this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024
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Iranian warship rolls over in port, could be out of action for six months (www.cnn.com)
submitted 4 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world
22 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

One of Iran’s newest warships capsized in port over the weekend while undergoing repairs, an incident that could damage key warfighting systems and put the ship out of commission for up to half a year, a naval analyst said.

The 311-foot-long frigate Sahand was at a dock in the port of Bandar Abbas when it “lost its balance” after water leaked into its tanks, according to a report from the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

A photo from the semi-official Tasnim News Agency showed the warship, with a displacement of about 2,000 tons, resting on its left side in the Bandar Abbas port.

The ship, which Tasnim said entered service in December 2018, is one of the bigger vessels in Iran’s fleet, equipped with antiship cruise missiles and an electronic warfare system.

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[–] norimee@lemmy.world 32 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Most of Irans military technology is unbelievable outdated, like they don't even have reliable transportation for their most important polititicians and fly them around in rusty helicopters from 1979 (that crashes and kills the head of state). And the newer ones are just... like this. Like when you buy a fake imitation of the product you want and its just flimsy and faulty (and just falls over).

Doesnt that make the thought of them having nuclear weapons extra scary? Not even that they could use them intentionally, but how big is the chance they are stored, transported and handled properly.

How big is the chance they blow up half the world just by accident?

[–] BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

How big is the chance they blow up half the world just by accident?

I think you need to read up on nuclear warhead yields, because if you are seriously saying a few of their barely working centrifuges can make yields that can create nuclear fusion explosions large enough to destroy a continent, you sound dumb.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

It's not dumb at all.

The early US warheads had a design such that a wrong electrical signal, as simple as a static electricity spark or short circuit from a corroded insulation piece somewhere, could trigger the detonation sequence and cause a full-strength detonation of the warhead. There are lots of ways it can happen, not all of them obvious in advance until it happens; fires, air accidents, lightning, or all kinds of accidental human mishandling while they're being assembled or moved around or maintained or God knows what else. And it only takes once.

I can't find it now, but I swear that there was an incident that involved the accidental release of an H-bomb during an aircraft accident over the American south where the damn thing managed to somehow do exactly what was described and send the wrong electrical signal while it was being jostled around or burned or whatever, and it was only the elaborate multiple safety systems the Americans had built into it (after some painful experience had taught them they had to be careful with the fucking things) that stopped it from detonating for real and blowing up half of Georgia or something. When they found the thing on the ground, it was fully ready to go, and it was only because the one little additional redundant "are you sure?" switch was still set to "no" that it didn't go off.

And you can build a bomb without adding the safety systems. No one stops you; there's no pop up that says you can't put these pieces together because it's not safe yet. And your boss might get really, really mad at you if your nuclear weapon isn't ready yet because you need to add something that might not be needed. I think it's a very real concern.

[–] Mechanize@feddit.it 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

There are multiple incidents that kind of fit, but I think you are talking about this one: Wiki article

Information declassified since 2013 has shown that one of the bombs was judged by nuclear weapons engineers at the time to have been only one safety switch away from detonation, and that it was "credible" to imagine conditions under which it could have detonated.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 4 points 4 months ago

That's the one

Parker F. Jones, a supervisor at Sandia, concluded in a reassessment of the accident in 1969 that "one simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe" He further suggested that it would be "credible" to imagine that in the process of such an accident, an electrical short could cause the Arm/Safe Switch to switch into the "Arm" mode, which, had it happened during the Goldsboro accident, could have resulted in a multi-megaton detonation.

Bill Stevens, a nuclear weapon safety engineer at Sandia, gave the following assessment in an internal documentary film produced by Sandia in 2010: "Some people can say, 'hey, the bomb worked exactly like designed.' Others can say, 'all but one switch operated, and that one switch prevented the nuclear detonation.'"[34]

Charlie Burks, another nuclear weapons systems engineer for Sandia, also added: "Unfortunately, there have been thirty-some incidents where the ready/safe switch was operated inadvertently. We're fortunate that the weapons involved at Goldsboro were not suffering from that same malady."[35]

The bomb was about 250 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. I don't know exactly how it works, but if it's simple multiplication, then you could say that everything for 480 miles in any direction would have been more or less destroyed.

[–] yeather@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago

More like accidentally launch one at India / Pakistan and watch that area of the world burn.

[–] YeetPics@mander.xyz -2 points 4 months ago

Yea, nuclear bombs are super small and weak. It's just propaganda that they deliver any destructive power at all.

The last nuke used in wartime was full of confetti and streamers. You sheep need to get it together.

[–] mean_bean279@lemmy.world -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Outdated technology militarily is proving to be something we in the west need to invest into again. The US and USSR didn’t win against Germany because we had superior technology. We won because we pumped out shitloads of Sherman’s and Jeeps. So many that the USSR was using them for a decade after the iron curtain went up. Now we’re seeing in Ukraine how important 155mm shells and dumb glide bombs from 60 years ago are still just as devastating. So, while Iran might not have our cool tech that makes things like Iron Dome possible, or laser weapon systems. The Shahed drone is so stupidly easy to produce and cheap. It’s insanely destructive by cost. We shouldn’t underestimate a people for being simple with their design when that works incredibly well and is incredibly cheap.