[Jimmy Valentine]

What the article does not address is that the Olympic, the sister ship of the Titanic, was built in the same yard of the same material. She survived two collisions, the First World War and remained in service until about 1936.

I think that the correct answer is that sailing at about 25 land miles per hour into an object of almost 30 or 40 times your mass (or larger) is always pretty much a bad idea.

[jrushing]

The Olympic also suffered a collision, with the warship H.M.S. Hawke, on Sept. 20, 1911. A photograph taken by Harland & Wolff shows extensive damage, including open rivet holes, which suggest that the Olympic was also built with substandard rivets. After repairs, however, the Olympic had a long career, until 1935, and was even nicknamed Old Reliable.

From slide 5 of the slideshow linked in the article, you can see holes where rivets were popped-out.

[wagglebee]

If you read the rest of the article, it addresses that Olympic sailed for decades without major incident.

However, with things like this, it is the WAY the structure of the rivets fail (you notice that the iron rivets are only on certain portions of the ship), other impacts might not have had the same effect. It sounds as if the collision with the iceberg was going to sink Titanic no matter what, but it was the catastrophic failure of the rivets AFTER the collision that caused it to sink so quickly.

[DuncanWaring]

...sailing at about 25 land miles per hour into an object of almost 30 or 40 times your mass (or larger) is always pretty much a bad idea.

Commander Kevin Mooney, USN would undoubtedly agree with you.