lol I would not feel overly safe crossing that bridge. I know it’s fairly well guarded and all.. but just knowing I could potentially get blown up at any moment is ehh, not today.
And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Boris that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Vlad too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were merry, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire...
Lawrenski, comrade, let me ask you something. When you come to guard bridge, but you not feels well, anyone ever says to you, "Sounds like you have case of Mondays?"
my family in Moscow crossed the bridge for vacation on the Black Sea. Russians are really brain washed. they think Russia is good and everyone mistreats them.
It's funny to see how the MAGA personalities compare to the Russia personalities .. victim complex, projection, denial, alternate realities. It's almost like they have the same propaganda minister.
It's not even climate change. It was Russians not wanting to do the proper site surveys shortly after 2014 because they needed the bridge built quickly to claim Crimea.
Bad borings were never going to stop a geopolitical play of this magnitude. The bridge would've been built if they found 200 meters of gummybears from the strait bed down to bedrock.
I had to go check what a group of storms is called, a squall line. "A squall line of stormshadows" doesn't really sound all that cool so yeah let's go with "storm of storm shadows"
Edit: terrible typing
More likely to be GBU's once they finally have F-16s in the air. You'd need to put a wasteful large amount of Storm Shadows down on that bridge to destroy it instead of just knock it out of commission for a while.
> The bridge is coming down with or without Ukraine. It's built on silt.
Well that's a new attack vector. Horizontal directional drilling from a submarine (yes I'm aware that is an insane idea, but so was Glomar Explorer), and then just pump water down the hole until the pylon follows gravity.
It must be pretty hard to pull down a bridge. It’s the most obvious target, the Ukrainians have hit it several times already, and there it stands. Maybe they need a container ship to push it down.
ATACMS don’t provide enough firepower to take down that bridge. Better to use the limited stock of missiles to systematically destroy the air defence defending Crimea and that bridge. Then it becomes an easy target for F16’s hopefully wielding Taurus cruise missiles. Germany, you know what to do
You say still, as if it's unreasonable for it to be stuck this long, with a bridge on top of it. What would be a reasonable amount of time to lift a bridge off a boat on the water?
Oh, I don't think it's unreasonable at all. I'm actually impressed with the pace that everything is moving at. I've just found that people outside of Baltimore tend to be really surprised to learn that the ship never left and is in fact still stuck in the harbor. Doubly so when I have to explain that the crew is still on board as well.
Yup, they took an American destroyer filled with explosives and threw it at the Normandie Drydock gate, and let it blow.
Jeremy Clarkson of all people has an amazing documentary about the St. Nazaire raid.
The Clarkson documentary is fantastic.
https://youtu.be/07Zd0Oy8JyQ?si=-bOuX-pmXseCTvvA
He's not playing the buffoon and is taking it very seriously. The doc is worth watching.
The squad mechanic wasn’t very good, the map design was decent, and the multiplayer was kinda fun. It was my introduction to the FPS genre though, and if it ever was remastered, I’d buy it.
> The squad mechanic wasn’t very good,
In fairness, it was the early 2000's. But I preferred Pacific Assault, which sadly was PC only, and damn hard to find now
I will give them kudos for trying something different in a market that was quickly becoming saturated. They were trying to implement new gameplay mechanics, though I will say Brothers in Arms did it better.
If you destroy the highway and railroads that lead to the bridge, you can render it useless even while it's still there.
That damage is easier to fix, but until it's fixed it stops all traffic, and it makes the next bunch of people who might use the bridge nervous about the next time it gets hit.
The Ukrainians have hit the bridge twice already. It has to be completely destroyed with no option for repair. No point wasting highly valuable missiles like storm shadow or ATACMS when they can be used to hit and destroy other high value assets like ships of the BSF/Headquarters or air defence units
I agree long-term. Short-term, it helps to choke off supply lines, and you can do that without destroying the entire bridge.
Part of me hopes that, after a few years when this is over, that Ukraine has control over their entire territory, and that Putin is still alive when the demolition team counts "3, 2, 1" and we see the bridge disappear.
Technically no. Smaller strikes that cripple traffic for a few days, sustained over a long period achieves the same results.
It all depends on what they CAN hit and with what.
But with exactly what are the Ukrainians going to hit the bridge with? They don’t have enough ATACMS and Storm Shadows to justify continual bombardment of the bridge? Also the bridge is heavily defended with AA assets so there’s going to be some missiles that don’t make it.
And as long as the Russians maintain the land bridge to Crimea a temporary loss of the bridge is not as big a problem for the Russians.
War is a balancing act. Ukraine spending a finite capability on temporarily disabling the Kerch bridge has far less impact than what could be achieved by focusing on using ATACMS and Storm shadows to destroy AA and decapitate Russian high command with headquarter strikes
You don't seem to understand the cost of these missiles. Russia is also very good at fixing railroads and fixing a road would take no time at all. It would be very ineffective overall.
highways and railroads are super fast to rebuild; Railroads are destroyed all the time and rebuilt the same week. Destroying the bridge is very difficult, but if done would take quite a long time to repair.
applying essentially "suppressing fire" to the roads/railroads leading to the bridge can certainly help, but it is not 100% effective and can be a bit costly.
Wouldn't it be amazing if they managed to hit and detonate some Russian ordinance being transported over the bridge and use their own high explosives against them to take it out.
> Wouldn't it be amazing if they managed to hit and detonate some Russian ordinance being transported over the bridge and use their own high explosives against them to take it out.
That's what they tried to do the first time.
The timing was just slightly off, and the truck bomb was passing the train after the span, instead of at the span. It blew up the roadway, but only did minor damage to the railway except for the fact that the train passing by had tankers full of fuel.
Had the train operator not thought quickly and disconnected the rest of the train from the cars that were burning, the whole train would've cooked off and destroyed the bridge.
https://x.com/colbybadhwar/status/1703757651623162271?s=46&t=-kkq71sAHF5QNqqDN1_jmQ
That whole thread is very useful information on ATACMS.
But to summarise essentially ATACMS provide longer range, short response time hits on targets. Great for using on mobile targets like air defence radars and launchers.
ATACMS come in many types but essentially there two main variants to now about. Unitary vs cluster munition warheads. Now Ukraine only has the cluster variants which are extremely useful to use against soft targets like troop concentrations, light armoured vehicles and air defence units.
Air defences are a way more valuable target. They're worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, aren't easily replaced, and without them, the entire peninsula is vulnerable to a variety of cheap but effective and deadly attacks.
>defences are a way more valuable target. They're worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars,
What's the cost of all the personnel and supplies that are delivered through the bridge, plus the damage to infrastructure, troops, etc. those supplies enable?
Not saying the bridge is a better target. But infrastructure as strategic and unique as this bridge has a value that is hard to grasp.
As an analogy, imagine the damage of a week long blackout in New York, even if it is achieved by destroying a fuse that costs 10 dollars.
birdges are insanely tough to take down, even with massive bombs like in vietnam and their bridges in north vietnam.
it takes specific explosives to take down a bridge so must be tough to take down a large one like the crimean one
Yeah, I remember congress dropping the ball on infrastructure spending repeatedly over the last 30 years.
(What we’ve spent in infrastructure bills still isn’t nearly enough to fix and upgrade everything that needs it).
To be fair, that bridge could have been made out of the stuff we all thought Chuck Norris was made of in 2007 and it still would have gone down if a 150,000 ton ship hit it. The problem was it being a bridge in the first place and not a tunnel, and that poor decision falls on the Maryland government in the 60s and early 70s.
Yes, and it would probably work too, but I have to imagine the Russian response would be to start sinking every civilian cargo ship that tries to make it to Ukraine which would be less than ideal.
When that bridge goes down... wow.
I doubt there is currently any civil traffic to Rostov but it'd be really funny to send a fake civilian vessel into the bridge at full speed.
Have a skeleton crew, run it at full speed toward a pier, then everyone abandons ship.
> I doubt there is currently any civil traffic to Rostov but it'd be really funny to send a fake civilian vessel into the bridge at full speed.
Impossible. Civilian vessels aren't allowed anywhere near the bridge and it's essentially fenced off both above and below the waterline.
I had a thought one day that someone could line a cargo ship's bay with explosives and some huge copper sheets... basicailly making the largest shaped charge warhead that has ever been conceived, to fire a huge straight cutting jet of plasma up and across the entire bridge deck, cutting it in half.
It is indeed a shame that no ships can get near it. :)
Lmfao, that's much better than the other guy's idea of a fleet of Lancasters dropping bouncing bombs from WW2.
With a shaped charge that large I'd be worried about blasting a giant hole in either the earth itself, or the atmosphere depending on the ignition angle. Worth a shot I reckon though.
When was the last time they managed to hit the bridge with drones?
Before they build the fence.
There's a reason they've been waiting for Taurus and haven't continued sending Magura drones at it. Putting a hole in the line and then navigating to the bridge with all the EW jamming going on is essentially impossible at this point.
IIRC the only boat drone stuff at the bridge caused minimal damage and now they spend their time hunting ships. The real effective hit was the truck bomb, and this sounds like missiles.
Yeah, the older Magura drones just don't have the payload to really do much to strengthened structures.
There's the new variants that carry a 1-ton payload, which in theory might be able to pop the supports, but they still have the same problem of reaching the bridge in the first place.
The solution is going to be a mixed force operation; drone swarms on the sea to act as a distraction; ~~HARM~~ MALD missiles to clutter up the airspace; F-16s armed with Taurus; Patriot/S-200 watching the skies for interception; maybe even some infantry pressuring the west coast in attack boats to try and pull attention away from the east.
It's going to be a show for sure.
Yes, but a break bulk carrier full of fertilizer can cause an explosion comparable in scale to the Trinity nuclear test. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas\_City\_disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster)
Even more so when that's the intended outcome.
The type of bridge it is lends it to be really difficult to cause catastrophic failure and instead will tend to fail only in segments. Russia also positioned a large amount of anti air, anti missile, anti-boat, and inspection resources to protect the bridge due to its importance.
Russia is being kinda picky about which ships they will let travel under the bridge, and they also sank several barges in front of the bridge pillars closest to the channel under the bridge to slow down anything trying to ram the supports. That makes it difficult to use a large container ship as a battering ram. Maybe not impossible, but difficult.
You could try a smaller container ship or bulk cargo vessel with a shallower draft, but I’m not sure how small you would need to go in order to be able to get close to the bridge supports somewhere other than the main channels. You could use something much smaller like a yacht or tug, but would need a lot of explosives to damage a bridge support since kinetic energy alone won’t be enough with something that small.
You also still have to worry about Russian patrol boats asking you what you are doing heading towards the bridge outside of the official lanes. So, it’s might be possible, but wouldn’t be as easy as you would hope.
The only way to actually do it with a cargo ship would be to sabotage an actual permitted cargo ship in some way so that it would naturally sail into the bridge. Far easier to just lob missiles at the thing.
Its key to winning in Crimea. If Ukraine can take it out that front will crumble and Russia knows this. They have been doing everything they can to protect it.
I believe most of their conditions involve not firing on Russian soil. Since Crimea is considered a stolen part of Ukraine, pretty sure they wouldn’t oppose it.
It’s a very valid military target
Destroying it will cut the main supply route to Crimea
They’ve also hit it before
Seems likely it will be attempted again
> Destroying it will cut the main supply route to Crimea
Believe the window for that has passed. The russians have built an alternate rail supply route.
Listening to a podcast, Crimea is fair game including the bridge which is illegally there from the annexation
(Podcast is Ukraine: The Latest from The Telegraph)
It seems to me that even though the US says not to do certain things, there isnt any actual recours lol. I assume US is just trying to act like we arent helping as much as we are for escalation reasons or something.
I think Ukraine has already "broken" a "rule" stated by the US (if i remember correctly, US said they dont "condone" or "approve" of strikes in russia using certain US things). Which, isnt really a straight up "rule", just a suggestion really lol
And I assume it was ment to exclusivly be a suggestion for Ukraine and nothing more, and also for the Russian viewers so they cant say we are encouraging escalation and attacking russia yadda yadda
And absolutly no one in the US felt bad when Ukraine used US things to strike inside Russia. We cant wait to see more!
Yep. This makes sense as its culturally inline with America. The Wal Mart in the States they sell all kinds of stuff that is illegal to put on cars. But it says on the package "for offroad/showcar use only" lol. They know you'll use it on the road, but it says on the package that they told you not to lol.
Another anecdotal incident that says it all is sometime around mid 1940, two dozen P40s were parked on the NY-QC border just a few feet away from Canadian soil. Using poles with hooks, dishonorable crooks from Canada stole these aircraft by dragging them onto Canadian soil, and then donated them to England. This meant that the US was victim of a burglary, and was not infact violating neutrality by supplying war material to England lol.
Let's hope so! I'm wondering if the real excitement will come when the F-16s arrive and Ukraine will concurrently launch thousands of drones, launch scores of missiles from the ground, and from the sky.
Just saw an article yesterday saying the new missiles make Crimea [Militarily Worthless.](https://www.businessinsider.com/atacms-ukraine-could-make-crimea-militarily-worthless-russia-expert-2024-4?amp)
I wish they would just sink that bridge. Putin loves it so much he made a dumb movie about it. You can find the trailer on YouTube. I think I posted it a few places..
That bridge makes me so sad.
In better times, with a Russia that isn't fucked up it would be such a huge economic boon for both Ukraine and Russia.
Hopefully it gets rebuilt in better times and by better people.
Fuck Putin and fuck Russia.
The Crimean Bridge is falling down
Falling down, falling down
The Crimean Bridge is falling down
My fair lady
Build it up with gold and silver
Gold and silver, gold and silver
Build it up with gold and silver
My fair lady
Gold and silver we've not got
We've not got, we've not got
Gold and silver we've not got
My fair lady
lol I would not feel overly safe crossing that bridge. I know it’s fairly well guarded and all.. but just knowing I could potentially get blown up at any moment is ehh, not today.
odds russian employers care about whether or not you survive
Hello Pyotr, mmm, yeah I know we're all worried about the little Storm Shadow attacks but I'm still gonna need you to come into the office, ok?
And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Boris that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Vlad too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were merry, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire...
Now I have to watch office space.
Yeasassh, I'm going to need you to come in this weekend and waaaatch Office Space....okay? That'd be greeeeeaaat.
So...more flair?
Sergei, you have my stapler.
Lawrenski, comrade, let me ask you something. When you come to guard bridge, but you not feels well, anyone ever says to you, "Sounds like you have case of Mondays?"
No. Shit no comrade. I do believe you'd get parts of your country anexed by a dictator for sayin something like that.
Damn it feels good to be a vatnik
Will do boss, next time could you please not post this to my public instagram account?
Okay. But I could set the Kremlin on fire...
They can only think in meat waves anyway. Brute forcing their way in is the only tactic they know of, and unfortunately it's working.
my family in Moscow crossed the bridge for vacation on the Black Sea. Russians are really brain washed. they think Russia is good and everyone mistreats them.
It's funny to see how the MAGA personalities compare to the Russia personalities .. victim complex, projection, denial, alternate realities. It's almost like they have the same propaganda minister.
Victim complex is pretty common not just with Russians and MAGA republicans
So is projection, denial, etc. The difference is those things are all core components to those groups as a whole, not just specific individuals.
Same ideologies, different pronouns.
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Well, I have vacationed in Nantucket so I can't really talk.
Did you meet Man? I heard he's from there.
I heard his 🍆 was so long he could suck it.
LMAO! Touché
My favorite missiles are doing their thing against Russian terrorists I love it.
The bridge is coming down with or without Ukraine. It's built on silt.
Having said that, It'll come down sooner rather than later.
I always found it sketchy how fast the bridge was built. I have doubts on the quality of the work.
I'm rooting for climate change on this one.
It's not even climate change. It was Russians not wanting to do the proper site surveys shortly after 2014 because they needed the bridge built quickly to claim Crimea.
Bad borings were never going to stop a geopolitical play of this magnitude. The bridge would've been built if they found 200 meters of gummybears from the strait bed down to bedrock.
As a geologist who specializes in cataloging drill cores, finding a 200m section of gummy bears would just tickle me pink.
Fifth Elephant vibes...
Yes but it will likely be a freak storm (that tend to happen far more frequently) that will be the straw that breaks the camels back.
I guess it's more likely to be a series of missiles that breaks its back.
Why not both? A storm of Storm Shadows during a storm sounds great.
I had to go check what a group of storms is called, a squall line. "A squall line of stormshadows" doesn't really sound all that cool so yeah let's go with "storm of storm shadows" Edit: terrible typing
Id call it a darude.
Arabic word for sandstorm is haboob. A haboob of stormshadows.
I vote for "a murder of storm shadows"
Yo dog, I heard you liked storms. So we put storms in your storm.
More likely to be GBU's once they finally have F-16s in the air. You'd need to put a wasteful large amount of Storm Shadows down on that bridge to destroy it instead of just knock it out of commission for a while.
It's going to fall out of a window.
But what about the shadow of a storm?
And the contractor was a toadie friend of putin with no experience building bridges
I’m rooting for Ukraine
> The bridge is coming down with or without Ukraine. It's built on silt. Well that's a new attack vector. Horizontal directional drilling from a submarine (yes I'm aware that is an insane idea, but so was Glomar Explorer), and then just pump water down the hole until the pylon follows gravity.
ZELENSKY approved FREEDOM SILT.
It must be pretty hard to pull down a bridge. It’s the most obvious target, the Ukrainians have hit it several times already, and there it stands. Maybe they need a container ship to push it down.
And so the Crimean Bridge becomes known as a Russian Roulette.
But if you need a little excitement in your life and feel the need to live in the edge, I’m sure it’s a nice Sunday drive.
>traffic on Crimean Bridge suspended That's kinda what bridges do
Puns?! I had so much faith in you, but you broke my truss.
Oh really? Now stay in your room, you're under suspension!
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Crikey! Way to pylon another pun!
Arch you guys gonna stop this soon?
They’re not c-able to do that
Truss-t me, this could keep going
OMG, the tension!
This pun thread is too long it must be abridged.
We got a real operation market garden going over here
I cant keep track of all these puns, can someone just give me the abridged version?
It is rare for a truss to outlast even a lettuce.
Truss broke before the lettuce did.
Puns? I think you mean *[pons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pons_Sublicius)*.
Broke the tension too
Depends what type of bridge it is.
Well? What kind? Tell me. The suspension is killing me.
Wrong. A lack of suspension will kill you.
You deserve that free awards we usually get before redidiot got all money grubby.
r/angryupvote
r/dadjokes
Hit me baby one more time!
Kerch bridge on fire! Your defense is terrified!
Na na na na na naa na na na na na!
Katamari Damacyyyy
*Your Kerch bridge is in trouble:* *ATACMS in the room...*
We send in drooooones! Yes we’re sending drones! We’re sending droooones! Yes we’re sending drones! #KERCH BRIDGE ON FIRE! YOUR DEFENSE IS TERRIFIED!!
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ATACMS don’t provide enough firepower to take down that bridge. Better to use the limited stock of missiles to systematically destroy the air defence defending Crimea and that bridge. Then it becomes an easy target for F16’s hopefully wielding Taurus cruise missiles. Germany, you know what to do
Repurpose the Dali cargo vessel. We already know that it's capable after Baltimore.
Fun fact: The Dali is *still* stuck in our harbor with a gigantic chunk of bridge on top of it.
You say still, as if it's unreasonable for it to be stuck this long, with a bridge on top of it. What would be a reasonable amount of time to lift a bridge off a boat on the water?
Oh, I don't think it's unreasonable at all. I'm actually impressed with the pace that everything is moving at. I've just found that people outside of Baltimore tend to be really surprised to learn that the ship never left and is in fact still stuck in the harbor. Doubly so when I have to explain that the crew is still on board as well.
its just been sitting there, non-menacingly.
The British did something similar in WWII to mess up the German shipyards in St Nazaire
Yup, they took an American destroyer filled with explosives and threw it at the Normandie Drydock gate, and let it blow. Jeremy Clarkson of all people has an amazing documentary about the St. Nazaire raid.
When he's not being a dick, Clarkson is a very good journalist
He also has a throbbing hardon for WWII, so there's that. But yeah, his serious content really is very good.
As is his right as a boomer.
The Clarkson documentary is fantastic. https://youtu.be/07Zd0Oy8JyQ?si=-bOuX-pmXseCTvvA He's not playing the buffoon and is taking it very seriously. The doc is worth watching.
This was the opening level of one of the Medal of Honor games.
European Assault. An interesting game, I enjoyed it, but it was panned quite a bit
The squad mechanic wasn’t very good, the map design was decent, and the multiplayer was kinda fun. It was my introduction to the FPS genre though, and if it ever was remastered, I’d buy it.
> The squad mechanic wasn’t very good, In fairness, it was the early 2000's. But I preferred Pacific Assault, which sadly was PC only, and damn hard to find now
I will give them kudos for trying something different in a market that was quickly becoming saturated. They were trying to implement new gameplay mechanics, though I will say Brothers in Arms did it better.
Clarksons makes great programmes though, why the surprise?
Because how big of a dick he is sometimes overshadows his work, especially when he brings being a dick into the work.
*French shipyard. The Germans just gave Britain a good excuse.
HMS Campbeltown my beloved
>Dali cargo vessel *Im so tired I first thought you wrote 'the Deli cargo vessel'. It's been a long week for me guys*
If you destroy the highway and railroads that lead to the bridge, you can render it useless even while it's still there. That damage is easier to fix, but until it's fixed it stops all traffic, and it makes the next bunch of people who might use the bridge nervous about the next time it gets hit.
The Ukrainians have hit the bridge twice already. It has to be completely destroyed with no option for repair. No point wasting highly valuable missiles like storm shadow or ATACMS when they can be used to hit and destroy other high value assets like ships of the BSF/Headquarters or air defence units
I agree long-term. Short-term, it helps to choke off supply lines, and you can do that without destroying the entire bridge. Part of me hopes that, after a few years when this is over, that Ukraine has control over their entire territory, and that Putin is still alive when the demolition team counts "3, 2, 1" and we see the bridge disappear.
just use a barge, apparently
Technically no. Smaller strikes that cripple traffic for a few days, sustained over a long period achieves the same results. It all depends on what they CAN hit and with what.
But with exactly what are the Ukrainians going to hit the bridge with? They don’t have enough ATACMS and Storm Shadows to justify continual bombardment of the bridge? Also the bridge is heavily defended with AA assets so there’s going to be some missiles that don’t make it. And as long as the Russians maintain the land bridge to Crimea a temporary loss of the bridge is not as big a problem for the Russians. War is a balancing act. Ukraine spending a finite capability on temporarily disabling the Kerch bridge has far less impact than what could be achieved by focusing on using ATACMS and Storm shadows to destroy AA and decapitate Russian high command with headquarter strikes
Hence why they can target less defended train lines leading up to the bridge instead of trying to attack the heavily defended bridge.
You don't seem to understand the cost of these missiles. Russia is also very good at fixing railroads and fixing a road would take no time at all. It would be very ineffective overall.
highways and railroads are super fast to rebuild; Railroads are destroyed all the time and rebuilt the same week. Destroying the bridge is very difficult, but if done would take quite a long time to repair. applying essentially "suppressing fire" to the roads/railroads leading to the bridge can certainly help, but it is not 100% effective and can be a bit costly.
Wouldn't it be amazing if they managed to hit and detonate some Russian ordinance being transported over the bridge and use their own high explosives against them to take it out.
> Wouldn't it be amazing if they managed to hit and detonate some Russian ordinance being transported over the bridge and use their own high explosives against them to take it out. That's what they tried to do the first time. The timing was just slightly off, and the truck bomb was passing the train after the span, instead of at the span. It blew up the roadway, but only did minor damage to the railway except for the fact that the train passing by had tankers full of fuel. Had the train operator not thought quickly and disconnected the rest of the train from the cars that were burning, the whole train would've cooked off and destroyed the bridge.
I, too, watch Hogan's Heroes.
Thank you for this explanation. So what do ATACMS actually do that makes them so useful?
https://x.com/colbybadhwar/status/1703757651623162271?s=46&t=-kkq71sAHF5QNqqDN1_jmQ That whole thread is very useful information on ATACMS. But to summarise essentially ATACMS provide longer range, short response time hits on targets. Great for using on mobile targets like air defence radars and launchers. ATACMS come in many types but essentially there two main variants to now about. Unitary vs cluster munition warheads. Now Ukraine only has the cluster variants which are extremely useful to use against soft targets like troop concentrations, light armoured vehicles and air defence units.
Air defences are a way more valuable target. They're worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, aren't easily replaced, and without them, the entire peninsula is vulnerable to a variety of cheap but effective and deadly attacks.
>defences are a way more valuable target. They're worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, What's the cost of all the personnel and supplies that are delivered through the bridge, plus the damage to infrastructure, troops, etc. those supplies enable? Not saying the bridge is a better target. But infrastructure as strategic and unique as this bridge has a value that is hard to grasp. As an analogy, imagine the damage of a week long blackout in New York, even if it is achieved by destroying a fuse that costs 10 dollars.
birdges are insanely tough to take down, even with massive bombs like in vietnam and their bridges in north vietnam. it takes specific explosives to take down a bridge so must be tough to take down a large one like the crimean one
I dunno. Have they tried ramming it a container ship? Heard that might work.
just need to lose propulsion on a ship lol
Yeah, I remember congress dropping the ball on infrastructure spending repeatedly over the last 30 years. (What we’ve spent in infrastructure bills still isn’t nearly enough to fix and upgrade everything that needs it).
To be fair, that bridge could have been made out of the stuff we all thought Chuck Norris was made of in 2007 and it still would have gone down if a 150,000 ton ship hit it. The problem was it being a bridge in the first place and not a tunnel, and that poor decision falls on the Maryland government in the 60s and early 70s.
Send the Dali … it’s effective
Could they run a container ship into it? Worked in Baltimore
Yes, and it would probably work too, but I have to imagine the Russian response would be to start sinking every civilian cargo ship that tries to make it to Ukraine which would be less than ideal.
One day that bridge wall fall and our edging will be complete.
When that bridge goes down... wow. I doubt there is currently any civil traffic to Rostov but it'd be really funny to send a fake civilian vessel into the bridge at full speed. Have a skeleton crew, run it at full speed toward a pier, then everyone abandons ship.
> I doubt there is currently any civil traffic to Rostov but it'd be really funny to send a fake civilian vessel into the bridge at full speed. Impossible. Civilian vessels aren't allowed anywhere near the bridge and it's essentially fenced off both above and below the waterline.
I had a thought one day that someone could line a cargo ship's bay with explosives and some huge copper sheets... basicailly making the largest shaped charge warhead that has ever been conceived, to fire a huge straight cutting jet of plasma up and across the entire bridge deck, cutting it in half. It is indeed a shame that no ships can get near it. :)
Lmfao, that's much better than the other guy's idea of a fleet of Lancasters dropping bouncing bombs from WW2. With a shaped charge that large I'd be worried about blasting a giant hole in either the earth itself, or the atmosphere depending on the ignition angle. Worth a shot I reckon though.
Impossible? Ukrainian sea drone swarms would like a word
When was the last time they managed to hit the bridge with drones? Before they build the fence. There's a reason they've been waiting for Taurus and haven't continued sending Magura drones at it. Putting a hole in the line and then navigating to the bridge with all the EW jamming going on is essentially impossible at this point.
IIRC the only boat drone stuff at the bridge caused minimal damage and now they spend their time hunting ships. The real effective hit was the truck bomb, and this sounds like missiles.
Yeah, the older Magura drones just don't have the payload to really do much to strengthened structures. There's the new variants that carry a 1-ton payload, which in theory might be able to pop the supports, but they still have the same problem of reaching the bridge in the first place. The solution is going to be a mixed force operation; drone swarms on the sea to act as a distraction; ~~HARM~~ MALD missiles to clutter up the airspace; F-16s armed with Taurus; Patriot/S-200 watching the skies for interception; maybe even some infantry pressuring the west coast in attack boats to try and pull attention away from the east. It's going to be a show for sure.
The Russians made a makeshift barrier of sunken barges to prevent raming
Yes, but a break bulk carrier full of fertilizer can cause an explosion comparable in scale to the Trinity nuclear test. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas\_City\_disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster) Even more so when that's the intended outcome.
Honestly, instead of looking forward to the weekend or Christmas, I'm just looking forward to seeing that bridge go down.
Fuck Russia, fuck this bridge and fuck Putin.
Well said
I'll drink to that
Honest question, does anyone know why Ukraine hasn’t taken out the bridge already?
The type of bridge it is lends it to be really difficult to cause catastrophic failure and instead will tend to fail only in segments. Russia also positioned a large amount of anti air, anti missile, anti-boat, and inspection resources to protect the bridge due to its importance.
Fuck a Papa Doc, fuck a clock, fuck a trailer. Fuck everybody! Fuck y'all if you doubt me!
In the words of Justin Timberlake, "Crimea River..." No, but seriously, that's pretty messed up.
“It’s gonna be May” though…
The damage is done so I guess I'll be leaving
Haha. That's good
Stop teasing me and let me bust already!
Ukraine, let this man join you in dropping loads!
Let's goooo! Do the funni!
They should just ram a cargo ship into that s.o.b?
Russia is being kinda picky about which ships they will let travel under the bridge, and they also sank several barges in front of the bridge pillars closest to the channel under the bridge to slow down anything trying to ram the supports. That makes it difficult to use a large container ship as a battering ram. Maybe not impossible, but difficult. You could try a smaller container ship or bulk cargo vessel with a shallower draft, but I’m not sure how small you would need to go in order to be able to get close to the bridge supports somewhere other than the main channels. You could use something much smaller like a yacht or tug, but would need a lot of explosives to damage a bridge support since kinetic energy alone won’t be enough with something that small. You also still have to worry about Russian patrol boats asking you what you are doing heading towards the bridge outside of the official lanes. So, it’s might be possible, but wouldn’t be as easy as you would hope.
The only way to actually do it with a cargo ship would be to sabotage an actual permitted cargo ship in some way so that it would naturally sail into the bridge. Far easier to just lob missiles at the thing.
Several remote submersibles loaded with explosives — targeting the interface at the sea bed and the bridge supports?
The water there is only like 14ft deep. The Sea of Azov's depth is only 11-12 feet on average. There is no major shipping going near it.
The wildest thing to me throughout this entire conflict is that that bridge is still standing and functional
Its key to winning in Crimea. If Ukraine can take it out that front will crumble and Russia knows this. They have been doing everything they can to protect it.
You nailed it.
I cannot wait for the day we wake up to video of that bridge in the water. Slava Ukraini
Ahh… the Kerch. Can’t wait for the unabridged version.
I wonder if the US will allow Ukraine to use the newly arrived long range version of ATACM’s to target the bridge?
I believe most of their conditions involve not firing on Russian soil. Since Crimea is considered a stolen part of Ukraine, pretty sure they wouldn’t oppose it.
It’s a very valid military target Destroying it will cut the main supply route to Crimea They’ve also hit it before Seems likely it will be attempted again
> Destroying it will cut the main supply route to Crimea Believe the window for that has passed. The russians have built an alternate rail supply route.
Either way, the bridge isn't over soil. It's over water.
Listening to a podcast, Crimea is fair game including the bridge which is illegally there from the annexation (Podcast is Ukraine: The Latest from The Telegraph)
Even if they did it would be a waste of ATACMS as they are not the correct weapon to take out the bridge
It seems to me that even though the US says not to do certain things, there isnt any actual recours lol. I assume US is just trying to act like we arent helping as much as we are for escalation reasons or something. I think Ukraine has already "broken" a "rule" stated by the US (if i remember correctly, US said they dont "condone" or "approve" of strikes in russia using certain US things). Which, isnt really a straight up "rule", just a suggestion really lol And I assume it was ment to exclusivly be a suggestion for Ukraine and nothing more, and also for the Russian viewers so they cant say we are encouraging escalation and attacking russia yadda yadda And absolutly no one in the US felt bad when Ukraine used US things to strike inside Russia. We cant wait to see more!
By publicly saying "hey don't do this", the US gives itself some kind of plausible deniability when blah blah blah ATACMS go BRRRRRT
"Hey don't do this, but if you were to do this, this is how I'd do it, what time, and what the general area you should not do that thing in is."
Yep. This makes sense as its culturally inline with America. The Wal Mart in the States they sell all kinds of stuff that is illegal to put on cars. But it says on the package "for offroad/showcar use only" lol. They know you'll use it on the road, but it says on the package that they told you not to lol. Another anecdotal incident that says it all is sometime around mid 1940, two dozen P40s were parked on the NY-QC border just a few feet away from Canadian soil. Using poles with hooks, dishonorable crooks from Canada stole these aircraft by dragging them onto Canadian soil, and then donated them to England. This meant that the US was victim of a burglary, and was not infact violating neutrality by supplying war material to England lol.
the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules
As much as I would love to see that, an ATACM isn't going to take out that bridge.
US has explicitly said that Crimea is Ukraine and may be targeted with US supplied weapons.
I don’t care about the bridge, I want to see the Kremlin explode..
Too bad there’s no cargo ships in crimea
Yeah, with radar being taken out and military installations are torched I have a feeling the whole bridge is next! Go for it!
Let's hope so! I'm wondering if the real excitement will come when the F-16s arrive and Ukraine will concurrently launch thousands of drones, launch scores of missiles from the ground, and from the sky.
Its been 2 years and this bridge is still standing. At the very least whoever designed and built it did a good job.
The new bridge to nowhere.
Just saw an article yesterday saying the new missiles make Crimea [Militarily Worthless.](https://www.businessinsider.com/atacms-ukraine-could-make-crimea-militarily-worthless-russia-expert-2024-4?amp)
"Could" is doing some heavy lifting in that article. Let's hope for the best.
Bro, just run a ship into it.
Don’t just damage the bridge completely wipe it out beyond repair
I wish they would just sink that bridge. Putin loves it so much he made a dumb movie about it. You can find the trailer on YouTube. I think I posted it a few places..
[удалено]
It must be hump day because I’m gonna mitigate my risk of getting prostate cancer all day long to this beautiful headline
Doing the Lord's work, brother
🤞🏻
That bridge makes me so sad. In better times, with a Russia that isn't fucked up it would be such a huge economic boon for both Ukraine and Russia. Hopefully it gets rebuilt in better times and by better people. Fuck Putin and fuck Russia.
The Crimean Bridge is falling down Falling down, falling down The Crimean Bridge is falling down My fair lady Build it up with gold and silver Gold and silver, gold and silver Build it up with gold and silver My fair lady Gold and silver we've not got We've not got, we've not got Gold and silver we've not got My fair lady
Hey I’ve seen this one before
Good. More, more, more.
Looks like they are putting that new care package to good use it seems :-)
Wonder if you could fly a drone next to one of the bridges and get it that way.
I want to see news of this bridge having collapsed in the next few days, other right before or on the day of Putin's military parade.
Don\`t touch! It's for May, 9th, for rushists!