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Massive Ukraine Munitions Blasts May Have Been Caused By a Drone (bbc.com)
dryriver writes: The BBC reports that 20,000 people are being evacuated from the immediate area around a munition dump in Ukraine that has gone up in flames. The 350 hectare munition dump near Kharkiv is around 100km (60 miles) from fighting against Russian-backed separatists and was used to supply military units in the conflict zone in nearby Luhansk and Donetsk. A drone was reported to have been used in an earlier attempt to set the facility on fire in December 2015. Authorities are now investigating whether someone possibly flew a drone over the facility that dropped an explosive device that caused the stored munitions to catch fire and explode. Ukrainian authorities believe that the conflagration at the facility is the result of sabotage.
when 4chan pranks go too far
When your drone goes outside to take a smoke break, keep them away from ammo dumps.
A country at war with a despotic tiny man, having a 350 hectares ammo dump, probably deserves to have it's ammo dump asploded. Who would store that much in one concentrated place. I bet they even painted a red target on the ground to make sure they wouldn't miss it.
There has been a number of ammunition depot explosions over the last 15 years in across Eastern Europe. 2 in Serbia, 6 in Bulgaria since 2000, Gerdec in Albania, Cobasna in Moldova, Ukraine itself in 2015. Cold War explosives are becoming unstable and they tend to explode on their own, especially when there is insufficient money to maintain proper storage.
Was it a commercial multi-copter "drone" or a military UAV "drone"?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Kharkiv, Ukraine is the home of one of the largest tank manufacturing facilities in the world, for the Morozov Design Bureau, the designers of the T-34,T-54,T-64 tanks. There are quite a lot of deactivated ex-USSR tanks there:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
It's near the frontline with the Russian troops who are shelling Ukrainian towns and villages every day as well as making ground attacks on Ukrainian positions, close enough to quickly resupply Ukrainian troops.
While large, this was probably in place from long ago, a relic of the Russian puppet Yanukovych. Since Ukraine didn't have the time or resources to move the munitions to proper storage before the Russians attacked, they used what they have.
The Russians had previously tried to attack this place late in 2015. With all the drones coming in from Russia, assuming this is the case, it was only a matter of time before they got a shot at this immobile target.
Lies all lies. Just like the Chernobyl incident, we know this was REALLY caused by the humans trying to tinker with decepticon technology.
If you look at it on Google Earth, you'll see that it's fairly spread out. There are a large number of separate warehouses (around 100?), and each warehouse has large earthen banks around it, then a large amount of empty space. That's intended to contain fire & explosions, so if something goes wrong you might lose a single warehouse but they don't spread to other parts of the complex. That's clearly not working very well. But those earthen banks and empty spaces take up a large amount of space, probably over 90% of the site.
So it's fairly spread out, even though it was at a single site.
People tend to object if you build an ammo bunker next to their house, so it's always going to be awkward to get more sites. You also need to secure ammo bunkers very well, so having less sites lets you have better security for the same money, or spend less to get the same level of security. Making a base 4 times bigger only doubles the perimeter fencing needed, probably doesn't change the number of guarded gates you need, and the number of guards needed only goes up a little bit since the guards are mostly there to man the gate and to react to an intruder. So having a small number of large sites does make sense.
It's like a real-life version of an episode of Hogan's Heroes!
#DeleteChrome
Moldova and Poland could merge. They could call it Moland Springs. If you throw Russia in too, they could be Mulva.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
While sabotage is possible, so is carelessness from a soldiers assigned to the depot. When I was in the Army I was a member of a team who did pre ARTEP OPFOR. Supply units were horrible, the worst of the back lines units. It's boring work for the soldiers, leading to massive complacency and struggles with morale. Medical units were much more alert, much busier, and tended to have much higher morale.
Considering many of these depots are not as well constructed or older, it only takes a small accident to have a big result.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
He even burnt my toast this morning.
In the age of Google maps, your ignorance of geography is unforgivable.
You are just making shit up. Russian troops are not shelling Ukrainian towns and villages every day, Quite the opposite, it the Ukies shelling the Donbas.
You are making shit up. If Russia wanted to take any Ukranian land, it would have been taken. What is it with Slashdot today - people just saying random shit without any grounding in reality.
Meep meep - >>BOOM!
"He even burnt my toast this morning."
I always thought having an internet connected toaster was a stupid idea
I would think even the Russians (who generally have decent engineering) would have rigged an EXPLOSIVES DUMP so it would not just ... explode. The US facilities I've seen (from a distance) have numerous design features to prevent that very thing since military explosives do have the tendency to .... explode.
Concrete separators, buried shelters, operational management to keep things separated. Pretty low tech stuff.
Aside from being an earth shattering kaboom it's a giant WTF.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
You mean, except for the whole thing with Crimea, "independent contractors" fielding equipment straight out of russian military depots, and even those little green men fielding weapons only produced for russian special operations units. Or the whole dismantling and transferring to Russia certain production facilities for ceramics needed for the production of new engines for fighters etc.
I mean what could possibly go wrong, right?...
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... time... to... die...
Realize the Russians are not trying to win this war. They want to pressure the Ukraine government to stay away from the EU/NATO, but don't want to be seen crushing them with their army as that would provoke an EU trade blockade. As soon as the Ukraine gov gives up the war will disappear.
Where do you propose they store it? In shoeboxes in the various soldiers' homes? That would be as distributed as possible, right?
Ammunition depots are a fact of logistics. Ammunition has to be guarded, so you lump it together in as many places as you can afford to guard, and no more.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If Russia wanted to take any Ukranian land, it would have been taken.
Even Russia cares about international opinion. Not necessarily about what it looks like today, but what it will look like next week. They need to maintain plausible deniability, so they are not simply rolling over them.
In a world which contained no countries but Russia and Ukraine, there would be only Russia.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I think Crimea proves the point. If they really wanted something it would have been done and dusted already.
Raises hand. I'll take all the 7.62x54 they have to spare. And a couple of Dragonoves.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Ukrainian authorities believe that the conflagration at the facility is the result of sabotage.
Smells just like the yellow journalism writing about the USS Maine in Havana's harbor.
I would expect any significant ammo storage facility to consist of a series of bermed bunkers with enough concrete or earthworks to contain or redirect blast forces up, far enough away from the next bunker that any fire wouldn't easily spread to the next one.
At a minimum this could be hand-dug trenches lined with sandbags and sheet metal roofs and at maximum concrete bunkers.
To be honest, I doubt we will ever find truth about what happened there. On one hand, this ammo depot is located in the region that borders Russia and Ukraine's pro-Russian separatist region of Donbass, and therefore, we can assume that there is a good chance that the fire was set off as an act of sabotage by Russians or by Ukraine's rebels.
On the other hand, considering the extremely poor, inept, and corrupt governance that all of Ukraine (including its military) have experienced in the last 25 years, I wouldn't discount the possibility that ammunition depot fire was set off by an accident.
Either way, this incident has produced pictures that rival the December of 2016 pyro-accident in Mexico.
Have a look:
http://bmpd.livejournal.com/25...
There has been a number of ammunition depot explosions over the last 15 years in across Eastern Europe. 2 in Serbia, 6 in Bulgaria since 2000, Gerdec in Albania, Cobasna in Moldova, Ukraine itself in 2015. Cold War explosives are becoming unstable and they tend to explode on their own, especially when there is insufficient money to maintain proper storage.
My father told me a story from the cold war, specifically the Nicaraguan civil war in the 70's. He was an officer in Somoza's army at the time. They found a cache of explosives and improvised bombs left behind by the rebels, and he and others were in charge of destroying them (a controlled explosion.) Alas, some pro-government reporters were demanding (yep, demanding) the troops to "re-arrange" the explosives to take better pictures.
My dad, as he told me, had a bad feeling about it (given how badly improvised explosives and old ammo could be) and left the site to report the anomaly. Just after walking a hundred yards or so, BOOM!. People without limbs, eyes popped like water balloons by the shock wave, flesh splatted everywhere.
Ammo and things that go kaput, you gotta respect that volatile shit.
Like you said, nothing could go wrong. Just take a look at how well the ammo was stored:
http://bmpd.livejournal.com/25...
Putin doesn't care in the slightest about public opinion. Being feared and hated by the world is as good as being respected in his book.
Fear is a kind of respect. Not the best kind, but still better than no respect in the realm of international politics. But that fear comes from respect. If Putin comes off as an incompetent schmuck then people will stop fearing him so much. But ruthless and competent is something to fear.
Trump, on the other hand, has the biggest gun in the room in his hands, so even his incompetence is scary.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's not the first time Ukraine has fire with massive explosions in their ammo storage facilities . I remember a few since the fall of the USSR.
Realize the Russians are not trying to win this war. They want to pressure the Ukraine government to stay away from the EU/NATO (...) As soon as the Ukraine gov gives up the war will disappear.
That is to win the war, just not by military means. You make it sound like Kiev could stop, then Russia could stop, then things would be fine. Ukraine is the second poorest country in Europe, only beaten by tiny Moldova. They need good trade relations either with EU to the west or Russia to the east. Traditionally it's been east. They were in talks with the EU to open up to the west. The president was trying to halt those talks and instead make a new deal with Putin, which lead to the revolution and a pro-western government.
The only way they could "stay away from the EU/NATO" would be to basically give up on everything they've stood for and that people have died for and come begging on their knees to Putin for a new trade deal. Quite likely they'd have to formally surrender Crimea and rebel controlled territory in the east to Russia too. That's close to unimaginable and it'd probably start a new war of secession in western Ukraine. So the talks with the EU/NATO must continue while the conflict areas will be used to interrupt and delay the process.
At this point it's only a question of how long they can be kept in limbo. But the EU has shown before with Cyprus that they can accept nations with territory they consider illegally occupied, without taking any action. Whether they'd have the balls to do it with Ukraine is a different story, but it's not an absolute blocker. Already things are opening up with the association agreement, it looks like visa-free tourism is going to happen... they're heading down that track whether Putin wants them to or not.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
not that kind of ammo, sorry. mostly tank and howitzer shells, also some tactical ballistic missiles and SAMs. nice fireworks, but nothing you'd want to keep at home.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Speak for yourself.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Ammo ages. When it happens the propellant leaks nitric acid which reacts with the propellant and the casing, heating it up, which accelerates the aging and leads to a positive feedback loop that ultimately causes spontaneous combustion, which was the most probable cause for that explosion in the Ukraine. Think again.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Europe, Russia and China should gather in one Eurasia.
The imperialist neo-cons (Soros) lose, the rest of the world wins.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.