Posted: Tue May 18, 2010 11:34 pm
That would have been very dumb on nK's part.
The water is shallow enough, that if the investigation team looks hard enough, they should find peices/parts of the torp's drive section. If they get lucky enough and fund something with numbers on it...game on.
Another news article claimed that they had found pieces of a <torp> propellor.
Mines tend to leave behind smaller peices/parts, and have less stuff with numbers on them.
I am still betting on a mine, using a sub is VERY risky (physically and politcally). Granted, it (the weapon) could have been deployed as a mine, but that is unlikely in shallow water, or at least a "new" tactic. And heavy weight torps deployed as mines are typically layed by air. Lightweights are normally used for submarine deployments.
Curiouser and Curioser. As will be the South Korean response. I think sanctions via the UN, and an unproclaimed tit for tat down the road.
The South Korean Government is fragged to make an official statement on the 20th according to the news.
This is thin, but could be information operations shaping prior to the thursday, "big annoucement":
"A team of scientists believes that the Navy corvette Cheonan sank after being hit by a heavy 206 kg torpedo that ran at a speed of 65 km/h.
Bae Myung-jin, a professor at the Sound Engineering Research Lab of Soongsil University, on Thursday said his team analyzed data about the seismic waves generated at the time of explosion of the Cheonan, which were provided by the Korea Meteorological Administration and the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources. "As a result, we presume that the torpedo ran at the Cheonan at the speed of 65.7 km/h and exploded underwater 2.3 m from the ship with power equivalent to 206 kg of TNT."
He said heavy torpedoes with a payload capacity of 200 kg are usually 7 to 8 m long. The explosive is stored not in the head but in the rear part 1 to 6 m away from the head. Thus even if the head hits the hull, the explosion normally occurs a few meters away from the ship.
"After the initial explosion, it was observed that a series of internal explosions occurred in the stern for about 80 seconds," he said. That suggests the Cheonan was not hit by a bubble jet, as previously assumed, but received a direct blow from a gunpowder explosion.
The team concluded that the ship was probably hit by a Chinese-made 206 kg-class Yu-3 heavy torpedo."
englishnews@chosun.com / Apr. 30, 2010 08:53 KST
The water is shallow enough, that if the investigation team looks hard enough, they should find peices/parts of the torp's drive section. If they get lucky enough and fund something with numbers on it...game on.
Another news article claimed that they had found pieces of a <torp> propellor.
Mines tend to leave behind smaller peices/parts, and have less stuff with numbers on them.
I am still betting on a mine, using a sub is VERY risky (physically and politcally). Granted, it (the weapon) could have been deployed as a mine, but that is unlikely in shallow water, or at least a "new" tactic. And heavy weight torps deployed as mines are typically layed by air. Lightweights are normally used for submarine deployments.
Curiouser and Curioser. As will be the South Korean response. I think sanctions via the UN, and an unproclaimed tit for tat down the road.
The South Korean Government is fragged to make an official statement on the 20th according to the news.
This is thin, but could be information operations shaping prior to the thursday, "big annoucement":
"A team of scientists believes that the Navy corvette Cheonan sank after being hit by a heavy 206 kg torpedo that ran at a speed of 65 km/h.
Bae Myung-jin, a professor at the Sound Engineering Research Lab of Soongsil University, on Thursday said his team analyzed data about the seismic waves generated at the time of explosion of the Cheonan, which were provided by the Korea Meteorological Administration and the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources. "As a result, we presume that the torpedo ran at the Cheonan at the speed of 65.7 km/h and exploded underwater 2.3 m from the ship with power equivalent to 206 kg of TNT."
He said heavy torpedoes with a payload capacity of 200 kg are usually 7 to 8 m long. The explosive is stored not in the head but in the rear part 1 to 6 m away from the head. Thus even if the head hits the hull, the explosion normally occurs a few meters away from the ship.
"After the initial explosion, it was observed that a series of internal explosions occurred in the stern for about 80 seconds," he said. That suggests the Cheonan was not hit by a bubble jet, as previously assumed, but received a direct blow from a gunpowder explosion.
The team concluded that the ship was probably hit by a Chinese-made 206 kg-class Yu-3 heavy torpedo."
englishnews@chosun.com / Apr. 30, 2010 08:53 KST