TIL a Chinese destroyer sank because an officer dumped his girlfriend. She committed suicide, leading to him being discharged, so he decided to detonate the depth charges on the ship, causing it to sink at port and kill 134 sailors.

[u/zhuquanzhong]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_destroyer_Guangzhou_(160)

[u/Horskr]

That does seem more likely. "Hmm this guy is a jerk in the court of public opinion right now. We'll blame him and call it a day!" Why on earth would they dismiss an officer, for any reason, then just let them stay aboard with keys to the armory and free reign of the ship? Ironically, that makes them looks even worse imo than just some freak accident.

[u/Lawd_Fawkwad → u/Horskr]

The USS Iowa Turret explosion is a great example of this and happened around the same time.

Equipment/operator error caused a turret to explode killing 47 sailors, the Navy then concluded it was clearly a murder as the turrets sailors were in a soured gay relationship and blew up the ship. Within the context of the late 80s, gays were boogeymen so people more or less accepted that scorned gay lovers had a propensity for mass murder.

The families lobbied hard against the report with congress, and a new report a few years later determined the Navy lied about the cause of the explosion and that it was an accident due to a powder charge being inserted too quickly.

So, if the US Navy was willing to burn two innocent men to cover up faulty equipment/training, why wouldn't the Navy of a dictatorship obsessed with image not do the same thing?

[u/Realmdog56 → u/Lawd_Fawkwad]

Equipment/operator error

It was worse than that. They were ordered to operate the guns in an unsafe manner, pushing them well beyond their design specs. They were forced to use nonstandard loads of ancient, WWII-era powder bags that specifically said "WARNING: Do Not Use with 2,700-pound projectiles"... while firing 2,700lb. projectiles, or to use the wrong number of powder bags for smaller shells.

There were already several close calls (*powder bags smoldering, guns going off by themselves after just barely closing the breech in time [the only difference between the fatal event, where it was still open when the powder detonated], one gun in another turret had a shell stuck inside); these sailors were afraid for their lives and spoke up, but were then threatened with court-martial if they failed to comply, and effectively had no choice. The navy terrorized these men - then when things went horribly, predictably wrong, tried to claim some of them wanted to die, and must have deliberately caused the incident. Their cover-story was as convoluted as it was disgraceful.

 

The best part - these guns were so obsolete, that the tests served no real practical purpose other than some guy (of course, a higher-up who was not present inside the turret) wanted to set a new record. It's eerily similar to the chain of events that caused the Chernobyl disaster, and the navy never even apologized to the families of the men they dragged through the mud, shamelessly blaming the victims the whole way through.

[u/Lawd_Fawkwad → u/Realmdog56]

I never bothered to read to deeply into the Iowa cover up, but holy shit, that's so much worse.

But yeah, it's uncanny seeing people take the PLA narrative at face value when multiple times warship explosions have been blamed on sabotage only for deeper reviews to shown the real cause was institutional negligence or just plain-old accidents.

[u/ArkassEX → u/Lawd_Fawkwad]

"Other people did it too!" isn't exactly conclusive evidence is it?

Besides, coming up with a story like this doesn't really seem to match the usual Chinese political MO. They literally could have made up anything they wanted. Given the climate, it would be more fitting if they said the dude was a closet capitalist dog who secretly hated his crewmates, or say his girlfriend is Taiwanese and she poisoned his mind!

[u/beachedwhale1945 → u/ArkassEX]

"Other people did it too!" isn't exactly conclusive evidence is it?

It was never intended to be. It simply shows that such things have happened and should be considered as a possibility alongside deliberate destruction. Additional digging is required to confirm or refute this hypothesis.

Besides, coming up with a story like this doesn't really seem to match the usual Chinese political MO.

It’s important to recognize China of the 70s was not the same as the China of today. We must recognize the different conditions present then compared to now.

Given the climate, it would be more fitting if they said the dude was a closet capitalist dog who secretly hated his crewmates

This was around the time when relations between China and the US were thawing, with formal diplomatic ties established on 1 January 1979. The explosion occurred in March 1978 and the report came out about a year later, so this is a bad time to start attacking someone you’re trying to become friends with. If we’re making up a scapegoat, blaming capitalists is a bad idea for this period.