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Cont: The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Reopened Part V

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Axxman300 said:
Sweden makes some of the most advanced weapons in the world. This would be like SAAB smuggling Soviet Volgas. I could see stealing Soviet hardware for a solid laugh, or maybe to be used to make a commemorative Cold War fountain.
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Reverse engineering. See what the enemy are up to. Even Sun-Tzu in Art of War recommends having a spy climb up a tree to see what they are doing.
 
Vixen said:
Translation error should read from Estonia to Stockholm. Bildt was an ally with the CIA and he was keen to help the US get their hands on Russia's space programme and other stuff.
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But the US had already had its hands deep into the Russian space programme since mid-1993: NASA had exploited the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the consequent destruction of funding for the USSR/Russia space programme, to come in with the offer of money and expertise in return for full disclosure and cooperation. It was positioned as a form of mutual benefit deal, but the real kicker for the US was that it enabled them to keep incredibly close and intimate tabs on the Russian efforts.

So by the time the Estonia sank, the US Government (via NASA) already knew pretty much all there was to know about the Russian space programme, including its hardware, expertise and capabilities.

And as regards other military equipment... as others have said, most Russian gear was junk compared with US/Western equivalents. And once the USSR had broken apart, the whole military economy was so porous that Western governments would easily have been able to get their hands on pretty much all Soviet/Russian gear (aside from most military aircraft) long before 1994.

I assure you, this stuff about "Sweden stealing classified Russian military equipment, then Russia getting so angry and vengeful about it that they decided to sink a passenger ferry as revenge and deterrent" is arrant bollocks.
 
Vixen said:
You are missing the Finnish guy Westermann's (_?) assertion - and he is on a working party committee with the current Estonian government so can't be written off as a 'deluded crank' or CT-er - that when he was sent to Estonia as an 18-year-old intern to investigate the incident, he saw sonar graphics which showed a series of dark squares in the water behind the ship's course and he said these were interpreted as am possible truck falling out of the ship, the series showing movement, from their shape and size, and fits in with the theory (yes we are back to this) that the crew or someone opened the car ramp to get rid of the truck.
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Getting rid of a truck was to stop the Swedish authorities confiscating smuggled drugs, remember? You're supposed to be on the "Russian military hardware" conspiracy theory at the moment.
 
Mojo said:
Getting rid of a truck was to stop the Swedish authorities confiscating smuggled drugs, remember? You're supposed to be on the "Russian military hardware" conspiracy theory at the moment.
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You might recall a Finnish satirical wiki which spelt out a theory, which I believe to be a reasonable one, that given the sheer scale of pilferage from the decommissioned former Soviet military camp at Paldiski (not unlike the one at Kaliningrad) of nuclear rods and associated materials, together with the high prices to be got on the black market (especially to rogue states like Iran), then it is quite possible that the contents of one of these trucks, filled with highly inflammable material, such as Caesium which ignites on contact with air, started to smoulder, because the back car ramp was found with the top opened. Someone had opened it, suggesting that there had been a fire and not forgetting that all the fire alarms went off, together with the coded fire alert. One quick way to deal with a smouldering illicit truck would be to despatch it out of the car ramp into the sea.

BTW you may recall Silver Linde the engineer was convicted of drug smuggling later and served nine years, so it is not beyond the realms of possibility that there was indeed smuggling going on and not necessarily of the military kind.
 
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Vixen said:
You might recall a Finnish satirical wiki which spelt out a theory, which I believe to be a reasonable one, that given the sheer scale of pilferage from the decommissioned former Soviet military camp at Paldiski (not unlike the one at Kaliningrad) of nuclear rods and associated materials, together with the high prices to be got on the black market (especially to rogue states like Iran), then it is quite possible that the contents of one of these trucks, filled with highly inflammable material, such as Caesium which ignites on contact with air, started to smoulder, because the back car ramp was found with the top opened. Someone had opened it, suggesting that there had been a fire and not forgetting that all the fire alarms went off, together with the coded fire alert. One quick way to deal with a smouldering illicit truck would be to despatch it out of the car ramp into the sea.
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Is this the same satirical site that said that the Estonia sank because its bow was eaten away by nuclear waste?

Incidentally, you still haven't described the "elementary chemistry" that you claimed would cause nuclear waste to do this, despite several requests.

BTW you may recall Silver Linde the engineer was convicted of drug smuggling later and served nine years, so it is not beyond the realms of possibility that there was indeed smuggling going on and not necessarily of the military kind.
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Why would the Russians want to send a message about drug smuggling to the Swedish government?
 
This 'rolling a truck out of the bow' has been discussed several times. How would you achieve it? The ship is pitching in a storm. When the deck is angled downwards (looking forwards) the truck will be met by water entering. When the deck is angled upwards the truck will roll backwards. If it gets out of alignment in all this to-and-froing (highly likely) it'll start hitting the sides or other vehicles.

It's sheer nonsense.
 
Vixen said:
You might recall a Finnish satirical wiki which spelt out a theory, which I believe to be a reasonable one, that given the sheer scale of pilferage from the decommissioned former Soviet military camp at Paldiski (not unlike the one at Kaliningrad) of nuclear rods and associated materials, together with the high prices to be got on the black market (especially to rogue states like Iran), then it is quite possible that the contents of one of these trucks, filled with highly inflammable material, such as Caesium which ignites on contact with air, started to smoulder, because the back car ramp was found with the top opened. Someone had opened it, suggesting that there had been a fire and not forgetting that all the fire alarms went off, together with the coded fire alert. One quick way to deal with a smouldering illicit truck would be to despatch it out of the car ramp into the sea.
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This is complete and utter drivel.
 
GlennB said:
This 'rolling a truck out of the bow' has been discussed several times. How would you achieve it? The ship is pitching in a storm. When the deck is angled downwards (looking forwards) the truck will be met by water entering. When the deck is angled upwards the truck will roll backwards. If it gets out of alignment in all this to-and-froing (highly likely) it'll start hitting the sides or other vehicles.

It's sheer nonsense.
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And for added fun, in this scenario, the truck is also on fire.
 
Vixen said:
Reverse engineering. See what the enemy are up to. Even Sun-Tzu in Art of War recommends having a spy climb up a tree to see what they are doing.
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You have to prove that the West (NATO, Sweden, UK, USA, et al) didn't already have all of the Soviet's top military technology by September, 1994. Name the Russian military officers who were executed within a year of Estonia's sinking by the state.

None of this has anything to do with the bow visor getting knocked off in rough seas.
 
MarkCorrigan said:
But obviously not to 200oC because you can't obtain those temperatures outside a lab.
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A bit like:

  • a ship can float on its side once it lists over its centre of buoyance: just like Herald of Free Enterprise! (Actually, resting on a bank!)
  • A ship's cannonball in Nelson's day 'cannot have travelled at 900mph'!
  • an EPIRB has to be switched on by one of the Captain's mates before it works!
  • You can't use base sixty notation for hours, minutes and seconds!
  • a bow visor will fall off if hit by a strong wave!
  • a ship 155m long will sink with no trace within 0.35' because all of the windows on the listed side will have smashed thus letting in water rapidly!
  • 80m is too deep to recover a wreck or the bodies!
  • there were no telephone or radio signals between 01:00 and 02:02 because of the 'storm' (only Beaufort 7)!
  • It takes over two hours for a rescue helicopter to fly from either Helsinki or Visby, or Stockholm after an official mayday call from an MRCC!!!
  • Eleven crew listed as rescued on rescuers lists suddenly are not rescued after all!
  • Helicopter Y64 went to pick up a nurse and a doctor from Stockholm via Visby first before going to the rescue!!!
 
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Reformed Offlian said:
And for added fun, in this scenario, the truck is also on fire.
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Has it not occurred to you that there is a reason Sweden has declassified the information about the transportation of military trucks on passenger ferries between Tallinn and Stockholm a month ahead of the release of the next report into the accident?

To recap, Harry Ruotsalainen (not 'Westermann' as cited earlier) claims the following, in recent news:

This is how Harri Ruotsalainen drew his own conclusions about Estonia's sinking.

According to him, the oblique sonar tape displayed in Tallinn had square echoes in two neat queues. What else could they be than the cargo that came out?

Ruotsalainen concluded that the cargo must have been lowered into the sea from the stern of the ship. From the bow gate, the containers would have ended up under the ship and giggled upside down.

He asks , among other things: what happened to the captain of the ship and who commanded the ship at crucial moments? Why, in the event of a maritime distress, did the ship move further north than normal in the depression? Why has the sinking been shown to have taken place so that the ship was still driving far ahead and turning left in a loop, returning to the same point it had passed moments earlier, and in the end a little over?

It is at the intersection of the routes , about 500 meters from the wreck of Estonia, that the research groups think the Swedish groups should look for any cargo that may be missing from the ship.

He suspects that the person who commanded Estonia was ordered to sink the ship on top of the cargo dumped at sea. The intention would have been to cover up a secret cargo that was possibly Soviet military products en route to Sweden and beyond.

What other cargo did Estonia have than trucks, cars, vans and two buses? Is all the cargo mentioned in the consignment note on board? If so, the theory can be forgotten.
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Turun Sanomat 17.10/2021

It is pretty obvious the real cause of the disaster is classified information. Think about why after having promised to recover the bodies, a decision was quickly made to cover the whole thing in concrete? Think hard!
 
Vixen said:
Has it not occurred to you that there is a reason Sweden has declassified the information about the transportation of military trucks on passenger ferries between Tallinn and Stockholm a month ahead of the release of the next report into the accident?

To recap, Harry Ruotsalainen (not 'Westermann' as cited earlier) claims the following, in recent news:

Turun Sanomat 17.10/2021

It is pretty obvious the real cause of the disaster is classified information. Think about why after having promised to recover the bodies, a decision was quickly made to cover the whole thing in concrete? Think hard!
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Why don't you just tell us? The opinion of an "expert" member is always welcome here. (If not always accepted).
 
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