Apparently, Ukrainian drones pushed through and started a chain reaction.

Explosions reportedly continued for hours, and authorities evacuated nearby settlements. Initial reports indicate that the site, previously protected by one of Russia’s densest air defense networks, suffered catastrophic damage.

  • Carmakazi@lemmy.world
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    2か月前

    I’m pretty sure competent militaries store their munitions in networks of dozens if not hundreds of earthen bunkers per site, specifically so shit like this can’t happen.

    264 kilotons is a fuckload of bombs.

      • The_v@lemmy.world
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        2か月前

        Russia has a long history of open storage at these sites. They also lost a ton of bunkers a few months ago at other sites. So they likely did not have much of an option, and they chose open store it at their “best defended” base.

        I personally would bet that site was overstocked as it was likely the primary ammo dump by default. All of the newly manufactured missiles and shells going there directly from the factories.

    • vxx@lemmy.world
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      2か月前

      It could hold that much, but according to Ukraine it was 105000 tons that exploded. Huge success though.

    • Corngood@lemmy.ml
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      2か月前

      Assuming I’m looking at the right thing on google maps, it does seem to be a lot of earthen bunkers with berms separating them. There are also quite a few free standing buildings scattered around.

      I looked at Hawthorne Army Depot (US) to compare, and that one is a lot less dense, but it’s absolutely gigantic.

    • AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world
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      2か月前

      They may not have enough manpower to guard a more distributed site, especially if they’re afraid of internal groups seizing some of it.

    • Raltoid@lemmy.world
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      2か月前

      Competent being the key word in that sentence, and not an accurate one based on the last few years of intel.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      2か月前

      I assume that bunkers protect you from a chain reaction, but that at some point the explosion is big enough that a chain reaction is exactly what you get.

      This definitely seems like it would have been big enough to cause a chain reaction (and/or big enough to show that a chain reaction happened). If so, I wonder what fraction of bunkers exploded. I’m glad we live in an age of civilian satellites, so it’s probably just a matter of time before we get to see the damage for ourselves.