HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ nostrademons

The Wikipedia article on shaped charges is fascinating:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge

The penetration distance is proportional to the diameter of the charge (counterintuitive; you'd expect the height), and can be up to 7x as large. So a ~5 inch charge shown in the film can penetrate up to about 3 feet of solid steel.

Also, all of our known defenses against shaped charged rely on the assumption that the same spot won't get hit twice. Composite armor breaks and deflects the geometry of the jet through its deformation; reactive armor relies on a mini-explosion to defeat the jet. This has interesting implications in a world of drones and precision-guided munitions, and in fact the Javelin missiles we've been shipping to Ukraine have double warheads, the first to destroy the armor and the second to destroy the vehicle.

⬐ Terry_Roll

Alot of things were developed during WW2 like an Earthquake bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_bomb and in the 50's the first of these were developed, a Tsunami bomb https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepa...

A scaled down model of the Möhne dam where the bouncing bomb was used can be found at the BRE site in Watford on your way to the lunch canteen. https://bregroup.com/ipark/parks/england/visit/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouncing_bomb#Re-creating_the_...

⬐ infofarmer

There are many more types of active defenses other than reactive armor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_protection_system

⬐ bglazer

I recently learned that active protection systems have really significant electronic signatures. I’m no expert but I believe that they rely on vehicle mounted radar systems to detect incoming fire.

Take a look at this graphic:

https://sites.breakingmedia.com/uploads/sites/3/2021/07/imag...

The source for this is an advertisement for a Rheinmetal brand APS. So treat it like you would any marketing material.

Nonetheless, if it’s even remotely accurate, I would not want to be part of a tank crew that is visible to surveillance aircraft multiple countries away.

I get the impression these APS systems were designed with low intensity “anti-terror” operations in mind. They’ll do a decent job killing an RPG fired from across the street but they light you up like a Christmas tree. Not a problem if you’re battling ISIS but a significant liability against opponents with modern surveillance capability. Also they’re useless against top attack munitions which seem to be remarkably effective in Ukraine.

⬐ User23

Training with shaped charges made my father grateful he ended up in the infantry. They are clever, but seriously nasty.

⬐ tootie

Great video on the engineering of the Javelin and why it's so simple and effective: https://youtu.be/SUdHzKRiBX8

The Javelin has multiple tricks up its sleeve to defeat sophisticated armor and Russian armor is just behind the curve. It's a literal arms race to add more layers of defense and more layers of attack and right now, NATO is far ahead.

⬐ mauvehaus

You know, a theme of From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne is the longstanding rivalry between weapon makers and armor makers. 150 years after it was written, that bit still seems to hold true.

⬐ nyolfen

this is compounded by the fact that much of the armor on the ground in ukraine does not actually seem to feature the advanced defenses developed during the soviet era, like ERA. i've seen several photos of what appears to be decoy ERA on destroyed t-72's, which was nothing more than a hollow brick of steel. i suspect graft or a weak economy is the reason.

⬐ avereveard

the source of these pictures are all from ukraine. it's not far fetched to think they removed era and planted inert spacer to demoralize the enemy. in general, while the fog of war is in full effect, I wouldn't trust any one-sided intel.

⬐ mensetmanusman

That takes too much effort, also, Ukrainians know that if they went through all of that effort people would just say exactly what you are saying, so it’s doubly a waste of time And therefore a major risk for their lives.

⬐ avereveard

what a silly, circular argument.

⬐ Feriti

True.

But Ukraine is advancing. So they are winning anyway which indicates that something is going wrong on Russia side and it fits the outcome.

I would argue that based on that you can assume that the Story to be more true than just 50/50

⬐ Arrath

It is rather far fetched however to assume that forces abandoning equipment willy nilly take the time to strip out ERA blocks for some rough idea of a demoralization effect.

⬐ avereveard

I never argued that it was the russian to change the era block, maybe you're answering in the wrong comment thread?

⬐ sofixa

How would fake lack of ERA demoralise the enemy when the enemy is getting destroyed anyhow, even if they have ERA? (And in your scenario, if it did have ERA)

⬐ avereveard

invaders weren't being pushed back when the initial claims circulated.

⬐ MertsA

Forget decoys, some of the videos coming out of Ukraine were showing plenty of Russian tanks with the bags for the reactive armor sagging down clearly only holding the spacers and no ERA plates. It's like the troops believed the cover story that they were only going near the border for a training exercise.

⬐ supernova87a

I amuse myself by thinking that Sidney Alford (the expert in the video, who by the way appears to have passed away last year) looked like, and was, the modern Grand Maester, conjuring up magical (but yes, destructive and terrible) explosives for the use by kingdoms against each other. He should've been given a cameo part in Game of Thrones...

I got onto the topic years ago when watching the Dambusters. Related to this, he also has a video showing how putting a simple tube/bag of water behind an explosive charge magnifies its force incredibly. I believe he started a company that built and sold explosives with such a water-fillable jacket that could be used to knock down doors by police forces.

edit: here's the water filled explosive knocking down a door: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_80gWlDQdHg

⬐ pvillano

does that make the rainbow six siege breach charge somewhat accurate? In that, if it doesn't knock the whole wall down like the first part of the video, there would be a door-shaped hole.

https://rainbowsix.fandom.com/wiki/Breach_Charge/Siege

⬐ hedgehog

Yes, "wall breaching charge"

⬐ yencabulator

I have some combat explosives training. What I see in the picture there is sort of inspired by a real thing, but weirdly stylized.

The real thing: Take stiff cardboard slightly larger than the hole you want to make, any shape. Using wire or such to hold it in place, arrange flexible "rope" of plastic explosive in loops on the cardboard, in any shape you want. It's going to be a continuous rope, not separate bits like in that image. Make it a triangle: 3 layers, then 2 on top, then 1. This is the "shaped explosive" part, and directs the force toward the wall. Nail/etc flat side of cardboard to door/wall you want a hole in, move to side & to safe distance. Make it go boom.

I've converted a thick wood door into toothpicks with that.

⬐ dEnigma

  >here's the water filled explosive knocking down a door

Seems more like it's blowing a hole into a wall.

⬐ andai

What wall? ;)

⬐ giantg2

If you're going to play around with explosives, an old knowledgeable teacher is best. I imagine incompetence gets weeded out early. The guy in the video has been in quite a few others too. It's fun to see how the hosts are usually a little nervous and he's calm as can be.

⬐ mhh__

The younger guy in this clip actually ended up retiring because he got brain damage in a contraption he designed for this show.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58762935

⬐ itsyaboi

This is bizarre. He knowingly, purposefully took the place of a crash test dummy? Why?

⬐ kayodelycaon

I assume he was focused on doing the experiment he (and dozens of other people) lost sight of the consequences.

As we say in America: “Hold my beer.”

Edit: Or more charitably, they underestimated the consequences.

⬐ noneeeed

Pretty much the latter.

This wasn’t Jackass, it was a science programme and he was the resident engineer. In theory he knew what he was doing but underestimated the risks and paid the personal consequences.

⬐ green-eclipse

"Hi, I'm Johnny Knoxville and this is crash test humans"

⬐ sacrosancty

Apparently they used to do that. Here are people demonstrating the safety of seatbelts by crashing their car https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWy0hHHECdM

⬐ matheusmoreira

> The injuries happened when Mr Stansfield, who was 42 at the time, filmed a Bang Goes The Theory feature about the relative safety of forward and rear-facing child car seats.

> The episode saw him "strapped into a rig like a go-cart which was propelled along a track into a post".

I'm sorry but to me this reads like something out of Darwin Awards.

⬐ stjohnswarts

Exactly, this is what dummies (the inanimate ones), cameras, and sensors are for O_O

⬐ htk

That’s why he was awarded around half of what he demanded, because BBC shared the responsibility by accepting the stunt, but he was also responsible for doing it.

⬐ supernova87a

Doesn't the BBC contract out to production companies so that they're not liable as a huge organization for one small show's dumb actions? Seems odd, but maybe that's not a thing in the UK.

⬐ londons_explore

UK courts generally see through such things.

⬐ kepler1

See through some things, but not through others? How about hiding billions of pounds worth of corrupt money in London real estate? Not so much.

⬐ megapolitics

That’s more of a problem of a lack of cases brought by the government than a problem with the courts. The courts have generally seen through such things quite well when the government actually brings forward cases.

⬐ robocat

> That’s why he was awarded around half of what he demanded

Which is why he asked for 4x what might be fair? I’m being facetious: I have no idea. I am just saying there is little constraint on how much damages you can reasonably ask for.

⬐ h2odragon

Count the fingers. More than 8 is probably OK. age may be a drawback, one gets too old to meddle with some of the more fun things eventually.

⬐ IncRnd

There are old people who use explosives. There are bold people who use explosives. But, there are no old, bold people who use explosives.

⬐ kbelder

My Dad: "Hey, put that dynamite back down!"

It was just in a box in the back of his truck. Looked fun.

I wince, sometimes, thinking back. But my family was a logging family, so getting blown up was just one in a long list of ways to die.

⬐ ethbr0

Reading Ignition! convinced me that there's more than raw intelligence to experimenting with energetic chemistry. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0813595835/

⬐ function_seven

Note to anyone that might be tempted to get this as an audiobook: Don't!

It didn't occur to me that the subject matter would be incompatible with narration, but it (IMO) just doesn't work that way. Large portions of the book have equations and heavy notation. Here's an actual passage:

> it can be simplified to cee equals bracket two aitch over em end-bracket to the one half power times bracket one minus parentheses pee e over pee cee end parentheses to the ar over cee pee power end bracket to the one half power.

Yeah, I just couldn't keep listening to that. I need to get a print copy, because the subject matter is interesting.

⬐ PebblesRox

Reminds me of a family story about my aunt recounting a Feynman lecture to her kids. She was drawing some diagrams he'd used and they said, "Wait a minute, how do you know what these looked like? Weren't you just listening to the audio?"

She realized that Feynman's verbal explanations were so clear that she had not had any trouble visualizing the diagrams as he drew and discussed them.

⬐ fortran77

And he still has 10 fingers! Unlike, for example, Mark Pauline (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Pauline)

⬐ swayvil

A bit of a nervous twitch perhaps.

⬐ relbeek2

The calmness comes from really knowing and understanding what you are working with. I used to frequently work around hundreds of thousands of pounds of class 1 explosives. Once you understand that the primary risks of dry explosives are impact, shock, and impingement. You can protect yourself against those risks and get comfortable working around the material.

⬐ Vladimof

This type of explosive is very stable... nothing like nitroglycerin ...

⬐ giantg2

The explosive is stable (small cubes of most plastic explosive can even be lit on fire and act as fuel). But there is still danger in correctly handling/connecting the detonator. I'm not sure, but I thing the acceleration charge might be a less stable type as well (obviously they aren't going to give us step by step instructions).

⬐ jwhitlark

They used to burn c4 in Vietnam to heat coffee/food. Just don't step on it, as it suddenly remembers it's an explosive...

⬐ trasz

>obviously they aren't going to give us step by step instructions

It’s thoroughly explained in the manuals freely available at US Army web site.

⬐ Vladimof

> (obviously they aren't going to give us step by step instructions).

nitrocellulose is very simple to make and detonate... and is also very stable.... I don't see why we need secrets... I played with that stuff when I was a teenager

⬐ MertsA

nitrocellulose isn't necessarily very stable. If it's an amateur making gun cotton there's always the risk that they won't properly wash out the acid and if there's enough left, when left to dry the evaporation of the water can concentrate the remaining acid enough to cause spontaneous combustion. Other than that it's pretty stable but worth pointing out that film used to use nitrocellulose as the base material and there's tons of movie theatres that burned down in those days and even just vaults storing the film under ambient conditions. As the nitrocellulose decays, it can release nitric acid, thus accelerating the decay and potentially starting a fire.

If properly prepared and used and stored responsibly then gun cotton can be safe, even when used for teenage antics. Lighting off a piece while resting it on an open palm of course being one classic trick with nitrocellulose. I'd say storage and transportation of low and high explosives are some of the riskiest aspects because there's so many insidious ways for it to go wrong that you wouldn't learn about until you need to take your shoes off to count past 7. It doesn't help that nowadays it's so trivial to find out how to synthesize acetone peroxide and storing it long term is always going to be fraught with peril. Especially when someone without any semblance of proper containers stores it sealed up in a plastic bottle with a screw on cap. Just one drop or one crumb of primary explosive on the screw threads and maybe you get it sealed up, but when it dries out in the threads there's a good chance it goes off in your closed up hand when you try to open it and add in all the friction rubbing between the threads.

⬐ ILMostro7

I assume it helps to narrow down the list of suspects if/when the (guarded/secret) knowledge is used for nefarious purposes.

⬐ chemeril

Nitrocellulose is not a high-order explosive and used nowhere in this experiment. Deflagration != detonation.

⬐ giantg2

Is that what they are using for the acceleration charge (not the main charge!)?

⬐ chemeril

It is not. Nitroglycerin doesn't have the capacity to detonate (necessary for triggering the main charge). Detonators (the acceleration charge you mention) are usually an explosive train starting with a sensitive primary like lead azide moving up to a secondary or pseudosecondary output charge like PETN.

⬐ giantg2

The diagram shows a detonator and an acceleration charge. That's why I was wondering what the acceleration charge was.

⬐ lazide

Oh man lol. Nitroglycerin most certainly has the power to initiate even a insensitive explosive like RDX, PETN, etc. It's detonation velocity is ~ 7700m/s. It's just very unstable which is why it isn't used raw. A jostle or turning the stopper on the bottle it's in can set it off. The less pure it is, the more dangerous it is. It's detonation velocity is twice as high as lead azide for instance.

Nitrocellulose can also be detonated with a properly brisant primary charge, which nitroglycerin is quite capable of being.

Typically Nitrocellulose (aka gun cotton, and the primary ingredient in most smokeless powders) won't detonate on it's own, but it's a very different beast from nitroglycerin.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_explosive_detonation_...]

⬐ chemeril

GP's comment was referencing nitrocellulose, which is what I was attempting to address but fatfingered to 'nitroglycerin'. Forgive the typo.

⬐ JohnJamesRambo

Look at the big balls on Vlad.

Is this the response you were looking for?

⬐ aurizon

When I was in college in Toronto in 1961 there was a surplus store. All manner of WW2 radios etc. I looked at one pile and it was about 15 rolls of primacord. This was a long 5/16 hollow tube of vinyl filled with pure TNT. It resembled rope = rope pile/ $3/roll of 100 feet. 2/$5. I knew what it was, so bought it all. it being worth $25-30/roll/ I was an Engineering stoont and Russia had just set of their Czar bomba. We engineers had a group called the BFC(Brute Force Committee), so we had to have a bomb for Skule Nite. In the quad we set off about a quarter pound of this prima cord with a lighted fuse detonator. We paced off a 100 meter circle for crowd control and Mr Riggs set it off. Prima cord has a hugely fast rate of propagation of the detonation wave, so we heard an intense CRACK, not a boom with a few tens of milliseconds, but a true faster than sound detonation wave. No harm was done as had just set of the Skule cannon which alerted people to cover their ears. I explored these rolls with playing with the Monroe effect, A nice shapely rabbit hole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge

I stamped initials in steel beams etc. Hardest thing was getting detonators = well controlled. Never tried to make a tank buster.

⬐ jacquesm

Active surplus?

⬐ aurizon

Hercules Sales = sold Surplus on Yonge at Wellesley. The strip around there had Electro Sonic, Radio Trade Supply, Paramount Equipment and 2-3 small surplus and parts sellers. When transistor came along, radios never broke, TV's never broke and the parts and surplus ecosystem went away. Efrem Kohn came from Israel in the mid 60's and his Uncle Frank and Peter Eben who owned Active Machinery gave Efrem(Freddie) one of their store fronts = Active Surplus. He carried on until Queen W got gentrified and electronics from Taiwan and later China totally swamped Canadian electronics = all died off = no more surplus. The surface mount assembly also made parts salvage by hobbyists a waste for most people. Now there are only Creatron and one other place on College. I had 7 stores in 1985, closed the last in 2002. I was Parts Galore, a few remember me at trade shows, but I went into mining in 1995 and sold my company in 2018 and retired.

⬐ jacquesm

Super interesting, thank you for the backstory. I lived in Toronto from 1998 to 2003 and spent quite a bit time roaming around the dustier parts of AS.

Fond memories!

⬐ aurizon

Yes, thanks. The Toronto surplus area was minuscule compared to Canal STreet in New York city in the 50's and low 60's. You might find some rabbit holes on google of the old days?.

⬐ aurizon

Rabbit holes for NY and Radio Row

https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/the-history-of-radi...

https://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/29/garden/shopping-canal-st-...

⬐ dvtrn

"What makes me a good Demoman? Well if I were a bad Demoman, I wouldn't be sitting here discussing it with you, now would I?"

One of the silliest, hilarious but on point thing I've ever heard uttered from a video game character

⬐ jimnotgym

It strikes me that if you work with modern explosives and follow sensible procedures like retiring to a safe distance, the risks to you are not that high. The risks in a demolition are huge, but not to the life of the explosives guy. I can imagine the job of weakening the structure, (by removing parts of it) prior to the explosives carry more risk to the operator

⬐ yencabulator

If you screw it up, you end with a non-exploded thing that you have to tear down. That's where the risk is.

Plastic explosive with electric igniter ain't that bad, but old school fuses and mines are scary.

⬐ mensetmanusman

I don’t know. I’m a trained chemist and after enough years, you have that one day where you might’ve went to sleep too late and where you use the wrong type of glass, and a boiling vat of sulfuric acid etc. fails quickly and melts a bunch of stuff.

Sometimes I’m glad I’m in this field though, because I hear about the researchers working on prions that have started dying off, and I know it’s one of those one and 100,000 events that you inevitably experience.

⬐ giantg2

What's this about the prion researchers? I only know about the one lady (from France?) who caught it after puncturing her glove. If I remember correctly she didn't follow the proper protocols afterwards (although it's debatable if they would have made a difference).

⬐ matheusmoreira

The bad demomen had to be glued back together. In hell.

⬐ bawolff

Survivorship bias personified

⬐ sophacles

But... in a field where being bad at your job is fatal, is it really a fallacy?

Serious question - just like quoting an expert in the relevant topic isn't an appeal to authority, etc.

⬐ panqueque

> just like quoting an expert in the relevant topic isn't an appeal to authority, etc.

The credentials of the expert don't determine whether or not the statement is an appeal to authority.

⬐ bawolff

Its still a fallacy because some people are just lucky instead of being skilled, and its entirely possible to confuse the two.

In the same way, an appeal to an authority is better than nothing, but its still a really weak argument. You can misunderstand authorities and authority can be mistaken or suborned. Its a reasonable argument if nobody knows much about the topic, but its never convincing if people are learned in the topic; the benefit of an expert is not that they are experts, its that they know how to defend their position with reasoning. As the motto of the royal society says "Nullius in verba".

⬐ daxfohl

I think survivorship bias would be the survivor saying that the task is safe, not the survivor saying he's better at doing it safely.

⬐ zhengyi13

Luck eventually runs out. That's not to say you're wrong, only that I expect the distribution of the lucky amongst the skilled tends towards zero over sufficient time.

"Beware old men in a young man's game."

⬐ bawolff

The real question is what amount of time is sufficient. Its probably longer than you expect.

⬐ Retric

Depends on how often you role the dice not just how bad the dice are. Someone that’s got a 1% chance of dying every fireworks show is extraordinarily bad at their job. But if they only put on 2 shows a year they have better than even odds of surviving a 40 year career.

⬐ somenameforme

The odds there are surprisingly high, but not better than even. 44.75%

⬐ bawolff

But the important odds in this situation is not the individual, but the group - if you start with a group of 100 (or whatever) people extraordinarily bad at their job, what is the probability at least 1 makes it 40 years.

Survivorship bias is a bias because the sample is biased - Its when you pick a group of people who have already won and then are surprised that they beat the odds and won because you confuse the probability that a specific person wins with the probability that at least 1 person wins.

⬐ dmurray

Actually, the important odds are: given that you've met a 75-year old explosives professional, how likely is it that he was skilful instead of lucky?

To get a good estimate of this you need to come up with some priors about how many skilful and unskillful equivalents there were at the age of 30 and how much worse the unskillful ones are at staying alive.

⬐ Retric

It was a survivorship bias point but I didn’t make that clear.

I meant if you meet X people at a random point in their career then on average more than half will make it to the end because some of the original sample died before you sampled the population. Basically older people would have a lower chance of their luck running out even if they where all equally incompetent.

At least assuming the original population isn’t dying of something else vastly more often etc.

⬐ GreymanTheGrey

Actually the OP is correct - the odds of dying are 44.75%, while the odds of surviving are the corollary of 55.25%, i.e. greater than even.

Edit: Nope I'm wrong, just redid the math. Apologies.

⬐ daxfohl

Survivorship bias is more about believing a task is safe/easy because you only hear from the survivors/winners. Not about saying someone is better at a job because they haven't died/lost yet.

⬐ ethbr0

"Hey look, buddy. I'm an engineer: that means I solve problems.

Not problems like 'What is beauty?' Because that would fall without the purview of your condundrums of philosophy.

I solve practical problems..." https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgNBsCI4EA

⬐ daenz

I'm not sure I fully understood the explanation. So the copper cone is turned inside out and turns into a pointed wire that drives into the target? How is it that this wire can continue through the 1ft of steel? Is the force of the explosion flowing through this wire/tube, like liquid in a straw? And somehow it can sustain this through 1ft of steel?

⬐ daenz

Sorry to answer my own post, but I watched it again and picked up on the key idea at 2:09.

The inverted apex of the cone drives into the steel, pushing the steel aside, but then the apex opens up and flows back along the outside of itself. In other words, any given part of this copper "wire" interacts with the steel only long enough to push it open, then it is replaced by new copper.

From this explanation, it sounds like the tunnel that has been "bore" through the steel would be completely coated from start to finish by the inverted copper cone.

⬐ colechristensen

Imagine a picture of the jet coming out of a black hole.

Something very roughly similar is happening here. The shape of the cone as the detonation wave goes through the explosive forces copper into the center and the only (or lowest resistance) way out is a straight jet through the target material.

⬐ lamontcg

The mental image which is working well enough for me is a series of tightly packed bullets with each one digging the hole a little deeper than the last one.

Of course the shaped charge isn't a gun though and the stream of copper doesn't travel for hundreds of meters/yards. If you need to stand off from the target you'd want to mount it as the payload of a rocket and fire towards thine enemies.

EDIT: this is of course a better description:

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/bu...

So the rod is traveling so fast that it and the target act like liquids, even though it isn't molten.

⬐ trhway

due to the copper cone shape and the explosion wave propagation from the back the copper, which at those pressures is flowing like a liquid, is formed into a jet and pushed forward like a water in a power washer hose. Water at 3000bar would cut several inch steel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quL14Csmi_Y). The copper in that explosion gets accelerated to the speeds of like 10km/s and as a result cuts through everything in its way.

A bit of current context - beside deep penetration the jet isn't that destructive to surroundings. And here comes design flaw of Russian tanks - getting inside a Russian tank such jet frequently hits the tank's ammo which in those tanks is stored in a carousel around/under the turret and thus it results in the whole tank ammo explosion which even throws the multi-ton turret several stories up into the air (you can see a lot of the tanks blown up in that way - 'lollypops' - in Ukraine). To compare - US Abrams tank has ammo stored in separate compartment in the back of the turret.

⬐ KennyBlanken

FYI, waterjets cut by using water to carry an abrasive media which is injected into the stream at/near the nozzle, not by the action of the water alone.

⬐ jacquesm

You can use an abrasive component but you don't have to, pure waterjet cutting works. And depending on the materials and the nozzle shape might actually be the optimum.

⬐ Someone

Also crucially, the munitions compartment is weaker on the outside of the tank than on the wall between it and the crew, so if it goes, it blows out of the tank (search term “blowout panels”)

Fireworks and ammunition factories and storage facilities tend to have strong walls and relatively weak roofs for the same reason: if a building goes boom, you don’t want it to make neighboring buildings go boom, too.

⬐ askvictor

I'm impressed (and a little confused) at the idea the explosive is essentially sitting untethered on the target. I would have thought the entire contraption would shoot up with the explosive force being reflected off the ground, but I suppose there's enough energy in the initial blast (before the reflection) to form the copper 'bullet'. =

⬐ lazide

The reason it works is nothing has time to get out of the way - all this is well past the speed of sounds for all materials involved. So the action/reaction is happening - the gas from the explosive is recoiling for instance - but it only has time to go a few inches and the forces and counter forces are immense.

⬐ yread

It's not molten but it could be and it would still work as the guy in the video invented water-lined shaped charges (for disabling mines and IEDs without making them explode). What's important is the force/pressure that pushes steel to the side.

⬐ ycombinete

It functions more like a jet of water. The speed that the solid copper moves at pushes the steel aside as if the were both liquids

⬐ nabla9

The velocity of the jet is typically around 10 km/s. There is enough pressure to get trough.

⬐ emmelaich

A major part of it is that the copper is going extremely fast.

But also see other explanation, about being renewed.

⬐ nine_k

Update: this is incorrect.

The cone becomes very hot stream of molten copper. It melts through the steel plate, much like a jet of hot water melts through a block of ice.

This happens fast enough that much heat does not have the time to escape from the impact site, despite high thermal conductivity of metals. The high pressure created by the explosion keeps the jet compressed from sides, too, so it does not fragment easily.

Various kinds of "active armor" trigger the munition by a thinner layer of metal well ahead of the real thick armor plate, then produce counter-explosions to break the jet.

⬐ raldi

The video specifically says it’s not molten.

⬐ causality0

It's not actually liquid, it only behaves like one on impact due to the magnitude of the forces. It's more accurate to say it erodes through the armor instead of melting.

⬐ Vladimof

> much like a jet of hot water melts through a block of ice

cold water can cut through steel also...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0NVOThRooE

⬐ walnutclosefarm

Water is not doing the cutting there. Water is just the carrier for garnet abrasive, which does the actual cutting. Garnet is roughly three times harder than steel, so at high pressure cuts it very effectively.

⬐ Nextgrid

Waterjet cutting uses water to propel a powder which acts as an abrasive, like an infinite stream of sandpaper. I don't think water by itself will achieve much.

⬐ nullc

Waterjeting without abrasive is a thing, it's used for soft materials like rubber... and there are some companies marking higher pressure approaches for metal (though usually with tiny amounts of abrasive rather than none at all).

⬐ gonzo

It’s also used in commercial food prep.

⬐ daenz

Sounds like pressure washing vs sand blasting. Only difference between the two (aside from drastically different effect) is sand blasting has an intake tube to suck sand into the water jet.

⬐ fortran77

People have made DIY waterjet cutters with pressure washers and a sand feeder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg__B6Ca3jc

⬐ Vladimof

you learn something new everyday

⬐ climb_stealth

Huh, thanks for mentioning this! I always thought it was just water with enough pressure.

It looks like pressure cutting with pure water exists but it is limited to softer materials. This page [0] has a fair bit of detail on it all.

[0] https://www.machinemfg.com/waterjet-cutting-guide/#Classific...

⬐ postalrat

Maybe that's what happens but the video explains it as a stream of copper (not molten?) that pushes the steel out of the way.

⬐ GartzenDeHaes

A plasma technically. And it doesn't exactly penetrate, it pushes the steel atoms aside very literally like sticking your finger in butter.

Edit: obviously it penetrates, but not in the way that you would expect.

⬐ chemeril

Certainly not a plasma. It's a coherent spear of hydrodynamic copper, not a bunch of charged ions floating around.

⬐ GartzenDeHaes

As far as I know, it could be little qanons in there stealing the steel atoms to build jfk jr's moon rocket. However, the principle physicist for the nuclear emergency search team described it using the butter analogy.

⬐ WhitneyLand

It’s not molten, and heat plays no role in the penetration ability. This is a very common misconception.

It’s simply focused kinetic energy that does it. The cone focuses the copper into a slug like object, and the slug becomes similar to an extremely powerful bullet.

⬐ throw_away

What would happen if you just started with a slug?

⬐ lazide

It’s really hard to get a slug Moving like that without tearing it apart. It’s easier to use the explosive to spread the force over a wider area initially but in a way that the projectile is formed by the concentration of the explosive forces mashing it all together. Weird.

⬐ sacrosancty

I don't think you could deliver as much energy to it because it has such a small surface area normal to the direction of travel.

⬐ Brian_K_White

So it's like that old picture of the grass straw driven through the telephone pole by nothing but hurricane wind?

The flimsy straw could do it simply because of how fast it was moving. The strength of the straw doesn't matter, simply it's mass, moving that fast, carries itself through, ie the leading edge is not being pushed from behind like a nail, more like a bullet with a string attached?

Setting aside the simplification, that probably the mass of the rest of the straw does play some part not absolutely zero, is that a reasonable way to conceptualize it?

⬐ chemeril

Yes, that's reasonable. By the time the jet hits the target the explosive provides no motive force whatsoever: it's purely a momentum game.

⬐ foucalt-apathy

Are you certain that a hurricane can blow a straw through a telephone pole? I hadn't heard of this phenomenon and was interested. I was unable to find a good source.

According to this article, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association thinks it's not possible:

https://www.livescience.com/39270-tornado-straw-into-tree-wo...

(Alternative explanation in the article: the tree twists during the hurricane, cracks temporarily open, and debris gets stuck in the cracks.)

⬐ Brian_K_White

The picture (perhaps multiple but at least one) was a piece of hay poked right through a telephone pole, in the aftermath of some kind of storm. Not a tree. It was shown in grade school in the 80s or late 70s.

⬐ davesque

Here's a vid I found that seems to show a simulation of the effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpVVGk2OfQQ

⬐ JumpCrisscross

It appears to rely on the copper’s ductility. Curious if a gold or silver shaped charge has been modelled.

⬐ shirleyquirk

I found https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA278191 which has this to say about gold:

>Hypothetical shape charge liner. High density is a benefit but equally low speed of sound indicate s that it may be no better than uranium. An advantage may be found in its ductility, if it leads to greatly improved jet formation relative to its cost.

It seems that sound speed and density are considered more valuable, so tungsten, zirconium, molybdenum.

⬐ nostrademons

It's been used for plutonium. The explosive lenses used in implosion-type nuclear weapons are extremely-precise shaped charges, and work by focusing all the explosion's energy into compressing the plutonium down to critical mass:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosive_lens

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_design#Implosio...

⬐ daenz

Great find @ 0:40. The only thing it doesn't convey very well is the older man's explanation of the copper spear curling outward on itself. From the simulation, it seems like it is just punching through and maintaining its rigidity somehow.

⬐ jvanderbot

iirc, nothing is rigid, it's just very high energy jets, so they don't deform much. like particles in water jets cutting steel.

⬐ itsyaboi

Fun fact: water doesn't actually do the cutting, the water is just a medium for carrying an abrasive dust (ruby/sapphire/diamond) that abrades the steel.

⬐ CapitalistCartr

We use 80 mesh garnet.

⬐ jacquesm

The time scale on those is very interesting.

⬐ BurningFrog

Aha!

So the shape is such that all parts of the cone converge at the center, so the full energy of the explosive is focused in that thin column.

⬐ anfractuosity

Dr Alford also designed water-lined shaped charges for disrupting IEDs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Alford#Early_Inventions

⬐ StringyBob

Am I reading this right? That section also says he made shape charges out of cucumber that could cut steel!

⬐ londons_explore

Cucumber is basically water that you can cut to shape with a knife.

⬐ GravitasFailure

You read that right or we're both reading it wrong. I'm guessing the cucumber was an early prototype of the gelled water shaped charges, or he has a very...energetic...hatred of salads.

⬐ dylan604

No, not salads. Spas.

⬐ tshubbard

Shaped charges are also used to create the holes (perfs) in wellbores prior to fracking. The shaped charges blast through 1/2 inch of steel pipe and then a foot or two of rock. Sand and water are then pumped through the holes to prop open the rock and allow oil, gas, and water to flow out with less resistance.

⬐ pvillano

there was a defcon talk where they tested multiple methods for rapid hard drive erasure, in the event of a raid on a data center. a bomb range they visited happened to have a few of these leftover and https://youtu.be/-bpX8YvNg6Y?t=2135

⬐ KennyBlanken

"I designed this, for, well, filling by the user. It means it can travel on airplanes and such"

Presenter: "DIY shaped charges, of course"

"Mmm yes"

I get that he likely meant it can be shipped on airplanes and local explosives used for easier logistics, but it's amusing to hear an explosive munitions expert brag about designing something so it can be carried on airplanes.

"This box, I'm pleased to tell you, is full of explosives."

Oh man, this guy is a hoot.

⬐ Someone

I interpreted that as him being able to bring everything except for the explosives anywhere easily by regular airlines, where he expects his client to provide the explosives.

⬐ KennyBlanken

I literally fucking said that.

> I get that he likely meant it can be shipped on airplanes and local explosives used for easier logistics

⬐ AdrianB1

It is just saying it is so stable and safe, it can be transported on a plane.

⬐ ncmncm

No. The explosives do not fly. The equipment is such as not to alarm airport people.

⬐ a9h74j

YT brought me this[1] next, another jolly bunch with explosives.

One of them before an attempt with water between the explosive and the target wall: I predict it will either go through or the wall will be really clean.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUKTIt5GQrM

⬐ 127

If you look just at how small the shaped charge inside the NLAW is, and how the weapon works, I wonder why you wouldn't just put that shaped charge inside a $50 drone and fly it directly above the tank.

⬐ hasperdi

They do actually equip largish hobby class quadcopters with anti tank grenades. You'll find plenty videos of them on YouTube.

⬐ saberdancer

Some of the loitering munitions drones are doing exactly that.

Switchblade 600 has a shaded charge based on a Javelin one.

⬐ posnet

The Aerorozvidka are doing just that. They are attaching RKG-3 grenades to consumer drones with 3d printed actuators and dropping them straight down onto enemy armour.

⬐ ycombinete

They are already doing that. There are many videos of Ukraine using modified anti tank grenades. They remove the little parachute, and attach a 3-d printed tail. This is then fitted to a commercial drone.

Examples (NSFW-ish, Thermal imagery of tank cook-offs):

1. https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/ug39y1/drone...

2. https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/u29rdx/ukrai...

There are also a lot showing anti-personnel grenades, and even RPG rounds being dropped on people, and regular cars etc. too.

⬐ scotty79

What's pretty surprising is that explosively formed projectiles can have quite a range and can be aimed precisely.

Explosion of PTKM-R1 anti-tank mine that destroys the tank by targeting it from above:

https://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/a0ZMv2n_460svvp9.webm

I also read about some antitank missile that basically has two such auto-aiming charges and just releases them when it's above the targets and they aim and detonate forming projectiles that hit the tank(s?).

⬐ samlader

Interesting simulation of a shaped charge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqMoFx0uwpo

⬐ staticassertion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHfQYGGUS4U

Slow Mo guys using shape charges.

⬐ amai

„Electric armour is a type of reactive armour proposed for the protection of ships and armoured fighting vehicles from shaped charge and possibly kinetic weapons using a strong electric current“

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_armour

⬐ Animats

That's a nice explanation of how anti-tank weapons work.

⬐ Schweigi

If you want to know more - for example how the fuze even knows when to trigger and how it actually triggers the explosion - there is a good (lengthy) video about the M58 hollow charge rifle grenate and fuze design: https://youtu.be/_Xb1CoXLWHg?t=2514

⬐ Vladimof

I wonder if that's how Ukraine killed so many tanks

⬐ JumpCrisscross

We’ve also seen credible reports that where the reactive armour is meant to have explosives, instead one finds egg cartons. Corruption, through and through.

⬐ toomuchtodo

My understanding is that it’s poor design, storing ammunition in a ring within the turret which turns out is a poor location from an integrity perspective. The “Jack in the box” vulnerability.

> The fault is related to the way many Russian tanks hold and load ammunition. In these tanks, including the T-72, the Soviet-designed vehicle that has seen wide use in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, shells are all placed in a ring within the turret. When an enemy shot hits the right spot, the ring of ammunition can quickly “cook off” and ignite a chain reaction, blasting the turret off the tank’s hull in a lethal blow.

> For Russia, “the people are as expendable as the machine,” he said. “The Russians have known about this for 31 years — you have to say they’ve just chosen not to deal with it.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/30/russian-tank...

⬐ AdrianB1

The design is responsible for the catastrofic explosions that blow the turret off the tanks, not for the tank being penetrated. The penetration is achieved by making the missiles explode on top of the tank, defeating the thinnest armor versus frontal armor that has 60-100 cm equivalent in RHA steel (they are composite, so thickness is different).

⬐ nradov

This Chinese TV news video shows a wild example of the Jack-in-the-box vulnerability. A Russian tank in Ukraine gets hit and the turret takes off like it's headed for orbit.

https://youtu.be/ZsiHlmJ9myg

⬐ swimfar

The actual footage starts at 2:26

https://youtu.be/ZsiHlmJ9myg?t=146

⬐ sbierwagen

All design is compromise.

The autoloader is a design decision: it replaces a crew member, so Russian tanks operate with a crew of 3 instead of 4. This makes Russian tanks smaller and lighter. Here's a size comparison of the T-72 with the Abrams: https://preview.redd.it/mtwtamct1t821.jpg?auto=webp&s=101442...

For the massed tank-on-tank actions it was meant for, this is good! Smaller targets are harder to hit, and T-72s were supposed to be fighting gun duels against M60s while crossing West Germany, so all the armor is in the front plate. Lighter tanks are cheaper, so you can build more of them, going from 4 crew to 3 means your limited pool of tankers can operate 33% more vehicles in the field. Classic cold war-era doctrine, hard lessons learned from WW2. https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/comme... (It makes regular operations like tank maintenance or replacing damaged tracks way harder, but oh well, nobody ever said being Russian was easy)

Separately, there is no particular reason to think Abrams tanks wouldn't be vulnerable to the same weapons, if the Russians had that tank today and were fielding them in the same way they're operating their own tanks. Abrams also has light top armor and no ERA tiles on the roof. An anti-tank grenade dropped by a drone on an Abrams ammo compartment would mission kill it instead of killing the crew, but it would still be out of operation. AFAIK, no Abrams are equipped with Trophy in significant numbers, so it would be just as vulnerable to Javelin or other top attack ATGMs.

Tanks are vulnerable from the air, so you need air supremacy; vulnerable to artillery, so you need counterbattery suppression; vulnerable to man-portable AT weapons, so you need dismounted infantry combined arms; vulnerable to AT mines, so you need demining combat engineers, perimeter security so UKR spec ops can't cross lines and plant them, and military police so enforce civilian curfews. Russia is doing none of this, partly due to incompetence, and partly because they just didn't have a big enough force. (Desert Storm took just a hair under a million troops!)

If Russia had Abrams, but held all else equal, we'd still be seeing hundreds of flaming wrecks on the nightly news.

⬐ kube-system

Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGM-148_Javelin#Warhead

⬐ AdrianB1

No, it has nothing to do with shaped charges; they are using missiles that explode on top of the tanks. Most armor of the tank is frontal arc, some on the sides, top armor is minimal, just a few centimeters, so it can be easily penetrated by explosions of these missiles or by aircraft cannon fire from platforms like A-10.

⬐ berkut

HEAT warheads (what NLAW has) is completely to do with shaped charges.

⬐ AdrianB1

Yes, but it is not how it is used in Ukraine. Quote: "Against tanks and other armoured vehicles, the overfly top attack (OTA) mode is used; the missile flies about one metre above the line of sight, detonating the warhead above the target's weaker top armour".

It has dual-mode: direct attack and OTA. The many tanks in Ukraine are killed in OTA, that does not use the shaped charge effect.

⬐ berkut

Yes it does. There're various decent explanations and videos of how both modes work.

To quote from SAAB's own website: "Our NLAW system is a easy system to use. Watch this video to see how it uses PLOS (predicted line of sight) and OTA (Overfly-top-attack) to enable its powerful shape charge warhead hit the tank at it´s weakest point - the turent. Maximising the potential damage to the tank."

⬐ kinjba11

There is armor on top of a tank as well, no? Weaker than the sides of course, doesn't have reactive armor etc. Regardless of direct or OTA, a shaped charge is used.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_attack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUdHzKRiBX8

⬐ slyall

The overflight mode still uses a shaped charge. Even the top armour of a tank is significantly thick enough that a a non-directed explosion from a hand-held weapon probably won't penetrate.

"In conventional overflight missiles a keyhole effect resulting in reduced penetration into the target is caused by a shaped charge jet which develops during the missile flight. The MBT LAW warhead, similar to the BILL 2 missile warhead, incorporates a dynamically compensated shaped and copper lined charge to retain the penetration characteristics."

https://www.army-technology.com/projects/mbt_law/

⬐ KennyBlanken

Poor training, poor tactics, poor supply/logistics, poor operational security. And despite Russia's supposed doctrine of having very tight infantry/mechanized unit integration, their mechanized forced have been very vulnerable to Ukraine's infantry. Especially early in the war, Russia's mechanized units were running out of food, water, fuel, and ammunition.

Russia used Ukraine's mobile network and cell phones, then when they realized Ukraine was just targeting where they saw lots of Russian phone numbers, they stole Ukrainian phones off civilians...so Ukraine started accepting reports of stole SIMs/phones and tracking those.

Turns out that surrounding yourself with people who tell you what you want to hear (and who are siphoning off every ruble they can into their own pockets) isn't that great for having a strong armed service.

Also, you've got a force with a lot of conscripts who were lied to about what they were doing, versus a force which has watched their friends and family get butchered. That's one reason you don't go around slaughtering civilian populations...it makes for a very, very motivated, united, angry enemy.

⬐ kinjba11

There's a great recent video from Real Engineering showing how Javelins work to annihilate tanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUdHzKRiBX8

⬐ blip54321

Question: Is there a way to play with these things at home? Any pointers to DIY stuff?

⬐ belval

You can find it by Googling around, but you won't find it on chemistry YouTube channels as YouTube cracked down hard on those. Even videos on making precursors to RDX or HMX (which can be used to make C-4) are banned.

⬐ Spooky23

The materials are monitored and retailers have relationships with police, nationwide.

If you, a non-farmer, shows up to buy some fertilizer, etc, calls are made.

⬐ hedgehog

You could probably make what you need but it's both unsafe & will most likely get you put on a list depending where you live. There are jobs where you can get hands-on training and experience if you really want it.

⬐ phendrenad2

Don't even think about it. Just watch youtube and be happy. I know a guy who got stuck with a felony conviction for making his own fireworks. He can no longer work anything other than menial jobs.

⬐ Vladimof

any kind of explosive would probably be a good start... might want to check laws first though

⬐ throwaway742

BATFE has entered the chat.

⬐ chemeril

Yes and no. It's simple enough to construct a shaped charge from things you buy at Home Depot, assuming you have the right explosive. The explosive needs to be conformal (either plastic or castable) and capable of achieving true detonation. Secondaries like C4 and TNT are not easy to synthesize at home, and the primaries that are easy to synthesize at home are difficult to phlegmatize and handle safely at the necessary volumes.

Explosives are terribly fun but please do not try messing with them at home.

⬐ blip54321

I'd like to mess with them at home, but not at "the necessary volumes" to go through a foot of steel as in the video.

You know those little bang snaps you throw at the ground and they make a popping sound? For DIY, ideally, I'd do things in that kind of volume. I'd probably need a smidgen more, but I wouldn't want to do more than e.g. make a pinhole in 29 gauge sheet metal.

What I'd really love to make -- but I don't think I ever could safely -- is a little 1/8A or 1/4A rocket engine (of the that cost a couple bucks at the local hobby store).

This is science lab with kids, not bomb-making 101.

⬐ h2odragon

Fireworks level explosives are fun and doable at the garage level. I don't think you can do real "shaped charge perpetrators" but you can do some really fun things like explosive welding and such.

⬐ blip54321

I think that's a good starting point. Any good references? I'm looking up the one already given in thread.

I have a lot of experience with medical biohazards, high voltages (>2kV), welding, dangerous tools, handling dangerous liquids (HF and similar), etc. I've never hurt myself. That's enough background to know not to do things before I know how to do them safely.

⬐ h2odragon

Another classic: https://archive.org/details/milmanual-tm-31-210-improvised-m...

⬐ lazide

Small rocket engines can be made with some pyrodex, dowels, and cardboard tubes.

Most high explosives involve nitric acid of decent concentration.

It’s hard to make them in quantities small enough to be actually not dangerous, especially since many of the compounds will react with all sorts of normal everyday substances (like aluminum, copper, etc) to form even more unstable compounds.

Some of them can even explode on exposure to light.

The two are not in the same ballpark. I wouldn’t recommend high explosive synthesis without a solid grounding in organic and inorganic chemistry.

Even a pea sized portion of these compounds can remove a finger or part of a hand, or blind you.

If you still want to know more ‘The Chemistry of Powders and Explosives’ is a good read.

⬐ lazide

Since I can't edit anymore - ISBN-13 is 978-0913022009, ISBN-10 is 0913022004

Published in '43, so won't have some of the newer exotics, but comprehensive regardless. Sometimes hard to find, but Amazon has new hardcovers for $20. Don't blow your hands off.

⬐ carapace

Dr. Sidney Alford, what a delightful old monster. There is something perverse in such a sweet person designing such terrible weapons.

(One might object that we need weapons, and in practice I agree, however for us as a species to be capable of this intelligence, capable of learning and using physics to such sophisticated and elegant deadly effect, and yet not smart enough to find ways to never use them, and never to have to use them, is a kind of horror.)

⬐ allturtles

For anyone else who was intrigued and wanted to see more, I found the full documentary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1_sMaMcLG8

Presumably this is of dubious legality, but I can't find any official way to view it online in the U.S., or any recorded media form you can buy.

⬐ etaioinshrdlu

Is there a diagram of the setup? I find the video pretty confusing to watch.

⬐ Jabbles

https://makeagif.com/gif/shaped-charge-NMFryy

⬐ taf2

Sidney Alford was amazing and definitely missed RIP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Alford

⬐ emmelaich

Appears to be from a series bbc.co.uk/bang

⬐ mhh__

The show was called bang goes the theory.

⬐ pueblito

Now I want to look into 3d printed explosives

⬐ formerly_proven

https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/uk-defence-agency-plans-...

⬐ chemeril

Several US national labs have been developing 3D-printed explosives technology for a bit now. Pretty crazy business that is (surprisingly) safer than doing large machining operations on bulk HE.

⬐ fartcannon

Thats a really good way to get on a list.

⬐ a9h74j

Pro tip: you'll want to splurge on that second overtemperature limit on your heated bed.

⬐ somat

Got to admit, I was hoping they would dig the copper jet out of the sand.

⬐ puskavi

I feel like this is really all about acoustics

⬐ stjohnswarts

lol I think I'm on a list now for watching that :)

⬐ swayvil

Bad ass.

Momentum trumps substance.

⬐ holly76

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⬐ javert

If you were wondering what inspired the accents of fictional pirates and witches in movies and TV shows, now you know.

⬐ Maursault

In principle, I think this is how we defeat invading aliens. Production value of this piece is interesting. It kind of seems like an infomercial for PE4.

⬐ londons_explore

This is just a few dollars worth of copper and explosives.

Attach it to a few tens of dollars worth of drone. (The cheapest drones are under 10 dollars now).

A country could release 1000 of these and direct them at any military target, and they'll do massive amounts of damage at very low costs.

Most anti-drone defences can be defeated simply with a redesign of the drone (eg. Use UWB for Comms, and have dual gyros and use a camera for location instead of GPS).

I think the only reason we haven't seen this on the battlefield yet is that we haven't yet had a war between the right countries. But we will.

⬐ ChuckMcM

And you have just described the AeroEnvironment Switchblade 600 drone. According to Drive they haven't actually been deployed in Ukraine yet but they are on the list apparently. The smaller 300 has been deployed apparently but it doesn't carry a shaped charge, instead it carries an antipersonnel charge. More of a flying hand grenade kind of deal.

⬐ a9h74j

It's all fun and games until you realize your country has no deniability about being at war with Russia.

⬐ blip54321

I think the line is when your troops shoot their troops.

Providing weapons has been a US-Soviet past time for the whole Cold War.

In this case, I think the US could have even moved in troops without being at war, early in the invasion. It just needs a pretext. By far the best response a week in, when Russia claimed chemical weapons, Nazis, etc., would have been to send in a multilateral force to investigate Russia's claims. It's face-saving for the Russians and ends the war.

Tensions are too high for that now.

⬐ londons_explore

If you look on various dating apps big in Ukraine right now, you'll see there are a lot of Americans new to Ukraine right now.

I've got a feeling we might be pulling a Russia... Ie. None of our troops are there officially, bit there's an awful lot of troops volunteering and 'on holiday' and 'advising' there.

⬐ appletrotter

Foreign legions are also a standard thing with this.

⬐ nradov

The Soviet Union never hesitated to supply weapons to North Vietnam when our country was at war with them. Turnabout is fair play.

⬐ ChuckMcM

It is weird right? And yet it isn't either. Selling weapons to people so they can vanquish their enemies has been a time honored tradition. If we were less invested in which side won, I wouldn't be surprised to see companies selling to both sides, because business is business right?

There are "rules" (and by rules I mean what is interpreted as "participating" vs "supporting" in a conflict that have been established and enforced for well over a thousand years. And supplying weapons has been firmly established in the 'supporting' category not the 'participating' category.

This conflict is illustrating a lot of things that haven't been seen since the cold war, which is an opportunity to learn new things about how the world works if you haven't seen it before.

The next interesting step happens when this conflict settles out, what does it look like.

⬐ secondcoming

The CIA gave stinger missiles to the Taliban when the Soviets were in Afghanistan. The Russians gave military hardware to the North Vietnamese when the USA was there.

Arming your enemy's enemy is nothing new.

⬐ qbasic_forever

Loitering anti-tank munitions are basically just that--a drone with shaped charges that fire down. Russia actually has a mine that detects the seismic profile of a tank rolling nearby, launches a drone (of sorts) into the air, and shoots a shaped charge right down into the tank (where there's very little armor compared to the sides): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqtFhqSNubY

⬐ formerly_proven

UA is literally dropping anti-tank grenades and other explosives from commercial/civilian drones as we speak.

⬐ jltsiren

Drones are effective, but nothing is ever cheap on the battlefield. While the warhead that ultimately kills the target is often cheap, the real cost comes from the system that picks the right target and delivers the warhead there at the right time.

Cheap commercial drones have a short range. In order to use them effectively on the battlefield, each drone needs an operator, who must also be on the battlefield. Those operators then need other people for watching their backs, coordinating their actions, and handling the logistics. Those 1000 cheap simultaneously launched drones are now an entire brigade on the battlefield, which is definitely not cheap.

⬐ denton-scratch

I envisage a swarm of say 50 cheap-ish drones with a "swarm leader", intercommunicating using some kind of short-range mesh radio. They'd be disposable, single-use. They could be launched by a squad of say, 10 men.

The swarm leader could be human-piloted or autonomous. Autonomy would be a matter of software and sensors; once you've invented it, it would be dirt-cheap to implement. A swarm of 50 would be enough to baffle air-defence systems capable of tracking multiple targets.

I have no idea if this exists, but it seems an obvious idea; if it doesn't exist, it must have been tried and found wanting.

⬐ KickKat

This guy made an autonomous drone swarm of 12 drones similar to what you describe.

The overral objective was for any drone within the swarm to immediately chase and ram into the first human it could locate. The processes were automated and could be triggered while unattended.

For reasons the video explains, letting 12 drones all try to independantly do the same thing at the same time was not going to work, so he came up with ghis structure.

1 server that processed the video feeds from the drones using AI trained to recognize humans/human faces 1 C&C computer that sent master commands and stuffs .... and maybe the computer flight code ...? 12 drones assigned to their own LAN making them a virtual group 4 of these drones were designated as flight leaders. They sent data from their cameras to the video processing server and recieved targetting results back. Sent target and flight instructions to the two drones assigned to them. 2 drones are assigned to each flight leader drone forming a single unit. They only communicate with their flight leader. They do what it does.

I know ... it isnt anywhere near what would be required for combat use, but come on... in the last test, his drones did what they were supposed to do; every single one of them automatically attacked the first human being they detected immediately. Better yet, they did it in unison. More better of all, all of them him.

This guy did this with cheap, off the shelf parts, by himself, during his downtime at home as a joke for Youtube.

https://youtu.be/Hu3p5ZR_i5s

⬐ imtringued

>during his downtime at home as a joke for Youtube.

I'm pretty sure this is how we are going to get sophisticated autonomous weapons. Everyone is screaming and shouting how dangerous they are and then some dude wants to get a quick laugh or prove everyone else wrong and inadvertently creates a high quality weapon.

⬐ ncmncm

The most effective use of drones so far in Ukraine has been to direct artillery fire, converting what was an area weapon to a precisely targeted weapon.

Just a couple of days ago, a single artillery brigade eliminated an entire tank battalion at a river crossing.

Generally, if you can wipe out the fuel trucks, they have to abandon the tanks. An ordinary grenade suffices to blow up a fuel truck.

⬐ ThrowawayR2

Then then drones meet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb5_F4_Eod8 or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drm3kdDYBI4 for which each round is even cheaper than the cheap drone it's aimed at and, snap, crackle, pop, no more drones.

⬐ Vladimof

Did you just upgrade the Slaughter bots? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

actually I think that you didn't because slaughter bots are trying to not cause any collateral damage

⬐ imtringued

The Syrian government drops thousands of barrel bombs and chemical weapons and nobody cares but jerry rig some explosives to a kids toy and suddenly everyone is scared.

⬐ natly

Not sure why you'd use drones rather than just tiny remote controlled model airplanes.

⬐ denton-scratch

What's the difference?

⬐ jhgb

Multicopters are mechanically simpler and capable of hovering. Kind of a win-win. The drawback is that the fixed wing plane may have longer endurance with a battery of a given size than a multicopter would, but if your communication range is limited for some reason, then this may not be relevant.

⬐ alkonaut

Something that carries say 1kg for any distance, is a pretty significant drone. The Dji Mavic pro can carry 1kg and is around $1k.

> I think the only reason we haven't seen this on the battlefield yet is that we haven't yet had a war between the right countries. But we will.

There are videos every day of Ukrainian drones dropping shaped charges like the Russian RKG-3/1600 from drones.

Ukraine even has special troops specialized in it, the Aerorozvidka (Google for the videos).

The reason they apparently aren’t bothered by anti drone efforts is because the Russian forces don’t seem to have the training and equipment for it, so regular drones work well enough (with selection bias of course - we don’t see the videos of the failed attacks).

It’s clear from that footage what an advantage it is to be able to drop 2 or 3 munitions since you can correct for wind if you miss the first, something you can’t do with a single drop.

The larger octocopters that can carry 5kg or more is probably what you want for the job. Some range, and at least 2 charges to drop.

⬐ sudosysgen

Antidrone warfare is very very difficult. They are small and go slow and are thus difficult to shoot down. See how Iraqi militias fly drones into US bases and how Hezbollah regularly flies drone into Israel unpunished (sometimes Israel even has to resort to fighter jets to shoot them down).

⬐ dragontamer

1kg is similar to smaller warheads in the AT4 anti-tank weapon.

But AT4 is not reliable, only 400mm of penetration and tanks can have 500mm or 600mm of armor. (Or really, equivalent to 500+mm once special materials or geometry is factored in).

To reliably kill a main battle tank requires a larger munition. Javelin is a 8kg warhead IIRC. This is because Javelin is tandem: two warheads. First warhead destroys reactive armor, 2nd warhead actually kills the tank with 900mm of penetration.

---------

For drones to be optimized on the battlefield will require specially designed drones and special warheads designed to fit in the cargo-capacity of drones.

Switchblade 300 is nice for example but is too small to reliably kill a tank.

Switchblade 600 can kill a tank, but no longer has the small and lightweight form factor that I'm sure the soldiers who have to carry this crap care about.

⬐ AdrianB1

You ignore that AT4 is fired at the main armor, while drone dropped munitions hit the top armor that is just a few centimeters. The impact point makes all the difference.

⬐ dragontamer

Sure, but Javelins (considered a very reliable weapon), is top-down AND 8kg of tandem charge of 900mm+ penetration.

I think NLAW is ~500mm of penetration and top-down. Its not too hard to make a top-down weapon these days, but it does add weight to the device.

--------

EDIT: I'm pretty sure that you can't just "drop" a mortar or AT4 warhead reliably either. You'd want to make it into the shape of... well... a bomb. So that the "shape" of the shape-charge points in the correct direction.

⬐ nradov

Mortar rounds are already the correct shape with fins to stabilize the flight path. Various irregular and insurgent forces have already weaponized the larger consumer drones with a rack that can release a single mortar round straight down. If the drone is hovering and there isn't much wind then the mortar round will fall straight down and detonate on impact. In some cases they may also have made minor modifications to the fuse mechanism in order to ensure reliable detonation when used in that mode. These weapons are very effective against lightly armored targets which lack effective air defenses or electronic countermeasures.

⬐ dragontamer

> If the drone is hovering and there isn't much wind then the mortar round will fall straight down and detonate on impact.

Dive bombing. These drones should be dive bombing. WW2 strategy to increase precision and placement of the bomb.

Only lesser-trained pilots glide-bombed or otherwise avoided dive-bombing in WW2.

I don't think the let-go at height maneuver is historically considered very good. By dive bombing, you set forward-momentum on the bomb and more accurately place it, compared to dropping it from a hover. The bomb also reaches its target faster, and the pilot has the ability to line-up the shot (especially useful if the enemy is a moving target).

I'm very much unimpressed by the "let go at height" videos, its just not good piloting IMO. But if these drones were dive-bombing instead, maybe I'd have a bit more respect. I'm not necessarily saying that the pilots have to dive-bomb, but maybe an AI could control that kind of pass.

⬐ someweirdperson

Aircaft with fixed wings have pretty stable fast forward motion. Diving makes use of that, and the initial speed and vector of the ordnance is the speed/vector of the aircraft. After deployment, high g is needed to avoid hitting the ground.

A multi-rotor drone (what the videos seem to be shot from) cannot fly fast, and cannot pull the high gees after drop. Dive bombing won't help much. Likely even a controlled flight into the target (kamikaze) would end up slower (final velocity) than just dropping, making the drone a much easier target for small arms fire than just the bomb alone.

Fixed wing drones - different story. Getting them back to the ground in a reusable way requires effort, simply flying into the target seems to make more sense. The big reusable ones usually carry self-guided amunitions.

A combination of remote controlled, fast, high payload, high-g capable, and reusable would likely not be cost-effective (losses to be expected in any case).

⬐ dragontamer

> A multi-rotor drone (what the videos seem to be shot from) cannot fly fast, and cannot pull the high gees after drop. Dive bombing won't help much. Likely even a controlled flight into the target (kamikaze) would end up slower (final velocity) than just dropping, making the drone a much easier target for small arms fire than just the bomb alone.

Every one of these drone-drop videos is several seconds between letting go of the bomb, and the bomb colliding with the target.

If they actually want these drones to reliably hit a moving target, or even a vehicle in combat, they'll need to do something.

That's a lot of hang-time and delay in these "drone drop" videos. Once the bomb is let go, there's going to be another 20+ to 30+ minutes before the drone operator is able to fly another drone into the field, and that's if the drone operator has a 2nd drone with him. Maybe it will be hours, or maybe the next chance to drop a bomb never comes ever again.

You really want to maximize the chance of striking the target with these operations. A huge number of WW1 and WW2 operations were summarized as "Flew for 4 hours, missed my bomb, flew home". You want to minimize that kind of thing.

Especially if these drones are considered somewhat expendable.

⬐ nradov

Dive bombing is a silly idea for rotorcraft. It just doesn't work aerodynamically.

Sophisticated militaries will strike moving targets with precision guided munitions. Generally either laser guidance with a designator mounted on the drone, or some kind of pattern recognition built into the bomb itself (could be optical, IR, or millimeter wave radar). For example, something like the GBU-44/B.

Poor militaries and insurgents will make do with whatever they can get. Either wait for the target to stop moving, or just lead it a little and hope.

⬐ nyolfen

> EDIT: I'm pretty sure that you can't just "drop" a mortar or AT4 warhead reliably either. You'd want to make it into the shape of... well... a bomb. So that the "shape" of the shape-charge points in the correct direction.

they have been dropping 60's-vintage anti-tank hand grenades with 3d printed stabilizers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RKG-3_anti-tank_grenade#Histor...

"220 mm penetration of RHA" which is plenty for top armor

⬐ dragontamer

> "220 mm penetration of RHA" which is plenty for top armor

I seriously doubt that. Almost all modern tanks have reactive-armor on top.

There's a reason why NLAW has 500+mm penetration AND top-down. NLAW is single-charge (no-tandem), to punch-through reactive armor requires a lot more penetration.

Let alone lol Javelin with top-down, 900mm+ penetration, and tandem charge.

I don't think 200mm or even 400mm is considered reliable today.

⬐ nyolfen

you should tell that to the RU tanks getting their lids popped:

https://youtu.be/tI5ABZPw9Us

not sure about nlaw but javelin also features a side targeting mode

⬐ dragontamer

> you should tell that to the RU tanks getting their lids popped:

And you should tell that to USA's and Britain's military, which have chosen 400mm penetration (AT4), 500mm top-down penetration (NLAW), and 900mm top-down + tandem penetration (Javelin).

200mm, even top-down, is significantly less than other anti-tank weapons. I presume that the militaries who made these modern weapons know what they're doing.

⬐ jhgb

> Almost all modern tanks have reactive-armor on top.

Well it's good for Ukraine then that Russia doesn't really have a lot of modern tanks.

> Let alone lol Javelin with top-down, 900mm+ penetration, and tandem charge.

A Javelin can engage tanks directly if they're obscured from above of if the distance to target is insufficient for flying on a top-down trajectory, and for those situations it needs the 900mm+ penetration (otherwise the direct attack mode would be unusable and would not be provided as a feature). So you can't make the inference that because Javelin has 900mm+ penetration, top-down attacks require 900mm+ penetration.

⬐ hunter-gatherer

In the US/Iraq war such contraptions were commonly referred to as EFPs (explosively formed penetrators). My platoon was once hit by a four-array EFP that was hung behind a cement wall (US forces would often line streets with barricades like this) so we couldn't see it. It went through the concrete wall, the humvee, and took some legs with it. Brutal things they were. We avoided prolonged truck excursions, but I remember we used to always sit with our arms and legs as staggered as possible--The thought being that if an EFP went through, you might get lucky and only lose one arm/leg instead of two. Of course it probably didn't help... but whatever.

⬐ earthbee

EFPs are similar but distinct from shaped charges. Shaped charges use a conical liner that forms a jet that is only really effective over a limited range, the liner on EFPs is usually flatter and is designed to form a projectile that is effective over much wider ranges.

⬐ magicalhippo

The dad of a childhood buddy was in our version of the rangers and mentioned they had made improvised shape charges (in his words) using a helmet filled with plastic explosives and a metal dinner plate as liner to form a shape charge.

When I got older I was thinking maybe he was telling some tall tales, but I guess this could work as an EFP.

⬐ sandworm101

That would totally depend on the metal. Some would just shatter. Too brittle a metal or too violent a charge and the 'penetrator' just becomes a shotgun of shrapnel flying out in all direction.

⬐ Retric

EFP’s are a type of shaped charge:

“An explosively formed penetrator, also known as an explosively formed projectile, a self-forging warhead, or a self-forging fragment, is a special type of shaped charge designed to penetrate armor effectively.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_formed_penetrator

⬐ jade-m

I think you mean the US invasion of Iraq

⬐ jakear

Vouched for this. Names are important, it’s disingenuous to suggest US and Iraq played an equal role in initiating the engagement.

Do we call it the Russia/Ukraine war or the Russian invasion of Ukraine?

⬐ jhgb

Both, since one is a part of the other. The way I get it, the major asymmetry between the two cases is that the US invasion of Iraq was the initial phase of the Iraq war (which had already ended), whereas the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the terminal (and current) phase of the Russo-Ukrainian war (which hasn't ended yet).

So if you're talking about these things today, it makes perfect sense to talk about the invasion in progress as it's the current event. If you bring up the Russo-Ukrainian war in a conversation, it's unclear about what part of the events since 2014 you're talking about, since presumably if you were talking about the current events, you'd be more specific. If you talk about the Iraq War, there can be no confusion with current events since it ended a decade ago.

⬐ kodah

Is it disingenuous to speak authoritatively on a subject that one doesn't bother to google? Is it also disingenuous to vouch for someone making an inflammatory comment intended on derailing discussion, especially when that discussion is threaded from someone reliving their experience with explosive projectiles?

⬐ 4gotunameagain

But is it inflammatory ? It is a crucial piece of context.

Ukrainian soldiers are praised right now for defending their country, while Russian ones vilified for invading.

One might think it is kind of reasonable to have an explosively shaped charge pointed at you when you're military on a foreign land ?

⬐ gpm

Flagged this, I agree names are important, but the tone and context make this flamebait IMHO. I do think it's borderline.

I also don't quite buy the argument - see jhgb's reply - but that's definitely not why I flagged it.

⬐ IMTDb

We call them : The Iraq War (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War) and the Russo-Ukrainian War (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War)

This is a discussion about a special kind of explosive and a first hand story on how it is used in a conflict. Leave politics aside.

⬐ account-5

> The Iraq War was a protracted armed conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 that began with the *invasion of Iraq by the United States–led coalition*...

Whilst I agree that the preceding comments are off topic with their own inflammatory agenda's I do think it's important in generally acknowledging the war was caused by a US led invasion based on lies.

Disclaimer: I fought there and lost people there, and after, but thankfully came out unscathed.

⬐ LoveGracePeace

"I do think it's important in generally acknowledging the war was caused by a US led invasion based on lies."

https://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcrip...

⬐ account-5

5 years and 1 president before the invasion.

⬐ treeman79

Do People forget that Iraq invaded another country? We kicked them out

⬐ leaflets2

Makes me wonder, back at the time, when you went there -- how much did you believe in what the politicians and military commanders said about weapons of mass destruction etc, if I may ask?

Sorry for the ones who died

⬐ InCityDreams

>Sorry for the ones who died

Combatants on both sides, obviously. Oh, and the civilians, too.

⬐ leaflets2

Yes

⬐ account-5

No, I don't think many people did. But as a soldier you don't have a choice, you go where you are told.

⬐ jokowueu

Just following orders ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders

⬐ account-5

Have you ever been in the military? I'm guessing not.

Glib though your answer is it hasn't been that long since people were shot for not following orders. And at 17-18 years old you're unlikely to question much you're told to do, especially after training/indoctrination. Most of the time I had no idea what I was actually doing or why, but when you end up having to fight for your life and those of your muckers you do what you must trying to survive. Trails come if you survive.

⬐ jokowueu

yes i have but it was mandatory conscription . My point still stands though .

I guess it's always a risk analysis if you will end up in the winning or losing team .

⬐ 12ian34

I think you mean the US invasion of Iraq under completely false pretences

⬐ bottled_poe

The politics are important to understand, but it’s insensitive to bring this up in the context of an individual soldier’s account of this situation. Like, great work with the virtue signalling, you’re very clever and informed. Maybe try reading the room a bit and being a bit more compassionate toward people who have no influence in these politics?

⬐ 4gotunameagain

I'm sorry, but when somebody tells you "we will ship you 7000 miles away to fight in a different continent" and you accept, you share at least some part of the responsibility.

There would be no wars without greedy politicians, but there would be no wars without soldiers too.

⬐ InCityDreams

I understand 'I'm sorry...' is a turn of phrase but it's absolutely not necessary here.

⬐ smokey_circles

None of that is salient.

Propaganda is an effective drag net. We're all susceptible to some form of it. Outright lying works more effectively than it should.

You're just looking for a morale high ground, no need to pretend otherwise.

⬐ bottled_poe

I hear where you are coming from, but the discussion is out of place, reeks of privilege and lacks perspective.

⬐ account-5

This and also is naive and knowledge of what a soldier is.

⬐ canadianfella

None

⬐ aasasd

I've seen and heard many things being said, but calling the Iraqi point of view ‘privileged’ is truly new.

⬐ unmole

Imagine a decade from now, a Russian soldier describes the horrors he lived through in the Special Military Operation in Ukraine. Sure, in a sense the Russian soldier too is a victim. But I don't think it would be inappropriate for a Ukranian to point out that it was in fact Russia invaded Ukraine.

⬐ jade-m

I understand where you're coming from. But as an Iraqi who have lived through the "war" and having several family members and close friends who were killed in the war (all civilians), I can't help but consider the objectivity in naming here as insensitive to the half-million Iraqis who were killed in the war. Not to mention destabilizing the middle east forever.

⬐ 127

What do you think about Saddam? If he was allowed to continue, would that not have destabilized the middle east? I'm not making an argument here, just honestly curious what you think about it.

⬐ jade-m

Saddam is a ruthless dictator, no question about it. The middle east has been already in chaos since Sykes–Picot and repeated international interventions were only making things worse. It's difficult to predict what would have happened had he stayed in power in particular with the Arab spring in 2011, but I don't think it would be this bad.

⬐ nradov

You need to look back a little further. The middle east has typically been in chaos at least since the fall of the Roman Empire.

⬐ canadianfella

None

⬐ nradov

The middle east has been unstable for thousands of years.

⬐ user_7832

(Not replying to you but in general to the others)

> as an Iraqi who have lived through the "war"

This is why it's never a great idea to assume anything and interested better to try to keep things neutral and reasonable.

⬐ root_axis

That sounds pretty scary. I hope you made it out ok.

⬐ tomcam

> explosively formed penetrators

That’s what my wife calls me. Just saying

⬐ hedgehog

Devious. The assassination of Alfred Herrhausen is I think the textbook example of this technique:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Herrhausen

⬐ this_steve_j

> When Herrhausen's motorcade approached the attack site, the lookout waited for the lead car to pass by the bike, then radioed to the terrorist in the bushes who quickly activated the beam. Herrhausen's vehicle broke the beam which triggered the electronic detonator in the bomb. The front of Herrhausen's car broke the beam at the precise moment the back right seat, where Herrhausen was sitting, was directly across from the bomb. The force of the explosion was aimed at where Herrhausen was sitting. The bomb was placed on a child's bike to match the height of the back right door of the armored vehicle. To develop this attack, the terrorists had to compute the speed of the car, the length of the car, and the height of the back right door. As his car passed the bike, at 8:34 a.m., the bike exploded and some 22 pounds of TNT propelled schrapnel through the right rear door, forcing a piece of the armored door into Herrhausen, pushing him across the back seat into the left door. The force of the explo- sion, which took place 3 feet away from the right rear door of Herrhausen's vehicle, threw the 2.8 ton armored vehicle across the street, approximately 82 feet. The driver was slightly injured.

https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/153346NCJRS.pdf

⬐ fsckboy

>To develop this attack, the terrorists had to compute the speed of the car...

if the explosive went off more or less instantly, the speed of the car would not matter, not that it would be difficult to estimate anyway.

⬐ simonebrunozzi

Please link to Desktop version of wikipedia articles [0], or articles in general.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Herrhausen

⬐ hedgehog

Apologies, too late to edit now.

⬐ sofixa

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

A few things stand out (spoilers of course) - the Chairman of Deutsche Bank had an armoured convoy with two vehicles with bodyguards. It makes sense seeing that someone was trying to kill him, but outside of that context it seems a lot. Most European politicians, including heads of state and government, have less today.

Second, he bled to death. I wonder what circumstances led to this, was the car too badly mangled and nobody could come to his aid? It's not something that happens instantaneously, i think, so there's some time to react. But maybe the blood loss couldn't be stopped ( severed legs, is there something that could be done? Would a tourniquet help?). No idea

⬐ saberdancer

It does say his legs were severed. So probably massive bleeding immediately and with the damage to the car, there was no chance to save him.

⬐ this_steve_j

The explosive device contained approximately 22 pounds of TNT, and detonated 3 feet away from the right rear passenger door.

⬐ fsckboy

a small point, but wikipedia says "The 7 kg bomb was hidden in a bag" which would be 15 lbs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Herrhausen#Assassinatio...

⬐ spiffistan

Also rather interesting that Vladimir Putin is thought to have been involved as the RAF handler, if those sources are veritable.

⬐ brazzy

> if those sources are veritable.

Those sources are pretty shit, honestly. One says the Red Army Faction claimed responsibility (this is not disputed). The other cites an (unnamed) "former Red Army Faction" claiming they had meetings with Putin, but makes no connection with the Herrhausen assassination.

⬐ zeristor

Also I heard on a History podcast, but can’t yet find any supporting evidence, that the Soviet Union funded the anti-nuclear power movement in West Germany leading to a dependence on Russian Gas.

Like I said if this is credible there should be some evidence, but I’d conjecture that perhaps Putin could have been part of that too

I’d have thought people would be crowing about that if it was the case.

⬐ Arnt

Extremely implausible.

The anti-nuclear movement wasn't driven by money. Still isn't. The organisations that wanted nuclear power used money, the ones against used people's time.

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/image/sz.1.3984639/1408x792

>1% of the population attended that demonstration, and demonstrations that big matter. But they're not a matter of payment. People weren't paid to go there, they didn't even have their travel costs reimbursed: You can't reimburse 100k people and hope to keep that secret. You can't even reimburse the ~5k organisers.

⬐ londons_explore

Even now, talking about it would lead to a quicker swing back to nuclear power hurting russia's interests.

⬐ dividedbyzero

Germany is already well on its way to try out renewables in earnest, so the anti-nuclear camp's arguments seem to have convinced a majority of the voters and environmentalists, socialists, conservatives all pushed this when in power. The arguments backing this wouldn't change, so I don't think such a revelation would have a big impact on German energy policy. Besides, the pro-nuclear camp has always had very deep pockets, so I guess whatever funds the Soviet Union/Russia might have provided would have at best/worst only leveled the playing field somewhat. Disclosing this might end some careers, though.

⬐ sofixa

In a similar vein, albeit with less geopolitics, Big Oil companies funded various environmental groups' anti-nuclear stances and protests, in order to solidify their grip on the energy market.

⬐ conradev

You have about three minutes for an arterial bleed. Perhaps less for two arterial bleeds. The proper technique would indeed to be tourniquet the legs, which you can do with anything (like strips of cloth) as long as you can make it tight enough.