Such a disgrace and desecration >:(
Quote
According to Dutch media reports, a pair of submarines that sank off the coast of Malaysia in 1941 mysteriously vanished late last week, leaving behind only some broken scraps and ghostly outlines in the sand. The wrecked subs — Dutch vessels named HNLMS O 16 and HNLMS K XVII — also contained the remains of 79 crewmen, which are now missing.
https://www.foxnews.com/science/a-pair-of-shipwrecked-wwii-era-submarines-just-vanished-from-the-sea-near-malaysia
>:( I hope those sacrilegious wreck poachers all got the bends.
Unfortuantely, that has been going on awhile. A lot of warship wrecks in the Thailand/Malaysia/Indonesia area have been salvaged either in whole or in part
https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03/worlds-biggest-grave-robbery-asias-disappearing-ww2-shipwrecks
Found this over on the WOWS site:
I read an interesting article a few weeks ago that said one of the driving forces behind the looting of WWII shipwrecks was the need for "low background steel". Apparently, steel produced after all the atomic bomb use and testing has altered the steel we're able to produce. It's got higher background radiation in it which means certain types of instrumentation won't work as well.
Steel produced pre-atomic testing doesn't have as much radiation and is therefore highly sought after.
https://hackaday.com/2017/03/27/low-background-steel-so-hot-right-now/ (https://hackaday.com/2017/03/27/low-background-steel-so-hot-right-now/)