North Korea launch new war ship - but it sank

[gortex]

Something went dramatically wrong at the launch as the sparkly new warship tipped onto its side during what is believed to have been a side launch , the Dear Leader (the Korean one) is said not to be best pleased.

Sadly given DPRK no footage of the embarrassing mishap but story below.
 

I really wouldn't want to have been involved in that project.

[F2d5thCav]

Bet there is some howling laughter at the officers' clubs of the ROK navy today.

[Bally002]

Bet there is some howling laughter at the officers' clubs of the ROK navy today.

It was smashing the glass bottle of sparkling fruity rice wine on the port side that did it i reckons.

Bally)

[FCD]

Launching like that they should have filled the ship with tens of thousands of gallons of water ballast.  If they didn't do that, the buoyancy of the lower parts of the ship would be greater than the upper parts of the ship, and until it settled into the water it would be top heavy as hell.

Dunno if this was the issue, but often when ships are launched this way there is inadequate ballast down low.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Satellite imagery from Airbus Defence and Space captured today by Open Source Centre London (@osc_london) shows the latest failed launch of Choe Hyon-class guided-missile destroyer of the Korean People's Navy partially sunk at the Chongjin Shipyard in North Korea.



An earlier image, also taken by @AirbusSpace, shows the vessel prior to being moved onto the slipway at Chongjin.



Mass executions commence at dawn!

[Bally002]

I believe the Dear Leader daughter was present for the launch and heard nonchalantly saying,


"Wha Kung doo dat!"

Bally)

[OmegaLogos]

Explanation: Simon and Garfunkel said it best ... that ship is slip sliding away!!!



Personal Disclosure: I wonder who or what the Norks will blame it on eh. I wouldn't be surprised if they claimed that SK and the USA both conspired to make that happen somehow ... using black satellites in space etc! LOL

[FCD]

Thanks for the better pictures, ETMN!  I was having a hard time making out the outline of the ship in previous pictures I'd seen.  I see now why.  They've dragged all sorts of blue tarps over the top of the floating portion to disguise its outline from satellites. 

One interesting thing I noticed is in the top picture(s).  You can see the barge crane has a tremendous lateral load on it (like WOW!).  At first I thought this was just distortion due to the satellite not being directly overhead, but if that was the case you'd see the same distortion on the gantry cranes both fore and aft of the ship.  You don't see similar angular distortion with those objects.  So, they must have that crane loaded to 150% of it's maximum capacity.  You don't load a crane like that...ever.

I mean, I get it that they're probably panicking (big time), but still; if you dump your heavy lift crane you've got just that much more to salvage.  Surely they didn't think they'd be able to lift the bow of that destroyer off the pier...did they?

They're really in a helluva predicament with this ship with where it's sitting.  There's no way they're going to use tugs to drag it off the pier, and even if they did it'll probably sink.  It's way too big to pick up.  They might be able to jack up the bow and then roll it off...maybe.  But other than that, about the only other option is to blast the pier away until they can get the whole thing in the water and then try to move it. 

I love logistics problems like this.  I usually get dragged into them at work when stuff goes really sideways.

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I read an interesting article which pointed out something I hadn't noticed in the top photograph.  It questioned why the blue tarps were covering large portions of the slipway where the ship was sitting.  The initial speculation is that pieces of the ship's hull are covered by these tarps.  If true, then there is far more damage to the ship than originally thought.  The current thinking is that the bogies under the forward portion of the ship did not move, or did not move enough.  This would have put the ship in a twisting bind, possibly ripping the bottom of the forward portion of the hull apart.

I can hear the antiaircraft guns exploding worker's heads from here.  Poor bastages!

Updated Article

[FCD]

-----------------------------------------------------Update---------------------------------------

I'm really hoping some agency/news outlet posts up some satellite pictures with the tarps removed so the actual damage can be seen.  Not holding out much hope of this though because the Norks will probably do this at night, and then cover things back up by the next satellite pass (to prevent exactly this).

My guess is that the next steps will be to figure out how to get the ship off the pier (without sinking it).  Then they'll likely right the ship by ballasting the keel and using air bladders inside to displace the water in the hull up high.  Once they get it upright they'll probably move a mobile drydock into place and load the ship onto that.  But I don't know if the Norks have a floating drydock that large.  Those vessels are some pretty advanced technology which might be outside the reach of NK.  This brings up another interesting question; I wonder what assistance, if any, China may be asked to provide?  Wonder if they'll even consider doing it at all?

[xuenchen]

So how many executions will take place for this OUTRAGE!!!!!  

[FCD]

So how many executions will take place for this OUTRAGE!!!!!  

I'm guessing a couple hundred or so.

I mean, if you just blow up 2-3 guys, the message doesn't really get out there.  Do that, and everyone will set someone up every time to be a scape goat.  No, you've got to wipe out a few dozen and their extended families (mothers, fathers, children, babies, grandparents, aunts and uncles) to really get the message to hit home.  You need to have everyone in a worker's social orbit to be reinforcing the same message..."Now, whatever you do, don't fk up even a little bit at work today because if you do you'll get us ALL blown up by anti-aircraft guns and fed to starving dogs!  This Kim MF'er don't mess around!  You feelin' me, bro??"

Seriously though, I read one report which said that it's quite possible fatboy could wipe out large percentages of his entire naval scientific and engineering community, so many in fact that it damages the country's naval capabilities for an entire generation.  Homey don' play dat sheet!  Make him look bad and people are gonna' pay; lots of people.