Chinese salvaging of WW2 ship wrecks

Chinese salvaging of WW2 ship wrecks

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Discussion

Speed1283

Original Poster:

1,175 posts

101 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
quotequote all
https://news.usni.org/2023/05/25/u-k-royal-navy-di...

Not sure if there is another thread for this. There appears to be no limits/rules for some.

You can imagine the extent of high grade steel though.

Speed1283

Original Poster:

1,175 posts

101 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
quotequote all
Just realised my typo in the title! Dog. Any idea how I change that? Can only seem to edit my post not the topic.

Cotty

40,112 posts

290 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
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China has never bothered what other people think.

catso

14,844 posts

273 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
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Probably planning to sell them to Russia to upgrade their fleet...

cptsideways

13,634 posts

258 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
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Some of the steel is very valuable if it's not been exposed to nuclear radiation post ww2

ChevronB19

6,176 posts

169 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
quotequote all
Speed1283 said:
https://news.usni.org/2023/05/25/u-k-royal-navy-di...

Not sure if there is another thread for this. There appears to be no limits/rules for some.

You can imagine the extent of high grade steel though.
And steel that hasn’t been exposed to nuclear weapons tests, low background steel…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel

ChemicalChaos

10,488 posts

166 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
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Any particular reason why no one has simply told China to fk off or they'll sink the salvage vessel?

hidetheelephants

27,402 posts

199 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
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They use slave labour, lock people up for their beliefs, sundry other horrors and cruelties; looting war graves barely raises an eyebrow.

dudleybloke

20,379 posts

192 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
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But the communist bandits cry when you call Taiwan a country.

Fundoreen

4,180 posts

89 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
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Is this ships that have just sunk after being abandoned ,or war graves? If its the former, big deal.
Seems an expensive activity.
Scouring the ocean floor mining is the future and genuine outrage. Maybe they are nice and dont want to do that vandalism of planet erf.

GT03ROB

13,537 posts

227 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
quotequote all
Fundoreen said:
Is this ships that have just sunk after being abandoned ,or war graves? If its the former, big deal.
Seems an expensive activity.
Scouring the ocean floor mining is the future and genuine outrage. Maybe they are nice and dont want to do that vandalism of planet erf.
That have been “salvaging” war graves.

Pflanzgarten

4,718 posts

31 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
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This was a story years and years ago though want it? Researchers were turning up at wrecks and they’d disappeared.

glazbagun

14,431 posts

203 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
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Pflanzgarten said:
This was a story years and years ago though want it? Researchers were turning up at wrecks and they’d disappeared.
yes I remember reading about Prince of Wales years ago. It's not just RN ships, either. One of Australias more famous Cruisers has been largely destroyed.

Edit: Old guardian article on it:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2...

MBBlat

1,803 posts

155 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
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Been going on for over a decade now to such an extent that there is almost nothing left of the shallower pacific wrecks. Scape Flow has also seen a fair bit of plundering of the WW1 German fleet wrecks, less outrage there as they aren’t war graves.

Fundoreen

4,180 posts

89 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
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Hang on, our governments would be all over this if it was war graves. Mind you its not a small island nation doing it so...
Shallow equals hazard to shipping. Maybe they are tidying up. The war was a long time ago.

Rob_125

1,575 posts

154 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
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Shallow is all relative. I'd imagine even 200m depth of water is more than enough for all shipping traffic, the biggest tankers and possible submerged vessels.

FourWheelDrift

89,442 posts

290 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
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Torpedo it and blame it on unexploded ammunition raised in the wreckage blowing up.

S600BSB

5,959 posts

112 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
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hidetheelephants said:
They use slave labour, lock people up for their beliefs, sundry other horrors and cruelties; looting war graves barely raises an eyebrow.
Quite. Probably use the steel to make MGs. Awful regime.

Stick Legs

5,678 posts

171 months

Saturday 27th May 2023
quotequote all
It’s the huge quantity of steel that hasn’t been exposed to radioactive isotopes that only exist on this planet post 1943.

This steel is used in scientific & medical equipment that needs to be free of these isotopes.

It is very valuable.

It is legitimately found in shipwrecks and land fill. Permits for this can be obtained from the relevant governments.

The Repulse & Prince of Wales were sunk by topedoes from Imperial Japanese aircraft. The first time capital ships had been sunk solely by aircraft alone.

840 men’s bodies reside in these wrecks and as such are war graves.

The war graves remain Crown Property as per International agreements.

They are in approximately 60m of water, which means they are no hazard to shipping and are well charted.

They are also closest to Malaysia and therefore well outside of any Chinese jurisdiction.

This ongoing ‘salvage’ work is very poorly thought of internationally & serves only to increase China’s pariah status.

It is the equivalent of heading over to France with a metal detector & a pen knife to extract some gold teeth from a WW1 battlefield.