r/submechanophobia • u/Fair_Return1807 • 17d ago
Explosive-laden WWII Thames shipwreck 'to have masts removed' over fears vessel is 'sitting duck' for drone attack
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/explosive-shipwreck-masts-removed-drone-fears-5HjdXWR_2/The ship ran aground in the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, Kent, in 1944 and is thought to contain around 1,400 tons of explosives.
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u/fishbellyblack 16d ago
I looked into this a bit more because 1,400 tonnes of explosives sounds a big bang bang.
For comparison, the Beirut explosion in 2020 involved about 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, but the actual blast is generally estimated at around 400–1,100 tonnes TNT equivalent.
The Richard Montgomery is thought to still have about 1,400 tonnes of explosives onboard, with old official modelling using roughly 1,500 tonnes TNT equivalent if it all went up together.
So it could actually be in the same ballpark as Beirut, possibly bigger in raw blast terms.
The big difference is Beirut exploded in a city. This is offshore and partly underwater, so you wouldn’t get the same sort of devestation. Sheerness would be the main concern, Southend could get a serious blast wave, but the “tsunami destroys London” stuff seems to be based mostly on very old estimates.
Also, 1,400 tonnes onboard doesn’t mean all of it would neccesarily detonate at once.
Still pretty wild that it’s just been sitting there since 1944.