me think (1) very professional, and (2) very few ppl in the loop. Even militaries leak!

[elfin cradle]

That is what I belive if it isnt a Sub.
If it was a western ship you need to hide / remove evidence at 2 civil Maritime administrations agencies (AIS data if it on), and radar data at Swe/Den, plus make sure that none of the western military ships that are doing exercises in the Baltic dont investigate the mil ship that is parked above the pipelines. That is suddenly a lot of people that need to shut mouth, someone would be greedy enough or angry sooner or later and "leak" info to a newspaper.

[stone wadi]

wait, 3 Arleigh Burke managed to collide with each other at the same time?
I though those was supposed to be fancy ships
At least they didn't manage to repeat this silly thing 😄
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP3ubAiuwTA

[serene grove]

yeah the pacific fleet had a few bad years aboug half a decade ago

someone managed to burn down a cruiser in port

they hit a bunch of shit in busy shipping lanes because their radar techs were all on shore leave apparently

literally rolling through a shipping lane silent, dark, and blind

[stone wadi]

someone tried to attack one of thier ships with a train 🤣

[serene grove]

I live near san diego so the whole trial over the bonhomme richard fire has been local news...it's weird, the guy who they're accusing of doing it doesn't seem like he did it

https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/former-san-pedro-train-engineer-sentenced-3-years-prison-intentionally-derailing

whenever I hear about that I'm convinced I dreamed it or saw it in a movie

[stone wadi]

this sounds like a little bit silly thing to do
but still, don't they have binoculars and eyes so they can see ships before they run into them?

[serene grove]

one would think

[stone wadi]

Had you seen the video I posted previously?

[serene grove]

oh it's a very old joke

I think my civil engineer mum once told it to me

and she heard it from her sailor dad

[stone wadi]

Yeah
I like that a Compass (and other naviagtion equipment) company decided to do a full add of it 😄

[limber hinge]

Along those lines.
No surface ship, just a sub.
All surfsce activity including MJ is just making noise to hidebsub.
They don't need to know why they are doing it, just wherebro do it.
MJ a bit different, the Captain needs to direct maneuvers, but does not need to know why.
I am not convinced but fell it is a worthy effort to think like a cheap crook.
What is the easiest, simplest way to do it?

[inner sandal]

Seymour Hersh has a new post on Substack rubbishing the Andromeda angle. Two paragraphs are visible but the rest seems to be behind his paywall.

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/the-nord-stream-ghost-ship

Some other bits can be seen in this Twitter thread:

https://twitter.com/iang_fc/status/1643585887895183360

iang (@iang_fc)

Aha! Finally we know what happened to the 4th pipeline bomb...

From Seymour Hersh:

Twitter · Apr 5, 2023, 12:06 PM

[velvet rain]

Thank your for sharing that. It's very interesting that he seems to monetise his Substack now.

[raw nexus]

He probably needs money for the lawyers

I couldn't find the clown emoji

[velvet rain]

Or the editors he must be hiring for that.

[raw nexus]

The best editors

[velvet rain]

Yuge editors

[inner sandal]

Yes, but it looks like the brilliant fact-checker that he hired was overloaded with work and has gone off sick.

[hoary maple]

hersh doesnt have a fact checker

never has

[inner sandal]

https://www.thepostil.com/our-interview-with-seymour-hersh/

[velvet rain]

I think the purpose of the fact checker is to make sure that the articles definitely do not contain any facts. Wouldn't want one to slip in, accidentally.

[hoary maple]

daaaamn, thats crazy

and he still writes utter bullshit.

[junior moat]

he's got an anonymous source, an anonymous editor, an anonymous fact-checker, and multiple other personalities all of which are also anonymous 🙄

[raw nexus]

Expect him!

[inner sandal]

Nothing much new in Hersh's latest Substack post, but a couple of points of interest:

1. He says Holger Stark told him "that officials in Germany, Sweden, and Denmark had decided shortly after the pipeline bombings to send teams to the site to recover the one mine that has not gone off. He said they were too late; an American ship had sped to the site within a day or two and recovered the mine and other materials."

2. Hersh says: "The stories in the New York Times and the European press have given no indication that any journalist was able to board and physically examine the yacht in question." I'm sure I've seen photos or a video of a journalist who was allowed on board the Andromeda (anyone got a link?)

[stark palm]

I have facetimed with two seperate people while they were onboard the Andromeda

[junior moat]

what on earth.. I have seen at least 6-7 different videos and/or selfies from different journalists on that yacht

just one of the videos, probably the one that captures the most rooms on the boat : https://www.bild.de/video/clip/politik-ausland/bild-auf-der-jacht-andromeda-wurde-nordstream-von-hier-gesprengt-83245442.bild.html

if it's geoblocked, I even shared that video here in the channel : #1072947857654554624 message

Hersh has definitely reached, maybe surpassed, russian levels of bullshitting by now
(maybe Lavrov is his fact-checker, that'd make a lot of sense ! and Peskov is his editor )

[sand delta]

Lavrov can't be a factchecker, have you ever heard him try to speak English?

Although it would add to the whole chaos

[sand delta]

"No journalists have been on the yacht"

[stark palm]

https://twitter.com/oalexanderdk/status/1643660696284954632?s=46&t=23z1t9Ukhz2rdx08lVsJEw

Oliver Alexander (@OAlexanderDK)

Some of Hersh’s issues with the Andromeda story are hilariously ridiculous.

“How does a 49-foot sailboat find the pipelines in the Baltic Sea? The pipelines are not that big and they are not on the charts that come with the lease.”

Really? They aren’t exactly hard to find.

Twitter · Apr 5, 2023, 5:03 PM

This is hilarious

Makes sense as Hersh seems to believe that the US also couldn’t find the pipes without the Norwegians

[junior moat]

the pipes are magic .. only Norwegians are able to find them, using ancient spells from norse mythology .. but only Norwegians who don't use a 49-foot sailboat . in that case the spells wouldn't work 🪄 🍃 🔮

[sand delta]

The pipelines are all on charts.

This really screams of someone who has no idea what they are talking about.

https://webapp.navionics.com/

Doesn't include Danish waters (for free at least, but can of course pay the fee), and this isn't even an "official IMO-approved S-57 chart."

The location of underwater infrastructure is not secret and cannot be secret.

It has to be charted accurately otherwise ships will end up dropping their hook on it.

[junior moat]

think Hersh just trying to weed out people who have even half a braincell left .. that way the ones following and paying for his substack after he knows are as loyal as they are dumb . perfect followership to amplify stupidity to the level where every normal person is being inflicted permanent brain damage as well 😭 😵‍💫

[raw nexus]

Lots of anchor length tweets again.

[sand delta]

At least Mr. Hersh gives a pretty honest review of his Substack when you open it.

[junior moat]

true, subconsciously he knows it's BS what he's doing

[sand delta]

https://twitter.com/policytensor/status/1643619540318683142

Policy Tensor (@policytensor)

I’ve been thinking the same thing. The cover story is so obviously fraudulent that perhaps it is not meant to be believed—ie, it contains a deterrence signal. https://t.co/gVqkfYc57l

Twitter · Apr 5, 2023, 2:20 PM

Hold on, does he think that sailboats need license numbers?

The US requires that sail boats have to display their name and reg number, but the height requirement is 30mm, so tiny.

The UK doesn't have a requirement to display anything at all.

And more importantly, it's a rented yacht

The apparent bombers would very obviously not be involved in the intricacies of naming, registering and displaying things.

and

it's an entirely bullshit thing to mention when this exists

[vocal violet]

Is that NATO flag on the Andromeda photoshopped?

[sand delta]

https://www.bavariayachts.com/

[raw nexus]

What a bullshittery. License plates.

[sand delta]

Yachts are always annoying to deal with

With other vessels you can call them on the radio by name, with a yacht it's nearly always "white yacht in position X"

Even if they are required to display their details, the size requirements are always hilarious, the US as I said only requires 3cm tall.

[stone wadi]

They should have asked "how the americans managed to recover it first" not "why"

[stone wadi]

Ships do that all the time anyway

[sand delta]

[stone wadi]

that reminds me @sand delta
do you know what thise rectangesl and the circle might be about
(betweeen the blasts, I assume they whare on the charts before the blasts too)

[sand delta]

Dumping Grounds for munitions, mostly chemical weapons.

The circle is the primary dumping zone, whilst the rectangle-ish shape is the secondary dumping zone.

[stone wadi]

anything specific that say that it is chemical?
I know that they found and had to remove a bunch of ww2 UXO

[sand delta]

http://archive.iwlearn.net/helcom.fi/environment2/hazsubs/en_GB/chemu/index.html

http://archive.iwlearn.net/helcom.fi/stc/files/Publications/OtherPublications/CHEMUFinalReport1995.pdf

[elfin cradle]

Also millitary exercise area (the square one).
The round is chemical weapons, dont really matter.

[sand delta]

http://archive.iwlearn.net/helcom.fi/stc/files/Publications/OtherPublications/1994Report-ChemicalMunitionsDumpedInTheBalticSea.pdf

The exercise area is the dashed perfect rectangle

[stone wadi]

lol

[sand delta]

The circle and the square shape with lumps are dumping grounds.

https://helcom.fi/baltic-sea-trends/hazardous-subtances/sea-dumped-chemical-munitions/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12665-009-0171-9

32,000 tonnes of chemical weapons.

[stone wadi]

this would have been before the extancion of the EEZ I assume
or I doubht they would been allowed to dump it that close to Denmark

[sand delta]

EEZs didn’t exist back in the 40s.

https://www.wsi.uni-kiel.de/de/veranstaltungen/vergangene-veranstaltungen/nord-stream-pipeline/beitraege/Missiaen.pdf

EEZs are a global thing since 1982’s UNCLOS, there was a couple claimed zones going back to the 40s, 50s but those were unilateral and not recognised.

[stone wadi]

ouch

lol

[junior moat]

russian nuclear submarine can also try and sneak into the Baltic undetected by going through the Kiel canal 😉

[stone wadi]

hm part of that was in polish claimed area untill 2018
https://maritime-spatial-planning.ec.europa.eu/events/poland-and-denmark-sign-agreement-maritime-boundary-baltic-sea

hm the orignal treaty about the sund and the straits specify "treaty text on free passage for all friendly ships"

[limber hinge]

UXO
I VERY briefly worked in clam daggers off USA East Coast, as a kid. They drag a dredge which shoots 6 bar water jets into the sea floor (sand) to dislodge classic and scoop them up. Would also routinely pick up anything else including hand grenades and the like.
Just pick em out and chuck them back.
The dumping zones were only very approximate.
About 1970, so 25 years or less after the war.

[stone wadi]

that don't sounds like the safest way to handle that

[hoary maple]

okay, idk if thats from the new hersh thing or not, but did everyone just skip over 'export'?

[serene grove]

same with thinking that an unexploded mine would be something that anyone would want to go anywhere near...exploded mine bits are evidence also lmao

like seriously has sy never done any battlefield forensics?

unexploded bombs are a pain in the ass to try and attribute because they tend to become exploded without warning

once you have a bunch of inert pieces, putting them together is significantly less dangerous and almost as effective for an ID

but then again a bunch of people failed to ID a thing that commonly washes up on the shores around there despite a very clear picture so I guess it's not really common knowledge

it is amusing to me that he's limiting who can read his garbage to people who want to pay for it...that should cut down on people calling out his bullshit

[elfin cradle]

I would not touch thoes half rusted-away bombs for all the money in the world, and that was 20 years ago.. (where did the time fly?)
And then much of the explosives has decomposed (compared to Mustard Gas..).

[stone wadi]

Best practice is just to blow it up for sure this time

[serene grove]

yup! and if they had gone back for it that's what they would have done

[stark palm]

Yeah, blowing it up is 100x more likely

Anyone ever looked at the seismograph readings after the 26th to the 29th when the “small NS2 leak” was discovered?

I don’t think that there will be anything, but I have never actually looked

[serene grove]

I would suggest waiting for the conference where those papers will be presented for seismograph analysis

I forget the dates but it's coming up soon

[tired monolith]

https://www.nyteknik.se/samhalle/aklagaren-om-nord-stream-huvudsparet-en-stat-en-aktor-med-betydande-resurser/2021106

It may be difficult to establish who is behind the explosions at the gas pipelines Nord Stream 1 and 2, according to prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist. But the main track points towards a state.

- Those who implemented this have been careful that when you leave traces _which you always have to do_, the feeling is that you have made sure that it does not point in any particular direction.

– Or to turn the tables: In all directions at the same time.```

same guy in October

https://www.gp.se/nyheter/sverige/åklagaren-tror-ansvariga-kan-spåras-1.82278951

[elfin cradle]

I have tried but hard to tell anything at all when I lack the required skills. What are you looking for?

[eager moss]

As a first pass, has anyone seen any video or photos of a turbulent sea surface caused by gas escape at locations other than the large one at NS1-A and the one at NS2-A south of Bornholm ? If the NS1-B rupture is kilometres away from NS1-A it should be separately visible at the sea surface as should the NS2-A 'small' rupture if it's 2 kilometres away. Even a 'small' rupture should be visible at the surface when the gas at 100bar+ has risen from 80 metres water depth.

The Swedish seismic centre previously published these records which are much clearer than others that are available

[stone wadi]

the day for day report is avalibel but I have no idea whare to even start to get a program that can make that into something sensible
or if those contian the raw station data
(you might be able to get that if you email them and ask though

[inner sandal]

https://link.medium.com/yDL2npYpMyb

[inner sandal]

I signed up in order to read his latest garbage but, in line with Donald Tump's practice, I shall treat it as a business expense

[vocal violet]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/swedish-prosecutor-says-still-unclear-who-behind-nord-stream-sabotage-2023-04-06/

[elfin cradle]

If there was 2 explosions per pipeline, why dont 6-7 explosions show up on the seismograph?

And how would the Americans have time to recover the bomb when DK ship were at the 2nd site just a few hours after the explosions (iirc 22:00-ish).
Even if the American ship was "dark" (no AIS) it would have been seen by other boats in the vicinity as they would need to make a recover in dawn. Between 19:00-22:00

That is just 2 more big holes in his story. Digging his grave deeper.

[sand delta]

For what it's worth, the P-8's that Norway operate are based in 333 skvadron in Evenes in the High North, and were only delivered to Norway in early 2022.

But they aren't operational per se, of course they can fly, but they aren't being used operationally until 2023.

https://www.forsvaret.no/en/news/articles/first-p-8
https://afterburner.com.pl/poseidon-enters-service-p-8a-for-norway/

[elfin cradle]

iirc only UK (unsure) & US have used P-8 in the Baltics.

[sand delta]

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/british-p-8-trains-with-the-royal-navy-in-baltic/

[elfin cradle]

Ty, but Im thinking of last year. Gonna try and see if I can see anything on ADSBX.

[sand delta]

https://www.dvidshub.net/image/4584534/vp-47-aviation-ordnanceman-loads-sonobuoys-into-p-8a-poseidon-during-rimpac-2018

For what it's worth: https://www.militaryaerospace.com/unmanned/article/14281254/unmanned-special-operations-reconnaissance

You can also use the sonobuoy launcher to launch little drones as well.

[elfin cradle]

Checked ADSBX and I looked one month before the explosions and UKs P8 was never near the Baltics. Well they could have gone "dark" but that is a strawman argument.

[inner sandal]

My theory is that multiple bombs were detonated simultaneously by a single trigger

[elfin cradle]

If it was by trigger, how to explain the 7 sec gap between bomb 2 and 3? (possible also between 3 and 4). If they were detonated by sound it would have gone much faster.

The second bomb exploded 17h later on the minute, that makes me think that they were timed. If Bomb 2 and 3 have a 7 second gap, that could explain one detonator was activated a few second before the other. (why do super exact timing for something that is going to blow up, 7 sec is enough of leeway to activate the bombs within one min)

/sorry if Im a bit unclear today, too much caffeine and to little sleep.

[pure finch]

Not exactly what you're looking for, but Sentinel 1 (Synthetic Aperture Radar) images of the leak sites, from 29 of September. 1W zoomed out view, 1Z zoom in of the cluster, SE the site SE of Bornholm.

[pure finch]

I need to learn about processing SAR imagery, here it is in blue pseudo colour as well - SAR can be counterintuitive with reflections/shadows etc.

[stone wadi]

IIRC the main gas discharges was large enough that they would hide anything smaller close by
their is also posible that a small leak would be unnoticable on the surface

[eager moss]

My first point was that the reported size of the turbulence at the surface (about 1 km diameter) was not big enough to encompass turbulence that was either 6kms or 2kms away; even if the turbulent area was double this size another leak would be evident at the surface. I agree that if the 'small leak' was very small - like a trickle of bubbles, which is not what would be expected if the leak was the result of explosives - it may not be seen as turbulence at the surface. But anything bigger than a very small leak would be evident at the surface for the internal gas pressure and water depth {my assessment of turbulence at the surface is based on having been involved in fixing leaks on gas pipelines (valves) at similar pressures in water depths of both 70 metres and 130 metres}. There doesn't appear to be any publicly available vision of these two easternmost leaks despite the flights over the western NS1-A leak; maybe they didn't look further east.

[eager moss]

To illustrate : a very simplistic calculation of gas expansion due to changing pressure (I've just assumed isothermic expansion) shows that 1 cubic metre of gas at 165 bar (assumed internal pipeline pressure for NS1) becomes 20m^3 at 8 bar (external hydrostatic pressure) and over 100m^3 one metre below the sea surface. For internal pressure of 105bar (assumed internal pressure for NS2) the corresponding expansion figures are 1 : 13 : 100. In both cases the calculations demonstrate the "explosive" nature of gas expansion as it is instantaneously discharged at 80 metres water depth and why turbulence would be evident at the surface for anything other than a very small leak.

[hushed bay]

Hi all! Just writing to check in on the thread. I've been trying to keep up with it, and it's so encouraging to see so many of you doing so much great work in here. Keep it up!

As always, please remember to ping me or one of our server moderators if there's anything in here that might be breaking the rules. Thanks!

[inner sandal]

Investigators have determined what type of explosive was used in the Nord Stream sabotage, Mats Ljungqvist, the Swedish prosecutor involved in the case, told Reuters. He did not name the explosive but said it ruled out “a very large number of actors”.

Other key points:

● “The people who did this have probably been aware that they would leave clues behind and probably took care so that the evidence would not point in one direction, but in several directions. That makes it difficult to clearly point to one actor.”

● “We don’t rule out anything, but that it is a state actor who is directly or at least indirectly behind this is of course our absolute main scenario, given all the circumstances.”

● The incident has become “an open arena” for attempts to influence debate, likely with the purpose of deliberately sowing confusion, Ljungqvist said. “I don’t want to comment on any specific report but I can conclude that many of the hot theories can be easily ruled out based on what we know from the investigation.”

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/swedish-prosecutor-says-still-unclear-who-behind-nord-stream-sabotage-2023-04-06/

[serene grove]

so tl;dr it was military not industrial explosives

although industrial explosives are generally marked with tracer compounds so even industrial would be traceable supply chain wise with enough digging/access to records

https://treaties.un.org/doc/db/terrorism/conv10-english.pdf

actually I'm not sure if these are meant for tracing specific suppliers or just for detection purposes at security checkpoints

[inner sandal]

Seymour Hersh, quoted in New York magazine, April 8, 2005 ... https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/11719/

[serene grove]

at least he's consistently bullshitting I guess

[hoary maple]

Hersh has written some genuinely important things. He reported on My Lai in Vietnam.

I wrote a thing about it in like mid march

[limber hinge]

In the Arctic there are relatively shallow methane gas release events. They were undetected for a long time because the gas was largely absorbed by the water as it rose, the bubbles never reached rhe surface.

Clearly some level of gas release will show, as it did on NordStream. But perhaps the water absorption was significant enough to attenuate the smaller leaks???

[stone wadi]

IIRC methane don't really desolve in water
but it could likely disperse enough that the bubles are small enough to not be visible
(also how was the weather around that time?, the baltic is usially windy, especially so during fall)

[eager moss]

Yes, water absorption occurs and it would be sufficient to absorb very small leaks such that there is no evidence of a leak at the surface - the 'trickle of bubbles' type of leak - but it's not sufficient to prevent larger volumes of gas from reaching the surface. I saw this at first hand when monitoring a leaking valve on a 42" gas pipeline in 130 metres of water; it was when the leak had increased sufficiently to a more frequent release of larger gas bubbles that it could be seen at the sea surface. The solubility of methane in water is about 3 grams per cubic metre whilst the density of methane at 8bar is about 6 kilograms per cubic metre; which i think places the potential for gas absorption into perspective.

[limber hinge]

@eager moss
Thanks

[stone wadi]

unless it form hydromethane
but that require rater cold and/or somewhat high perssure to form

[eager moss]

Hydrates are a completely different ball game. If hydrates were present in the pipeline it would be a very serious issue. The ambient seawater temperature in Bornholm is reported to be 5 -7 degrees celcius but during the rov surveys in October 2022 the temperature was 13-15 degrees.

[stone wadi]

that sounds like surface temperature

their are a fairly distinct "high" salinity layer that stop around 50m and is on top of a low salinity layer

[eager moss]

it was bottom temperature as recorded by the instrumentation on the rov; it's a standard measurement for rov surveys and is shown on the videos that have been published.

[little zinc]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07/world/europe/nord-stream-pipeline-sabotage-theories.html

[serene grove]

(not sure if already considered but baltic sea salinity is like 1/5 of seawater, took me a while to learn so wanted to let folks know just in case)

[stone wadi]

Yeah its brackish

[serene grove]

it's brackish to the point of being almost freshwater haha

[stone wadi]

I think that we atleast consider lake mälaren to be brackish

[eager moss]

Salinity : yes there is a clear distinction between the top 50 metres and the bottom salinity in deeper water but the salinity profiles show a transition in salinity from 50 metres to 100 metres water depth. the density of the seawater at the top is about 1.007 whilst in Bornholm deep it's about 1.016 at the bottom in 80 metres water depth.

[stone wadi]

this is some weird temperature zones

[eager moss]

salinity records as were known to the Nordstream project

[serene grove]

can I find some more info somewhere?

oh huh, good map

ok now my physics neurons are making a noise, why in the hell does salinity go up linearly from 50 to 100m and stay constant above?

[stone wadi]

maybe a bottom temperature of 13-15c isent as odd as I first though

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/5/1/2

[eager moss]

it's not unusual to have stratification of salinity and temperature although i was a little surprised that the transition was over 50 metres and not a smaller depth. Don't start me talking about solitons . . . .

[stone wadi]

please do 😄
this subject is fascinating

[serene grove]

oh I know that it happens I'm just wondering why it's so consistent across the area when it's so shallow

like I know it's deep from a diving perspective but 80m is like the deepest part of a puddle

when your sea is hundreds of kms wide

[eager moss]

I saw an explanation in some documentation so I'll see if i can find it; there is very little exchange of seawater with the north sea (for obvious reasons) the tidal range is almost zero, and there's a constant supply of lower salinity water from the rivers that enter the sea. The lower salinity water is lower density hence statification. there's also an interesting circulation within the sea both vertically and horizontally; i'll see if i can find that also.

[stone wadi]

Öresund have a max depth of 40m
Greate belt 60m
little belt 80m
(that is point deapths not channel so likely a bit less for the continuous channel)

[serene grove]

oooh ok, fresh water just floats over the top, that makes sense

[eager moss]

yes, but stratification occurs in open oceans as well, mostly due to salinity and temperature differences

[stone wadi]

https://esd.copernicus.org/preprints/esd-2021-15/esd-2021-15.pdf
Salinity dynamics of the Baltic Sea

it is also in general a bit weird in other regards too
Also the vertical extension of the layer containing hydrogen sulphide increased. In summer 2008, in the Gotland and Farö Deeps H2S was found between 125 m and the bottom. At the Landsort Deep station the layer between 100 m and the bottom was anoxic.

http://archive.iwlearn.net/helcom.fi/environment2/ifs/ifs2009/en_GB/WaterExchange/index.html

[eager moss]

yes, i've been thinking about the hydrogen sulphide and it's impact on the internal condition of the ruptured pipelines - the H2S and anoxic conditions (Oxygen < 2%) occur in Bornholm Deep where the pipelines are ruptured.

[stone wadi]

the water exchange between the baltic and north sea don't seem to be constant
but have strong (er) inflows from the north sea happening every once in a while
https://helcom.fi/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/BSEFS-Water-exchange-between-the-Baltic-Sea-and-the-North-Sea-and-conditions-in-the-deep-basins-2017.pdf

apperently the sality was significantly higher in the 60s and 70s for some reason

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2018.00384/full

[rustic bay]

Hi, where is this from? Can we get a link please?

[stone wadi]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate#Natural_deposits

[elfin cradle]

He also said the following, but something in that gives me a feeling that it was a western power that did it:
“- The task? To see if any Swedish interest or Swedish security has been threatened.

• The main purpose of the preliminary investigation is to find out whether Sweden or Swedish infrastructure has been used for this attack.”
  .

[stone wadi]

the thing about swedish intrests is basically in the context it is used more of a boilerplate reason for why (SÄPO) they are investegating it

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)```

- 'I can only conclude that one or more deliberate red herrings have emerged.

However, the speculations do not affect the preliminary investigation, according to Ljungqvist, who instead wants to emphasize that the starting point is the facts and information obtained from analyses, crime scene investigations and cooperation with authorities in Sweden and other countries.

- The main purpose of the preliminary investigation is to find out if Sweden or Swedish infrastructure has been used for this attack. If there are people we can prosecute for involvement in this act," says Ljungqvist.

The main clue: State is behind it
During the preliminary investigation, the prosecutor has received "an incredible amount of emails from the public".

- A recurring question is whether we want to find the truth. If we dare to find the truth. And I want to assure you that we really do," he says.

- There are difficulties in boiling down to a clear designation.

TT: What do you say about the Russia trail?

- "I don't want to speculate at all about who is behind this. We go where the evidence points," he says, but emphasizes:

- That it is a question of an actor with significant resources and knowledge is absolutely clear.

- "We do not exclude that there could be actors that do not belong to a state that have the ability to do this. But then we are talking about very few companies or groups. Given all the circumstances, the main conclusion is that a state is behind it.

Traces point in all directions
The investigation has previously been able to establish that this is a case of serious sabotage, with analyses showing explosive residues on several of the foreign objects examined. But the traces are many - and scattered - if we are to believe the prosecutor.

- "The people who carried this out have been careful to ensure that when you leave traces - which you always have to do - the feeling is that you have ensured that they do not point in any particular direction.

- Or to turn the tables: In all directions at the same time.

The investigation continues and several different investigative measures are now being carried out.

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/15y6MJ/aklagaren-om-nord-stream-mycket-spekulationer

TT is the Swedish Newsagency

[limber hinge]

That Sweedish investigation news story is really non-news. All you can derive from it is "We don't know, but we may have some clues."
The statement is more likely designed to counter complaints they are being secretive, opaque. So they say something without saying anything. "Well we made a press release with all we know."

[stone wadi]

I would read it more as
"we are not telling you anything
regardless if we know or not"

[limber hinge]

A valid alternative reading.

[stone wadi]

this will be the main source for that statement
https://via.tt.se/pressmeddelande/fortsatt-oklart-vem-som-ligger-bakom-grovt-sabotage?publisherId=3235540&releaseId=3344581&lang=sv

- This is a crime whose circumstances are naturally difficult to investigate. The detonations took place at a depth of 80 meters on the seabed in the Baltic Sea," says Mats Ljungqvist.

The preliminary investigation is being conducted by the Swedish Security Service under the leadership of the prosecutor at the National Unit for Security Cases.

- There are a number of different information and reports about the sabotage of the gas pipelines. The incident has obviously become a playground for various attempts at influence. These speculations do not affect the preliminary investigation, which is based on the facts and information obtained from analyses, crime scene investigations and cooperation with authorities in Sweden and other countries," says Mats Ljungqvist.

The investigation has already been able to establish that this is a case of serious sabotage. Analyses from seizures made during the crime scene investigations show residues of explosives on several of the foreign objects examined.

- With regard to the incident, it is a case of gross sabotage in international waters directed against infrastructure whose owners are not linked to Sweden. The focus of the Swedish investigation is primarily to see if any Swedish interest or security was threatened, for example if Swedish territory was used to carry out the sabotage," says Mats Ljungqvist.

All seizures and material are being carefully examined and analyzed.```

- We are now carrying out a number of concrete investigative measures. We are working without preconditions and leaving no stone unturned, leaving nothing to chance. Our hope is that we will be able to establish who has committed this crime, but it can be noted that it is likely to be difficult given the circumstances," says Mats Ljungqvist.````

The focus of the Swedish investigation is primarily to see if any Swedish interest or security was threatened, for example if Swedish territory was used to carry out the sabotage, says Mats Ljungqvist.

always nice when the newsagencies publish their material and you can read what differnt papers used to get radically differnt articles

[limber hinge]

And it leaves it possible for them to close the investigation by saying
"We conclided no Sweedish interests were used, case closed. We have fulfilled our mission. Case closed."

[stone wadi]

https://www.vk.se/2023-04-06/aklagaren-om-nord-stream-huvudsparet-en-stat

- A recurring question is whether we want to find the truth. If we dare to find the truth. And I want to assure you that we really do," he says.

- There are difficulties in boiling down to a clear designation.

TT: What do you say about the Russia trail?

- "I don't want to speculate at all about who is behind this. We go where the evidence points," he says, but emphasizes:

- That it is a question of an actor with significant resources and knowledge is absolutely clear.

TT: Is it a state or group that could be behind this?

- "We do not exclude that there could be actors that do not belong to a state that have the ability to do this. But then we are talking about very few companies or groups. Given all the circumstances, the main conclusion is that a state is behind it.

Traces point in all directions
The investigation has previously been able to establish that this is a case of serious sabotage, with analyses showing explosive residues on several of the foreign objects examined. But the traces are many - and scattered - if we are to believe the prosecutor.

- "The people who carried this out have been careful to ensure that when you leave traces - which you always have to do - the feeling is that you have ensured that they do not point in any particular direction.

- Or to turn the tables: In all directions at the same time.```

[stone wadi]

true
and that is not a imposible conclusion given the potentiall sensetivity of the issue

Though that would not be their full mission, just their public mission

it is also fully possible that they will publish a full presentation going into minute detail of every single peice of evidence

and who they accuse

- The main purpose of the preliminary investigation is to find out if Sweden or Swedish infrastructure has been used for this attack. If there are people we can prosecute for involvement in this act," says Ljungqvist.
https://www.folkbladet.nu/2023-04-06/aklagaren-om-nord-stream-huvudsparet-en-stat

lol
https://www.tv4.se/artikel/4MzSa8DGQ6uinM77jniDMp/aklagare-utreder-om-sverige-aer-inblandade-i-nord-stream-sabotagen

as this one show, they have suddenly added a "probably not be able to point out anyone responsible" that none of the others have used

- We are now implementing a number of concrete investigative measures. We are working without prejudice and leaving no stone unturned, leaving nothing to chance. Our hope is that we will be able to establish who has committed this crime, but it can be noted that it is likely to be difficult given the circumstances," says Mats Ljungqvist.
https://www.oskarshamns-nytt.se/oklart-om-vem-som-ligger-bakom-grovt-sabotage-sprangamnen-hittade/

[sand delta]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russian-naval-vessels-near-nord-stream-days-before-sabotage-v5fgl9tjn

Citing sources in the security services, the report said a frigate and a corvette were accompanied by two rescue tugs, an Alpinist-class surveillance ship and a submarine rescue ship called the SS-750, with a crane and a mini-submarine of its own. The AS-26 mini-submarine is said to have a deep submergence rescue vehicle from the Priz class. It can operate at depths of up to 1,000m — significantly lower than the 80m depth of the Bornholm Deep, where the pipeline blasts occurred — and has a pair of remote-operated arms that can handle loads weighing up to 50kg.
https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/aussenpolitik/id_100149758/nord-stream-russia-may-have-operated-a-submarine-before-the-explosions.html
Usually, "SS-750" is stationed at the Baltiysk base in Kaliningrad as part of the Baltic Fleet. However, satellite imagery shows that it left the port on the night of September 21. At a speed of nine knots, it would have been able to reach the scene by 7:50 p.m. The so-called "Automatic Identification System" (AIS), which transmits location data, had been switched off. However, its length of 95 meters would match the dimensions of a dark ship discovered by the U.S. company SpaceKnow without a position signal near the crime scene.

[limber hinge]

@sand delta
Is this any additional to what Oliver Alexander said some 2 weeks ago?

[sand delta]

Oh no

[tidal knoll]

Just testing how linking to Notes works with a reply to Oliver Alexander.
https://substack.com/profile/1555445-josh/note/c-14469345

[velvet rain]

Looks a lot more reliable and clean than Twitter.

[raw nexus]

He said F I...that old guy 🫨😲

[tidal knoll]

Let's just hope he doesn't decide to discover Discord.
Anyway, I was just glad to have something tangentially relevant to test with.

[sand delta]

[sand delta]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-russia-nord-stream-explosion-b2318161.html

[hoary maple]

seymour hersh boutta run with this

[tidal knoll]

Sy's source surfaces...

[hoary maple]

thoughts on notes so far?

[tidal knoll]

I haven't tried yet, just that test linking to one.

[hoary maple]

ohh okay

[inner sandal]

Among all the things Hersh has said/written about Nord Stream I can find no mention of the single explosion south of Bornholm 17 hours before the main blasts. It just doesn't seem to have any place in his narrative. I'm puzzled.

[elfin cradle]

Do I recall wrongly that he claimed somewhere that the south explosion (No 1) actually were the last, and it was to make sure that NS2 was taken out fully (by the US) when the other explosions did not make the work (but US/Norwegians botched again and put the bomb on the wrong string and blew the same string of NS2 twice)?

[exotic shale]

"routine flight and dropped a sonar buoy. The signal spread underwater, initially to Nord Stream 2 and then on to Nord Stream 1. A few hours later, the high-powered C4 explosives were triggered and three of the four pipelines were put out of commission."

[serene grove]

did Rube Goldberg blow up this pipeline

[exotic shale]

Above is from Hersh's original article. I think you must read it like scripture -first NS2 and then NS1 is like in old testament where God created earth in a few days, and apologists translate that to millions of years. As a Hersh apologist, I think there's 17 hours between "initially" and "then"

If you omit the small NS2 leak in Swedish zone, it is true that NS2 preceded NS2 by 17 hours.

[serene grove]

a leaking spot can just like spontaneously explode right?

there will be weird forces and thermal stuff from the decompression

[exotic shale]

The forces are not weird. It's the basic rocket equation. Pressure diff time surface area plus mass flow times acceleration.

[serene grove]

yeah and add to that the concrete cracking and eroding

[exotic shale]

I obviously haven't cracked the code here

[inner sandal]

That was what I suggeste speculatively in a blog post. It's not something Hersh has said. https://brian-whit.medium.com/seymour-hersh-and-the-nord-stream-pipe-that-wasnt-blown-up-dc48bcbc039b

[elfin cradle]

Ty, there is where I got it from.

[inner sandal]

Having described the merits of the target area north of Bornholm in his initial article, Hersh ignores the anomalous explosion 76km away to the south of the island. It needs to be accounted for somehow, but he makes no attempt to do so. At the very least, I would expect him to have asked his source about it.

He could be alluding to the southern site when he says the signal from the sonar buoy reached NS2 first (though the same pipe was also blown up in the north). If so, that would imply the buoy was dropped closer to the anomalous southern site than the northern site where multiple bombs had been placed. Why?

Hersh is clear that only one sonar buoy was dropped, and he has since said it was the common-or-garden type that can be bought "from any shop". As far as I can tell from Google searches (someone please correct me if I'm wrong), these have a short transmission range of up to 2km, so it's hard to see how a single buoy could have triggered all the explosions.

Inicidentally, the speed of sound (1.5km per second in seawater) would not account for the 17-hour time difference between the explosions.

[serene grove]

I mean it's kinda fun to debunk the bullshit but he doesn't exactly pretend to be a scientist, like the 17 hour difference from a "sonar bouy delay" is just a joke lmao

[stone wadi]

have this been posted before?
https://archive.is/oFPYg
Seems like Sy have decided to skip the "just not in print" part

[stone wadi]

17h would been 91800km
in 1/4th of that time the sound would have just reached New Zealand

this pair of explosions don't match sound eather

[elfin cradle]

• If the bombs were activated by a "common" (fish?) sonar, what would prevent the bombs from be activated by a nearby fishingboat? Sounds like a heck of a liability.

A commercial underwater modem has a range of 1-8km (depending on conditions and modulation scheme selected) with an effect of 100W. Millitary active sonar buoys seems to have similar range.
https://www.popotomodem.com/static/8517aa7304b83c0da5fdaf5ad40b516d/M2000-Technical-Specifications.pdf

And the speed of sound in water would not explain the 8 second delay between explosion 2 and 3.
More nails in Sy´s coffin.

[serene grove]

yeah the whole thing is idiotic, the idea of it "taking a while" to get from one point to another is like yeah no

the idea is that there are "antenna devices" which look kinda like smoke markers but it never led anywhere

or maybe the sy theory doesn't need the deep sea rx? idk even anymore

[inner sandal]

Sonar buoy, Hersh's first version, and his second version

[elfin cradle]

Not contradicting at all!
Ugh, Postol... I had forgot that he helped Sy this time too (as he did at with the Syrian chemical agent attacks story...).

[exotic shale]

He also said "he chose not to write about" the panic that ensued after some bombs didn't explode. One interpretation could be that he knows full well that a second sonar buoy had to be dropped, but only very few people had that info, so he can't say it without revealing his source.

[stone wadi]

FFS this is a completely new level of stupidity
any plane in that area without a transponder would be aircrafts from 3-4 nations up and investigating what the hell they think they are doing flying in that high traficed area with the transponder off

and if anyone think "no they could just use stealth planes
yeah right
we hunted blackbirds for fun and profit and tracked them all the way over danish airspace over bornholm close to the baltics and down between Gotland and Öland
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/saving-a-blackbird/
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/viggen-vs-blackbird-swedish-air-force-ja-37-fighter-pilots-able-achieve-radar-lock-legendary-sr-71-mach-3-spy-plane/

[elfin cradle]

Its impossible to enter EU airspace as a fully dark plane, it would been intercepted by multiple airforces. But if you cleared the dark flight with the airforces you suddenly awfully many people that needs to keep their mouth shut.
Even a known plane with transponder that looses contact get intercepted, as the one that crashed in the baltics just weeks before the explosions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Baltic_Sea_Cessna_Citation_crash

[stone wadi]

yeah
but that one got intercepted as it stoped responding to calls and dident follow its flight path

but yeah, their are a number of nations that would handle any request about "lets us fly dark here for a bit" with a "you are joking right, oh sure we will make sure the AF is aware"
que:
Forward the request to the media

[inner sandal]

https://twitter.com/The_Lookout_N/status/1646784886877962241

The Lookout (@The_Lookout_N)

The Norwegian Joint Headquarters confirms that a Norwegian P-8 was identified by a Russian fighter over the Barents Sea yesterday:

"The identification was conducted in a safe and professional manner, in accordance with the Incident at Sea agreement"

Undramatic and routine.

Twitter · Apr 14, 2023, 7:58 AM

[sand delta]

I’m really sad that there’s been nothing really new in the case in a while

https://vxtwitter.com/thomasphipps/status/1628188212148506626

@stark palm You were sorta kinda mentioned at the UNSC lol

The guy didn’t name you specifically, but his tweet names you.

[junior moat]

me too ... but the investigators seem to favour it this way:

“Is there any interest from the authorities to come out and say who did this? There are strategic reasons for not revealing who did it,” said Jens Wenzel Kristoffersen, a Danish naval commander and military expert at the University of Copenhagen. “As long as they don’t come out with anything substantial, then we are left in the dark on all this — as it should be.”

https://archive.is/8eGHq#selection-1665.0-1665.366

[sand delta]

Yep, and even that statement doesn’t confirm it was anyone, cos anyone officially being behind it would necessitate a response, better to leave it lie until the war is over.

I think we’re back to the start in terms of having any information to run down.

We did end up with a pretty inordinate amount of information on the Andromeda/Mola.

[junior moat]

true

[serene grove]

the only pressing reason to deal with it is insurance and that can wait tbh

it's not like there are people anxiously waiting for the payout so they can use it to rebuild

the "europe importing gas from russia" ship has sailed unless something completely changes with the kremlin

[limber hinge]

I find it very difficult to believe NATO does nor know with a reasonable amount of certainty if not outright proof.
I suspect they will divulge if and when it is to their strategic advantage, not before.

[sand delta]

Indeed

[serene grove]

I like to believe that they know putin did it and are not releasing proof just because it makes things awkward

(and by "making things awkward" I guess I mean the same thing as saving it to hold over his head into perpetuity lol)

[sand delta]

What is public is just too weird

[stone wadi]

or confirm unknown undervater survailance abilities....

[sand delta]

inb4 Putin responds with an OJ-esque "If I did it ..."

[stark palm]

Some semi interesting stuff coming in the next few days

[sand delta]

Tease!

Ever time I give up something new comes up.

[stark palm]

Nothing super ground breaking, but a couple of interesting reactions to known information

[sand delta]

Nice

I will wait in anticipation 🙂

[topaz mortar]

Any news is better than no news

Its a shame that the so-called Discord -Thug Shaker Central- JWICS leaks appear not to have any information on US Intel assessments about who was responsible, but again how will we know, as the journalists and analysts who have seen the 300 documents are not revealing much anyway.

[velvet rain]

Be careful, discussing any specific contents of the leaked documents is not tolerated here.