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Comment by Denvercoder9 | Hacker News Reader

You'd need a nuclear-level explosion to blow this ship up into small, practically movable pieces that aren't connected anymore. Everything on that ship is steel. Conventional explosions would just blow a few holes in it, and deform everything enough that moving things becomes impossible.

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> You'd need a nuclear-level explosion

Yup.

...I mean, come on. After the last five years, it wouldn't even be the craziest thing to happen.

I admit, fallout could be a problem though, especially with all the other ships in close proximity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Crossroads

A nuclear explosion probably would damage the canal itself. But its said that USS LSM-60's pieces were never found again...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_LSM-60

Just 170 yards away was USS Arkansas, a battleship. The hull mostly survived (though was deformed and melted).

Build a huge cover all around the ship, plant the nuke under the keel, boom we have a splash and the ship evaporates , canal is deeper and wider there

Bunch of these ?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_of_All_Bombs

Won't work. Thermobaric weapons are very good at killing people, and breaking equipment, but aren't particularly good at evacuating material.

I was going by the amount of tnt/bomb payload. It’s about 44 tonnes of tnt.

Yup, I get it. The energy released by a thermobaric weapon is spread out over a very, very large distance. Inside the blast, people will be killed and equipment will be rendered interoperable by the extreme temperature and the over pressure. Outside the blast you have a very strong (but subsonic) blast wave. But inside the blast, the pressure will envelope stuff, and push on it from both sides. With regards to blasting away a very large ship, thermobaric weapons are not particularly effective.

I understand that it’s not the ideal bomb, but it’s the strongest non nuclear option. Enough of these bombs could disappear the ship and the debris

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