The Three Gorges Dam: The Most Important Strategic Target in the World

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[JohnGuzik]

Three Gorges Dam is holding back all the rocket fuel.

[Have_A_Nice_Day]

I saw a documentary once on attacking heavily defended targets and this one young pilot was successful by ignoring all the electronics targeting information and using a power he called the Force.

[attobuoy]

As the old joke says, mechanical engineers build weapons; civil engineers build targets.

[mufasachainbreaker]

I don't know who needs to know this, but out of the stock footage he used for the flooding, there is a scene at 6:17 that includes a dinosaur fleeing from the flood.
The More You Know

[mich]

An F-16 making it from Taipai to Three Gorges sounds like the plot of the new Top Gun sequel.

[IlluminatiBG]

"In 2005, NASA scientists calculated that the shift of water mass stored by the dams would increase the total length of the Earth's day by 0.06 microseconds". While the energy of a nuclear weapon is powerful, I think the potential energy stored in the water reservour is on par.

[Sintrania]

The best attack plan for the dam is “wait” 😂

[mooonpaw]

The flood mentioned warped the dam quite a lot, too. It may not have to be destroyed at all. Looking at the before and after pictures, it's ...worrying, to say the least.

[phaslow]

There are several dams on the Yangtze above the Three Gorges Dam. They are much smaller, but still quite considerable in size. If one of them was to go for whatever reson it would result in a domino effect taking the others downstream with it.

[shawnamell]

I grew up in Lake Havasu City, below the Hoover Dam. I never gave a second thought about what would happen if it was destroyed. Very eye opening!

[rhov-anion]

I have a friend who was affected when a dam near her broke. She didn't just lose her home; she lost her entire town. Her job, her children's schools, her church, her favorite grocery store. Everything, gone. And this was only a small town. I can't imagine a mega-metropolis like Wuhan being wiped out. I mean, just look at inflation after China partially shut down due to Covid, how we now struggle to afford graphic cards, laptops, even food. Imagine if it all NEVER REOPENED because hundreds of millions were dead and all the industries wiped off. Simon is right, it's human destruction that would surpass literally EVERYTHING IN HISTORY, and an economic catastrophe with global ramifications.

You don't need a nuclear arms race when you have a dam and hundred of millions of lives hanging in the balance.

[RyGuy]

Simon may be making a great series about warfare, but in reality it's just a bunch of really good logic against war. And he does it masterfully!

[Mike-hupp]

If the Hoover dam was breached Mexico would see the Colorado river for the first time in almost a century.

[ignitionfrn]

1:40 - Chapter 1 - Biggest in the world
3:15 - Mid roll ads
4:40 - Back to the video
5:25 - Chapter 2 - Potential for catastrophe
11:30 - Chapter 3 - Attack & defense
18:45 - Chapter 4 - Deterring china ; china deters

[edward]

I couldn't imagine Simon with hair. The bald head and beard is an iconic look, and a good look.

[RAS_Squints]

Simon's social credit score went down 100 points

[sargepent]

It's already known they used inferior concrete and steel in its construction and the architects that tried to sound warning were silenced. That dam is unstable and WHEN (not if) it fails, will cause the biggest humanitarian disaster in history

[nikopawlowic]

The one weapon system you failed to mention was Rapid Dragon, basically imagine a C-130 loaded up with around 5 pallets of cruise missles each pallet carrying 6-9 cruise missles that get yeeted out the back of the plane and have a range of about 450 miles and are nigh impossible to both detect and stop and are loaded with JDAM style munitions. Basically if the United States Airforce decided to say screw the PRC all they would have to do to destroy the Three Gorges dam would be to send up a few cargo aircraft and cause a war crime from a safe distance away.

[craftycri]

Love the Dr Strangelove secret "dooms day weapon"... ;) What you didn't mention, however, is the structural issues the 3 Gorges Damn has already, its a cracked cup just aching to blow. I seriously doubt it would take much to take it out. If it were to happen, I would expect a Nord Stream surprise... a "gee I wonder who" event where no one saw nothin!

[jimtalbott]

I grew up in a small town in the 1980s in Eastern Washington state. Every Saturday at noon they’d test the air-raid sirens - because Grand Coulee Dam upriver from is was a known target for Soviet Nukes - if ruptured, it was expected to inundate our town with about 200 ft of water. We were downstream by about 80-100 miles from Grand Coulee.