Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#436

Post by phylo_roadking » 25 Feb 2009, 21:08

And finally, one last point of Robert's latest idea - take a CLOSE look at this pic of his target area...

Image

Notice anything???

Well...the ground RISES from the "wing wall"!!!

In other words, his proposed target area is NOT a "weak point" in the Dam! :lol: If anything, it's far stronger than Robert thought!!!

Image

I think he must have misread what way the countours behind the curtain wall run - when in reality they go UP! 8O

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#437

Post by phylo_roadking » 25 Feb 2009, 21:48

FOUR warheads...remember? - No, I'm staying with 6 carried by my 3 ATL Mavis. The Chitose's layout can be seen at http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/primary_ ... 20A-11.pdf and indicates that there would have been little trouble with the offset installation of a larger crane capable of handling those 3 Mavis. Neither were the 4 columns at all related to the Chitose's evevator as you previously claimed. They were in fact the base structure for the 6 smaller cranes historically installed to handle the much lighter single engined floatplanes that Chitose was originally fitted with.


The diagram DOES show that there's a ELEVATOR sitting RIGHT where your crane would have to be sited, and that fitting a 40-metre crane would require this removed, and the ship's frame reinforced to support the crane.

P.S. you don't fit a 40-metre crane OFFSET..... :lol: :lol: :lol: The Chitose' captain would NOT thank you for giving him THAT problem 8O 8O 8O

And can you imagine the mess if the Chitose THEN swung a Mavis out over THAT side??? :lol: It would end up on its side at the bottom of a lagoon WITHOUT the intervention of the United States' Navy! 8O
At THIS point you need to go away and do a LOT more research on the effects of explsoions by bottom-resting mines compared to torpedoes/bombs/mines/limpet mines in contact with the hull of a ship. - I was under the impression that the entire point of magnetic exploders WAS to detonate large explosive charges DIRECTLY under a ship's keel so as to "break her back" ?
And *I* thought you MIGHT have picked up on the fact that the Japanese did NOT produce or use magnetic mines during WWII DESPITE being "gifted" them by the British at Hong Kong??? :lol: :lol: :lol: One type was STILL in testing at the END of the war...
...and at this point I should say that the ONE thing that will NOT be happening is flying boats landing with ANY sort of bottom tether mechanism for the mines, that will make them far too heavy to mount externally on the H6K's hardpoints AND to "swim" into position... - I have found no year of service introduction but http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/primary_ ... 200-04.pdf provides several in the under 1800kg category that a Mavis could carry a pair of, as per page #23 of 42 there.
Robert, do you EVER chase things down BEFORE you post to ensure that what you're saying is accurate??? Type 93 Mod 1 and Type 3 Mk Mod 1?
Type 93 Model 1
Weight of 1,543 lbs. (700 kg) with a Type 88 charge of 220 lbs. (100 kg). Used 4 Hertz Horns.
Aircraft Type 3 Mark 1 Model 1
Weight 1,411 lbs. (640 kg) with a Type 97 charge of 176 lbs. (80 kg). Used 4 Hertz Horns. Deployed using a parachute
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WAMJAP_Mines.htm

Notice anything?
452 lbs. (205 kg)
....the amount of explosive in a Type 91 torpedo! So IF you REALLY want...you can indeed waste the IJN's ONE attempt to do anything in the Canal Zone with explosive charges of a half and a third the explosive charge of a Type 91 torpedo! :lol: You might indeed rattle the coffee cups in the Yorktown's mess...

NOW - given that ANY mine the Japanese laid would be a contact mine - the only aircraft-delivered acoustic mine was STILL in development at the END of the war - how EXACTLY are you going to STOP any other ship through the canal from blowing up BEFORE a battleship or aircraft carrier gets there??? :P
3/ You said that a Type 91 torpedo would be enough to blow a hole in a gate on the Gatun Spillway, and cited damage to a COMPLETELY different type of spillway gate with far different points-of-failure...THEN you said that they were as vulnerable as a dam attacked by the USN on Korea, and assumed a number of gate hits there....that disagreed with the squadron historian' own accounts AND I later provided as source that verified that the EXTRA damage you said was due to the attack was actually due to substandard materials and construction during the dam's building; - So you found a source that I had not seen. Neither of us has yet proven whether an IJN aircraft launched torpdeo could indeed destroy a Gatun Dam spillway gate


...certainly YOU haven't - you even said the gates were "unbraced" and I produced a pic showing they were indeed braced...
or not but the Korean War example that I posted at least suggests that such could have been accomplished. A proof of concept if not an actual proof.
Suggests - but the U'S Govt. report on deliberate damage to dams I cited suggests otherwise...
4/ You said the attack could be mounted by three aircraft of a particular type carried by a particular ship...I confirmed that it COULD only have carried two - AND the IJN would NOT have countenanced the adaptation of that vessels for this mission profile as it had JUST paid for a major modification to the ship's structure and capabilities for another entirely different specialist role; - I have rejected this just above. Most any ATL needs some changes to the historical timeline in order for it to have occurred. My scenario postulates that instead of Chitose's historical conversion being done, mine might have been done instead.
Highly unlikely for a scheme with so many holes. Remember, the IJN instead went for a scheme that showed FAR more promise but in reality was just as useless.
Considering the poor efectiveness of the Nov.27'41 "war warning" seen at both Pearl Harbor and the Philipines, I would suggest that Panama's peacetime defenders would have been in no better state of readiness against a surprise Japanese attack than their contemporaries were. The failed test of March 1942 giving support to that conclusion
March 1942 was a test of aerial interdiction and interception - not the overall alert status and readiness of the Canal Zone. Remember your idea is predicated on unidentifed civilian aircraft being able to penetrate to the Dam, and flying in an around Panamanian and CZ airspace for some time beforehand....exactly the sort of thing guys on the ground with binoculars would have been watching for after a war alert.
the latest "crying wolf" being received just a few days before on November 29th
Show me some proof that the November war alert was historically regarded as "crying wolf" in the Canal Zone; we've already seen proof of a heightened alert status, with air patrols increased and as many aircraft as possible on readiness, on receipt of that warning in the Department. And proof please that that status was in ANY way relaxed again prior to December 7th.
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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#438

Post by David Thompson » 25 Feb 2009, 22:10

Robdab -- You wrote:
David Thompson wrote:
If you don't want to back up your claims, don't post them.
David, surely you jest ?

phylo ignores nine requests from Sid for sources and then I get gonged for merely mentioning that I photocopied some archive files that I have not even refered to in discussions here ?
No, I'm not joking. Don't refer to research you've done in support of a factual claim, if you're not prepared to front it for our readers when they ask. We don't care much for games of peek-a-boo here.

I've received several PMs complaining about poster conduct in this thread, which is 31 pages long. It will take me a while to go through it and isolate the points of controversy. In the meantime, let's get back on topic with the sourced information our readers come here to see.

phylo -- You wrote:
David, I presume that means that by the rules of the Forum, as Robert has refused to give ANY indication of him having the material he claims to possess regarding the "Panama Defense Plan (1941)" to hand, or even having actually been IN NARA - given that there are MANY indicators of his never having been there - we are now free to disregard his claims of having any of that material as being unsubstatiated personal opinion posting? Ditto any claims by him in this thread of something "not happening" or "not existing" because HE didn't find any proof of it in his "researches" there?
If you have failed to give your source or sources on request of another poster, it's time to cough it up. I am still thinking over what the best approach is to this "no-source claim" problem -- whether it's deletion of the offending poster's missives which refer to the claim until it is sourced, or deletions of all posts from the offending poster until the claim is sourced. I'm inclined toward the latter solution.

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#439

Post by David Thompson » 25 Feb 2009, 23:12

An off-topic opinion post from JonS was deleted pursuant to numerous prior warnings - DT.

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#440

Post by David Thompson » 26 Feb 2009, 00:03

Another off-topic opinion post from JonS was deleted pursuant to numerous prior warnings - DT.

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#441

Post by robdab » 27 Feb 2009, 12:49

phylo,

Well...the ground RISES from the "wing wall"!!! - In other words, his proposed target area is NOT a "weak point" in the Dam! :lol: If anything, it's far stronger than Robert thought!!! - If you were to look at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/9827032 it is obvious that the dam's x-section immediately to the west of the spillway gates (behind the wingwall), is a much thinner "weak spot" than is the remainder of the Gatun Dam's bulk thickness to either side of the centred concrete spillway.

I think he must have misread what way the countours behind the curtain wall run - when in reality they go UP! - Yes indeed the ground level does rise behind that wingwall as the contour drawing shows. I never claimed otherwise.

That is how the canal's designers built it so that is what I have to try to deal with. The upper right (west) side of the spillway photo at https://www.allposters.co.uk/-sp/Soldie ... 92336_.htm gives a better appreciation of the "weak spot" area that I suggest could have been used to bring down the Gatun Dam.

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#442

Post by robdab » 27 Feb 2009, 12:51

phylo,

Well,first of all I can see a nice ROAD for trucking all that filler up to the bomb holes ... - 'Tis not the road that will be the challenge but rather getting heavy cinstruction equipment to the site quickly and then driving heavily laden dumptrucks uphill, over grass well sodden by the not yet ended Panama rainy season. Please see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIeNM8cm6J8 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEdM6Ys6spA&NR=1 for short accounts of a failed attempts do just such a repair at other dams in the midst of washing out

But far more interestingly - *I* can see a barge repairing a spillway gate...you know, doing EXACTLY what Robert said would be IMPOSSIBLE earlier in this thread, holding station or moored against the Gates while work is done on them.... - While a spillway gate is CLOSED even a canoe could be parked in front of one with no risk at all. The context of earlier barge comments here was a proposed attempt to sink and stack multiple barges underwater, in front of a destroyed/missing gate with a water flow rate of 10,000 cu.ft./sec thundering through the opening. In an attempt to block that rush, not to undertake repairs by working from a still floating barge. Your comment is dishonest.

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#443

Post by robdab » 27 Feb 2009, 13:21

glenn239, you ventured,

Rob - the idea of torpedoing a gate and then bombing the back side is a non-starter. - 'Tis a lucky thing for me then that i have never suggested doing so, isn't it ?

My latest suggestion was to instead drop 3 torpedoes and 3 of the No.80 Japanese land bombs on and just behind the west wingwall immediately beside the Gatun Dam's centre spillway structure.

I believe that a drop sequence of bomb, torpedo, bomb, torpedo, final bomb and then final torpedo would be the best way to allow water to flow through that earthen dam to it's final destruction. Each 1,760lb bomb carried 842lbs of explosive and could penetrate 400mm of concrete so I'd expect much deeper soft soil penetration, depending on fusing.

Such soft soil detonations close behind the unreinforced concrete wingwall would move much of that wingwall's supporting soil and could produce cracking on their own. Alternating torpedo detonations from the other side of the wingwall would flex that wall and greatly increase the chances of concrete failure and the resulting water flow thru the Gatun Dam.

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#444

Post by David Thompson » 27 Feb 2009, 15:59

Let's put the discussion of the existence or non-existence of an air base on the Galapagos islands in Nov 1941 on hold for a while. It's not really critical to the premise of this thread, and I'd like to give the subject a thread of its own. It will take me a while to isolate and merge the posts into the new thread, so please be patient.

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#445

Post by RichTO90 » 27 Feb 2009, 17:20

David Thompson wrote:Let's put the discussion of the existence or non-existence of an air base on the Galapagos islands in Nov 1941 on hold for a while. It's not really critical to the premise of this thread,
Sorry David, but no, the existance or non-existance of a commercial or military airfield in the Galapagos is irrelevent. But it is very relevent that the Japanese could only assume such an existance, since that is what their agent in Panama told them. The notion that they would then attempt to use the Galapagos as their own base for this already hair-brained scheme is ludicrous.

Nevermind the other rather more pertinent issues raised that have now been nicely glossed over.

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#446

Post by phylo_roadking » 27 Feb 2009, 19:54

If you are insisting on using Burden as one of the two sources to justify your proposition that "You won't find a mention of a NAMED Panagra passenger field on the Galapagos, for instance...but there WAS an air mail strip - for the "service" referred to in two sources.....", where is it?
Sid, I am using Burden as a source for Panagra having started a service inside Ecuador in December 1940 - as I clearly said. I did NOT say I was using him for proof of a Panagra airmail strip. If you read David's material carefully, you'll find mention that airmail contracts were to be signed SEPARATELY and a few days AFTER the Panagra passenger service go-live in December 1940. Unfortunately David's othrwise excellent material doen't have anything ELSE to say on airmail services. But THAT does not in any way take away from Burden's or Conn&fairchild's report of Panagra's alternative initial bid...

I believe I DID tell readers yesterday of my as-yet unsubstantiated material on an airmail service into the Islands....and that it will most CERTAINLY be appended to this thread when it arrives. Do you not bother reading what's written?
If you were to look at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/9827032 it is obvious that the dam's x-section immediately to the west of the spillway gates (behind the wingwall), is a much thinner "weak spot" than is the remainder of the Gatun Dam's bulk thickness to either side of the centred concrete spillway
Robert - it is NOT a "weak spot" as you choose inaccurately to describe it - there is STILL some 300-400 YARDS of dam behind this impact point for your "three" (only) "large" HE bombs to remove!!! Absolutely impossible with that small amount of explosive.

David -
To a jittery U. S., Sedta is as sinister as her late sister Scadta. Recently she has sought (unsuccessfully) to extend service to 1) Colombia, 2) the Galápagos Islands,† which, though sparsely inhabited and commercially impotent, are located strategically near the Panama Canal, 3) the jungles of eastern Ecuador, from which she could easily connect with Lufthansa-owned Condor's penetration line in western Brazil. Her Junkers JU52s (used as troop transports in Belgium, The Netherlands) could fly from Ecuador to the Canal Zone in four hours or less.
...does indeed confirm that an equally-jittery and pressurized Ecuadorian government refused SEDTA permission to extend ANY of its services, and your material in fact records a quite remarkable "dirty tricks" campaign to close SEDTA right down, including closing off ALL its sources of aviation fuel both from abroad and in Ecuador, in order to put them in default of contract and thus allow the Ecadorian government to close them down and buy up their assets.

However - it does NOT give any detail on what Burden and Conn&Fairchild both indicate was an alternative Panagra bid on this airmail route...in fact, as discussed, the material has VERY lttle at all on airmail serives anywhere in Ecadorian territory by any carrier! We have ONLY the Time magazine ever reporting anything to do with the bid or any airmail service ever again. So we encounter the same issue as I mentioned above, a present lack of ANY real detail on airmail services in the area...which by default MUST have existed, for Panagra was certainly carrying airmail OUT of Ecuador internationally, and there were airmail contracts (plural) still to be signed after the pasenger go-live in December.
But far more interestingly - *I* can see a barge repairing a spillway gate...you know, doing EXACTLY what Robert said would be IMPOSSIBLE earlier in this thread, holding station or moored against the Gates while work is done on them.... - While a spillway gate is CLOSED even a canoe could be parked in front of one with no risk at all. The context of earlier barge comments here was a proposed attempt to sink and stack multiple barges underwater, in front of a destroyed/missing gate with a water flow rate of 10,000 cu.ft./sec thundering through the opening. In an attempt to block that rush, not to undertake repairs by working from a still floating barge. Your comment is dishonest.
No, Robert - as with a lot of your material, you assumptions are wrong AND it's YOUR recollections that are at fault. The stacking of barges was only ONE option discussed; another ALSO discussed - and poo-poo'd by you - was that they could be used as mobile repair barges to actually WORK on a damaged gate; here we see EXACTLY that happening. And AGAIN you're making the unsafe assumption that the gates will be closed during the rainy season; there was STILL an average of four weeks of it to go, before water retention was an issue again, rather than maximum level maintenance by sluicing...

Each 1,760lb bomb carried 842lbs of explosive and could penetrate 400mm of concrete so I'd expect much deeper soft soil penetration, depending on fusing

If dropped VERTICALLY on a concrete target...the H6K's will not be able to hit a VERTICAL wall mostly underwater with the accuracy needed to do so three (tw0) times on the SAME spot.
Such soft soil detonations
Robert, I think now YOU are the one being dishonest if you're describing the material of the Gatun Dam as "soft" soil"...
close behind the unreinforced concrete wingwall
Strangely enough, you haven't noticed that the map/diagram of the Dam you produced in this thread indicates some form of below-surface buttressing for the curtain wall...
Alternating torpedo detonations from the other side of the wingwall would flex that wall


A civil engineer wouldn't forget that rammed-earth construction dams do NOT radiate shock waves, so NO force will be transmitted to the curtain wall from the bombs dropping behind them.
and greatly increase the chances of concrete failure and the resulting water flow thru the Gatun Dam.
"Concrete failure" isn't the issue on a four-foot thich wall; the issue you're disingenuously continuing to gloss over is the fact that a rammed-earth dam a third the thickness of Gatun Dam was determined by scale a full-size experimentation as well as calculation to need FIFTEEN TONS of high explosive in ONE location to physically remove enough earth to "result in water flow". Your revised plan ventures just over ONE ton being placed in three locations.
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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#447

Post by glenn239 » 27 Feb 2009, 20:01

Let's put the discussion of the existence or non-existence of an air base on the Galapagos islands in Nov 1941 on hold for a while. It's not really critical to the premise of this thread
Agreed. Right now it appears there is no viable attack scheme proposed. No point in worrying about operational details if an attack cannot succeed.
My latest suggestion was to instead drop 3 torpedoes and 3 of the No.80 Japanese land bombs on and just behind the west wingwall immediately beside the Gatun Dam's centre spillway structure.
This suggestion is not going to work. Recommend you abandon it.
The notion that they would then attempt to use the Galapagos as their own base for this already hair-brained scheme is ludicrous.
[Edited to remove personal remark about another poster - DT.]

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#448

Post by David Thompson » 27 Feb 2009, 20:21

glenn239 and Sid -- Drop the personal remarks about other posters.

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#449

Post by David Thompson » 27 Feb 2009, 20:46

The new Galapagos Air Base discussion thread is at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 4&t=150312 . Please post any further comments on that subject there. I'll start moving the related posts from this thread, working backwards until I get most or all of them merged.

At this point I've gotten back to p. 23. I have tried not to remove posts which are only partly devoted to the Galapagos airfield issue.

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Re: Dec.7'41: A Day That Nobody Bombed Panama !

#450

Post by robdab » 27 Feb 2009, 21:52

glenn239,
Let's put the discussion of the existence or non-existence of an air base on the Galapagos islands in Nov 1941 on hold for a while. It's not really critical to the premise of this thread


I've never understood why you gents all seem to feel this question to be so important. One of the initial sources that I posted on the topic of air service to the Galapagoes mentioned a population of some 2,000 for that entire Island group at the time. How many airmial (or other) flights a week could that small a group of people require ?

Another of my posted sources at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galapagos_Islands mentioned that: "The Galapagos Archipelago consists of 7,880 square km (3,042 sq. miles) of land spread over 45,000 square km (28,000 miles) of ocean." along with "The group consists of 13 main islands, 6 smaller islands, and 107 rocks and islets."

Summarized as 126 possible places for my ATL Chitose to "hide" while preparing her 3 Mavis for their Panama attack. My posted intent was for her to enter the Equadorian waters (only a 3 mile limit at that time AFAIK) around the Galapagos, at dusk, then to proceed to a wind and wave determined choise amoung several pre-scouted anchorage points, there to prepare her 3 fake "China Clippers" overnight for a pre-dawn lauch towards Panama.

Why would any aircraft, civilian or military, be scouting the 45,000 sq.km. of the Galapagoes group at night, in peacetime ? Even if so, what are the odds of same actually stumbling across my Japanese flyingboat tender ?
Agreed. Right now it appears there is no viable attack scheme proposed. No point in worrying about operational details if an attack cannot succeed.
Would it be too much to request some/any explanation at all from you as to why you think that such a torpedo/bomb attack would fail ?

Certainly I have demonstrated with sources that the highest levels of the US military and civilain command structures, up to and including the American Secretary of War and probably the President that he reported it to, were indeed greatly worried about the destructive abilities of bomb attack against the Gatun Dam. One inspecting expert reported that there were three Gatun Dam points that could be diabled with but a single bomb hit which would take the Canal "offline".

Wartime details are indeed scarce but I believe that I have presented what i believe to be a reasonable scenario for attacking what might have been one of those three unknown (to me at this time) critical points.

This suggestion is not going to work. Recommend you abandon it. - And your rational, with sources would be ... ?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

phylo, you typed,

Robert - it is NOT a "weak spot" as you choose inaccurately to describe it - there is STILL some 300-400 YARDS of dam behind this impact point for your "three" (only) "large" HE bombs to remove!!! Absolutely impossible with that small amount of explosive. - If you were to examine the photo at https://www.allposters.co.uk/-sp/Soldie ... 92336_.htm that I previously listed you could compare the amount of earth fill installed beside the right hand buttress of the spillway structure, with the 42' width of the spillway gate clearly visible there in the photo. That thickness of grass covered soil is hardly 42' let alone the 300-400 yards that you claim.

Had you watched the two youtube videos of dam failures that I also previously listed then I think that you would now have a far better appreciation of just how fast rushing water can erode down thru an earthfill dam once the waterproof layer is breached and water flow thru the dam itself begins.

[b}The stacking of barges was only ONE option discussed; another ALSO discussed - and poo-poo'd by you - was that they could be used as mobile repair barges to actually WORK on a damaged gate; here we see EXACTLY that happening.[/b} - Really ? Your photo shows no gush of water through a damaged gate at all even though, since we can all see the barge on the other side of the gate, there is a considerable height of water held behind it. After a torpedo hit would there be so little gate damage that there would be no leakage at all ? You have no direct knowledge whatsoever about whether that barge crew is repairing anything at all or is perhaps, fishing.

If dropped VERTICALLY on a concrete target...the H6K's will not be able to hit a VERTICAL wall mostly underwater with the accuracy needed to do so three (tw0) times on the SAME spot. - I have very clearly indicated that the 3 Japanese bombs would be deliberately dropped into the soft soil behind that wingwall, not in any attempt to directly or repeatedly hit the narrow top edge of that wingwall.

Robert, I think now YOU are the one being dishonest if you're describing the material of the Gatun Dam as "soft" soil"... - How so ? The Gatun Dam is an earthfill structure what has a unreinforced concrete wingwalls installed as part of it's centre concrete spillway.The vast majority of the Gatun Dam is dirt/rubble excavated from other cut areas of the Panama Canal project.

Strangely enough, you haven't noticed that the map/diagram of the Dam you produced in this thread indicates some form of below-surface buttressing for the curtain wall... - What makes you think that I haven't noticed what is plainly there for all our readers to see. Even you noticed it so why did I need to mention it ? It appears that there are underground piers within the body of the dam at about the same 45' spacing as is visible in the nearby comcrete spillway structure. I believe that what you take for horizontal underground buttressing is in fact the above ground contour lines which show the upward surface soil profile between the top of the unreinforced concretre wingwall and the highest elevation of the top of the earthfill Gatun Dam. It appears to me that each unreinforced concrete wingwall segemt has east and west end concrete pier supports but nothing save the dirt of the dam itself in support between those buried piers.

A civil engineer wouldn't forget that rammed-earth construction dams do NOT radiate shock waves, so NO force will be transmitted to the curtain wall from the bombs dropping behind them. - Other than several unsourced repetions from you, I have seen no indications anywhere that the Gatun Dam was a "rammed earth" structure rather than just an earthfill dam built with a roughly centred concrete spillway.

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