Germany says its warships were sabotaged

https://www.businessinsider.com/german-navy-says-warships-were-sabotaged-warns-of-russian-threat-2025-2

by Sontho • 1 year ago

122 115 1 year ago

rbanffy• 1 year ago

Hybrid warfare is nothing new and we’ve been seeing it clearly for the past decade, at the very least.

glenstein3• 1 year ago

The article suggests that this is an escalation relative to the last few years. I don't think the article is suggesting that no such thing as sabotage had ever happened previously.

I also think the significance here is in the context of Russian aggression in Europe beyond Ukraine.

rectang2• 1 year ago

Well, with the USA now distancing itself from NATO, and aligning itself with Russia more closely than at any historical moment after WWII — even sabre rattling about expansionist conquests of its own and abandoning preservation of the international order — Germany finds itself bereft of a powerful ally and with a greatly degraded deterrent against Russian aggression. It is the right moment for Russia to advance.

motorest6• 1 year ago

I also think the significance here is in the context of Russian aggression in Europe beyond Ukraine.

Yes, and it also frames the ramp up of Russian aggression triggered by the ongoing demolition of the US. It's the deep sea cable-cutting attacks in the Baltic, today's drone attack on Chernobyl's dome, etc. We're bound to see a ramp-up in these actions in the near future, and the only peaceful exit for this scenario is helping Ukraine win by supplying it with everything they need to win. Any other scenario will involve more wars and more war fronts.

fmajid• 1 year ago

Well, they blew up an ammunition dump in the Czech Republic 10 years ago, they are sabotaging electric and fiber cables, including to a highly sensitive Norwegian air base:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_...

https://www.thebarentsobserver.com/security/someone-cut-a-ke...

dylan604• 1 year ago

but to what point? to see if they could? but if you could, why give up your "0-day"? now they know there are saboteurs beyond just suspecting or worrying about it. what did they achieve? causing the Germans to spend some money or repairs? if this was a shooting war, then okay, this is as good as a bomb as the ship is not able to join the fight. but there's not a shooting war, so what did this actually achieve?

i just don't understand the point of revealing a weakness by exploiting it unnecessarily like this

blakehawkins• 1 year ago

You and I do not know about what foreign intelligence knows about the imminent usage of German warships

rich_sasha• 1 year ago

Germany probably needs to rearm aggressively, given what Russia is doing, but doesn't have the society buy in to spend money on armed forced (or rather, doesn't have the buy in to spend less on other things).

So publishing this kind of thing might mobilize the society and convince them the risks are real.

Paradigma112• 1 year ago

Because some guy on telegram answered their recruitment drive and this was the only use they had for him?

From my understanding Russias security services and adjacent Oligarchs are not monolithic and they love to do stuff like that. The intention is to bring it as a present to the Zar and curry favor while keeping the windows away.

ordu• 1 year ago

I don't understand either. But I have a hypothesis, that they do it to dilute the definition of the war. Like if 15 years ago they did something like that, it was probably seen as a declaration of a war. But not now, not it is just headlines in newspapers. The more they do it, the more they will be able to get away with. Like invading Poland, while saying "there is no invasion and it is someone else invading not us", and European politicians will eat any such shit just to avoid declaring a war. They do it right now, but they must be trained to eat bigger shit to swallow an invasion to EU or NATO country.

jandrewrogers• 1 year ago

Hybrid warfare, along with gray zone, has been escalating sharply in recent years. It is a major topic of discussion in international national security circles. There is a general sense that the absence of material consequences for engaging in this activity has encouraged it.

tw1231273• 1 year ago

Security circles are not known for honesty, see e.g. the Iraq "WMD".

yakshaving_jgt• 1 year ago

https://archive.is/F5dbW

jcgrillo7• 1 year ago

German police were investigating an incident at a Hamburg shipyard where several dozen kilograms of metal shavings were dumped into a corvette-class vessel's engine system.

Italics mine, and holy crap that's a lot of metal shavings.. like multiple 55gal trash cans' worth.

lostlogin2• 1 year ago

That sounds really unlikely. Is there some that is more dense?

jcgrillo7• 1 year ago

IME they're really not all that dense. When chips come off a lathe or mill cutter they are curled and have small serrations in them where the sharp edge cracked as it was curling. So they don't pack well. Each chip takes up a large amount of 3D space and they interlock really easily--they don't slide past each other.

D13Fd• 1 year ago

holy crap that’s a lot of metal shavings.. like multiple 55gal trash cans’ worth

I don’t think so. A 55gal Tran can full of metal shavings is probably several hundred lbs. 2 dozen kilograms is only about 53lbs.

hx88• 1 year ago

It really depends on how corse the shavings are, if you do any work to compress the metal shavings, and the density of the alloy. However I think you're right, because 53lb of steel is only about 0.1ft^3.

jcgrillo7• 1 year ago

I assure you it isn't. I've lifted them many times. I'd say 75-100lbs is normal, depending on the distribution of metals (obviously steel is heavier than aluminum for example).

froh3• 1 year ago

that's not correct

several dozen is not several hundred

1 dozen = 12

55 us liquid gallons = 208,198 litres

the densities of metals are higher than that of

water ca 1 kg/l aluminum ca 2.7 kg/l steels and iron 7.5-8.5 kg/l brass 8.5-9 kg/l gold almost 20kg/l

several dozen kg is half a 55gal worth, maybe one...

EDIT for shavings:

https://www.mollet.de/info/schuettdichte-und-schuettgewicht....

iron and steel chips / shavings still are about 2 kg/l

aluminum is 200g / l

so one 55gal trash bin of aluminum shards is still about 40 something kg, four dozen.

thus for aluminum and aluminum only I stand corrected, it may be multiple trash bins.

cenamus• 1 year ago

Shavings are way less dense than solid blocks of metal.

jcgrillo7• 1 year ago

A trash can of metal shavings is mostly filled with air.

Sontho• 1 year ago

Still it's a lot.

gmueckl2• 1 year ago

You're mentioning the densities for solid bulk materials. I'd expect shavings to be quite loose and trap a lot of air. Depending on the exact type and shape of the shavings, I can imagine a huge volume increase compared to the bulk material.

vm• 1 year ago

This analysis reminds me of this classic, albeit crude, joke from Silicon Valley…

https://youtu.be/Tx3wDTzqDTs?si=gybpX8Gha4nJ2Dve

jdietrich• 1 year ago

Also, the alleged incident happened at a shipyard - finding dumpsterloads of metal shavings there is like finding sand in the desert. It's plausibly an opportunistic attack by a spy who was already in the facility rather than a planned operation.

aitchnyu• 1 year ago

Tangential, Emden is the name of a warship that shelled Chennai (formerly Madras) in India, so Tamil and Malayalam languages today use the name for dominating and big.

Reubachi• 1 year ago

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

Stupid/tangential question, would a primarily hindi speaker from the north know the origin of this particular idiom? or is it more of a southern thing?

ttepasse• 1 year ago

Both the old and the current warship are named after a city in northwestern Germany. It's one of the smallest cities in Germany, though.

labster• 1 year ago

This is an act of war, right? Or are we just going to let Russia get away with it again?

shut_up_german2• 1 year ago

Just like Nord Stream. My country had no interest in pursuing investigations against our "allies".

Personally, I would not like to go to war for a Business Insider article. But no one asks what the German population wants.

BDPW• 1 year ago

In the upcoming election you can vote exactly what you want, is there anything I'm missing?

smackeyacky2• 1 year ago

Like the 20th Century two world wars, the US will be late for WW3 and it'll take a much bigger act than sabotaging one German ship. But if history plays out like it usually does (which it is) it's coming.

rectang2• 1 year ago

On which side would the US join the fight? Its movement towards Russia and away from NATO is accelerating dramatically, and it’s not clear where the trend will stop. Culturally, the US is increasingly at odds with scolds of liberal Europe and in tune with domineering Muscovite Russia.

pkaye• 1 year ago

This present timeline was predicted back in 2011. European politicians have been cutting their defense spending for some time and their military capabilities have been deteriorating.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/text-of-spe...

UncleOxidant3• 1 year ago

The current US administration seems to be on-board with letting Russia get away with everything.

dismalaf3• 1 year ago

The Europeans and Biden administration had nearly 3 years to do something, Ukraine was still losing territory when Biden left office...

All they do is talk, which is why the Ukrainians got fed up with them and for better or worse Zelenskyy is now talking up Trump...

zeroq• 1 year ago

It's the gray area we're living in.

Blowing up nordstream was an act of war but couldn't be pinned to anyone. When Russia invaded Ukraine they were prettending it was "green man" from outer space.

Meanwhile country A has an interest in country B, so country C instills a coup or train and fund islamic group.

The worst part is that this is only the tip of an iceberg, shards of reality that surface to mass media. The real damage is done by influencing masses.

oneshtein4• 1 year ago

Gasprom fined for $20 billion due to stopping gas flow. IMHO, it's a huge reason to blow the pipe. Pipe is much cheaper to build or repair. Moreover, one of Nord Stream 2 tubes is intact, so RF still can supply gas to EU if Germany will allow NS 2 to work.

MrDresden• 1 year ago

A failed sabotage attempt is not grounds for initiating arm conflict involving the the biggest military alliance on the planet against a beaten and cornered state on the brink of financial ruin, that just happens to have the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. That would lead to disaster for all.

May cooler heads prevail.

hx88• 1 year ago

Sabotaging engines of a military ship doesn't fit with my expectations of military security. You cannot even sabotage most civilian office printers without getting past a security badge and passing through multiple security cameras.

dralley• 1 year ago

This is Germany, they let themselves get a bit lax.

Also it sounds like it was pre-commissioning, so it hadn't been delivered to the Navy yet.

hx88• 1 year ago

So it's not the German military that had the security breach, just the German defense contractors. That's still disturbing, but much less so.

lnsru• 1 year ago

There is no military security in Germany. Military hires low wage guys over “security” companies to guard their barracks and military objects. That’s shocking reality. There are no soldiers with dogs and armed G36 around. Swarms of hostile drones fly over military objects and make pictures of every detail inside. Sad reality. Sometimes I feel that the whole country is sabotaged.

RicoElectrico• 1 year ago

So does or did Polish military with IMPEL guards

2-3-7-43-1807• 1 year ago

Sabotaged by our incompetent and ignorant politicians for sure.

hx88• 1 year ago

This is the most pessimistic account of the German military I've read, and admittedly I've read several propaganda and mainstream media pieces about the German military.

To people that share this low opinion of the German military, is it worse in Germany than the other major European armies (France, UK)?

Ekaros• 1 year ago

Sabotaging engines of any ship feels like failure in generic security. Bringing stuff in is a thing, but bringing stuff out should as much be a thing and a risk. Like regular theft of say copper or other materials.

shut_up_german2• 1 year ago

"Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote that if the shavings hadn't been detected during an inspection, they would have caused significant damage to the ship."

So there was no damage. How convenient indeed that there happened to be an inspection.

mupuff12342• 1 year ago

You do realize that inspection of such a vessel is done on a daily basis or higher frequency, right?

You don't just say yolo flip the switch and ignite the engines for a multi million dollar vessel, it's a multiple step process that contains lots of safety checks and precautions, which one of them would be visual inspection for debris.

boomboomsubban• 1 year ago

You do realize that inspection of such a vessel is done on a daily basis or higher frequency, right?

Do you think Russia realizes this? If it's obvious to you, it would be obvious to them.

duxup• 1 year ago

Do the Germans have any non verbal only steps that they can take regarding Russian?

trhway• 1 year ago

I wonder if Germany still keeps or even installs new Russian-made (hardware and software) navigation equipment - "Transas Marine" - on its Navy ships like they did 15 years ago (what a different times it were, as Russian opposition says - "vegetarian times" :)

mediumsmart• 1 year ago

Anything to trigger article 5 and turn the tide

ashoeafoot2• 1 year ago

"Is a hibryid atrack, nobody can know for sure, who did this, lets not stoop to hate crimes and point fingers on our favorite dealer." Chancellor Jonesing

renewiltord• 1 year ago

The problem with these guys is that we domesticated them too much. We had to blow up their pipeline just to get them to know who the threat against them was. You have to take the horse to the water, you have to make him drink, but can he still run? Who knows.

somat• 1 year ago

Some context into the importance of reduction gears from the battleship New Jersey channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw-d6ymgA_c (Westinghouse Leasing Reduction Gears to Navy Ships: Fact or Fiction?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGLoBbTeTAs (The Keys to the World's Fastest Battleship: Unlocking the Reduction Gears)

The comments are full of former U.S. Navy sailors remembering how they had to have an armed guard and strip down before entering while the reductions gears were opened and being inspected.

rixed• 1 year ago

"Do not attribute to malice what can be explained by journalist incompetence" ?

ashoeafoot2• 1 year ago

Good thing, that as Ukraine showed, against russia you dont need a navy. Baltic seababies for the win.

tommiegannert2• 1 year ago

Vice Adm. Jan Christian Kaack, the inspector of the German navy, said at a press conference on Tuesday that the damage involved "more than one unit."
The Emden is one of the five new K130 corvettes that Germany ordered for delivery in 2025 to fulfill its NATO requirements.

Ugh. Could that be five damaged units? Finds metal shavings in new engine. Touts it as sabotage without explaining further. Spends the rest of the article on fear mongering. If this was an internal investigation, that would have been great. Doing a press conference about it? Sounds more like "before we investigate where it came from, should we take the opportunity to do some propaganda?"

(With all the recent subsea cable issues, yeah, something is going on in these waters, but this is not a good press release.)

motorest6• 1 year ago

Finds metal shavings in new engine. Touts it as sabotage without explaining further.

You sound very disingenuous. If you one day find a dump of metal shavings in a freshly assembled and validated engine, and the only possible and conceivable way those could be found in there is if someone goes way out of their way to purposely dump them in there, how would you have describe that?

tommiegannert2• 1 year ago

Yeah, you're right. Sorry.

I forgot it was several kilograms of shavings. So not just a poorly assembled engine.

varsketiz3• 1 year ago

Wow, this comment section has quite some russian propaganda.

Germany says its warships were sabotaged

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