Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Bruce gyro@********.co.za
Subject: Fuel Air Bombs : Another question?
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 11:27:57 +0200
So if I piy thogther something along the lines of an insect sprayer,
maybe with a 10 litre can full of kerosene, pumped it up real hard and
left to spray in a room, then set up a timed flare or incendiary
grenade and ran like hell, what do you guys think would happen to the
room?

Would this tactic work outdoors? In an alley for example?

Thanks for all the replies

-- BRUCE <gyro@********.co.za>

<hard@****>

Theres nothing like a netfight
Everything is True
Nothing is Forbidden
Message no. 2
From: GMPax@***.com GMPax@***.com
Subject: Fuel Air Bombs : Another question?
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 05:37:59 EDT
In a message dated 4/15/99 5:33:14 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
gyro@********.co.za writes:

> So if I piy thogther something along the lines of an insect sprayer,
> maybe with a 10 litre can full of kerosene, pumped it up real hard and
> left to spray in a room, then set up a timed flare or incendiary
> grenade and ran like hell, what do you guys think would happen to the
> room?
>
> Would this tactic work outdoors? In an alley for example?
>
> Thanks for all the replies

In a room, with a proper fogger sort (not ANY bug can, but a "bug bomb" type
perhaps, and only wanted 0.25 to 0.5 liters of fuel dispersed ... >boom<.

The problem with the 10L is, by the time you get the second liter _started_
the first liter has precipitated back out of the air. The bug spray can idea
just won't work _fast_ enough.

As for outdoors, well, on a totally windless day it'd work fine, but
introduce even the sliughtest breeze and, AGAIN, the bug spray just isn't
fast enough: it will take that can some 5 minutes to put a half liter of fuel
into the air, so, you'd end up with a problem in a breeze.

MIND you, with a LOT of these bug-bomb style dispersers, carefully arrayed
upwind of the target ... I can see this working moderately well.

It'd be more efficient, IMO, to just use conventional explosives, though.

Sean
GM Pax
Message no. 3
From: Gossamer kajohnson@*******.tec.wi.us
Subject: Fuel Air Bombs : Another question?
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 07:05:02 -0500
Well, it's been a long time since I've posted anything,
so I might as well jump in on something clean...

>what do you guys think would happen to the room?
>
>Would this tactic work outdoors? In an alley for example?

It is my understanding that this is the type of bomb
used on the World Trade Center in New York, USA however
many years ago.

They had cylinders of some flammable material that they
let spread within and from their delivery vehicle. At
a set time, the ingition and booster systems of the
weaon went off, and if it weren't for good ol' American
engineering (read 'blind luck') the tower would've
collapsed.

The building containing your room (especially if it were
a semi-used, interior room like a maintanence closet
with no windows) would be gone.

Btw, I recommend a lighter fuel than kerosene for your
atomized component (naptha is a good choice), and the
booster should be something that burns slowly (Ammonium
Nitrate (most industrial fertilizers) soaked in kerosene
(this booster of which I speak burns almost exactly at
the speed of sound, and makes one hell of a pressure
wave. Less than 10, 55-gallon drums of this stuff, set
with a well-timed, shaped detonation all but destroyed
the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA a
few years ago.

If you add the slow burning booster to your atomized
main agent, it helps to make sure all of you agent is
used up thus assuring maximum energy transfer.

But I'm not a terrorist, I just think like one...


Gossamer, alive and in the shadows

Oh, btw, it is my considered opinion that the mid-sized
FAE weapon in the US arsenal is a lot more potent that
the 18k pound Daisy Cutter that was mentioned before.

Remember, it's the pressure wave that does the damage.
And for a good pressure wave, you want a slow burning
agent.

The large sized FAE weapons are really scary. They are
measure in multiple kilotons of TNT just like nukes.

I checked my copy of Jane's (buy them if you have the
cash to afford the insanely high price), and the largest
listed FAE weapon weighs in at 7 kilotons (roughly a
third of the size of the Hiroshima bomb). And Jane's
claims that the US probably has larger ones.
Message no. 4
From: Fhaolan arkemp@*****.ca
Subject: Fuel Air Bombs : Another question?
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 07:29:53 -0700
At 07:05 AM 4/15/99 -0500, you wrote:

>Btw, I recommend a lighter fuel than kerosene for your
>atomized component (naptha is a good choice), and the
>booster should be something that burns slowly (Ammonium
>Nitrate (most industrial fertilizers) soaked in kerosene

This reminds me of a lecture I endured once as a Chemical Engineering
student, all about how nasty the stuff we worked with, was.

The worst industrial accident in North America took place in an empty
warehouse.

Well, technically it wasn't empty, but...

They were tearing down this warehouse, in order to build something else.
Eventually they got around to breaking up the concrete floor with
jackhammers. This turned out to be too much work, so they decided to use
small charges and blast the floor into chunks. So far, so good.
Unfortunately, nobody had bothered to ask what the warehouse used to contain.

Fertilizer and manure.

The 'concrete floor' was actually a foot or so of hardened, compacted
fertilizer.

The 'small charges' created a blast that took out the crew, the warehouse,
and all the buildings for several blocks around.

-Fhaolan
Message no. 5
From: GMPax@***.com GMPax@***.com
Subject: Fuel Air Bombs : Another question?
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 13:29:00 EDT
In a message dated 4/15/99 8:00:05 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
kajohnson@*******.tec.wi.us writes:

> I checked my copy of Jane's (buy them if you have the
> cash to afford the insanely high price), and the largest
> listed FAE weapon weighs in at 7 kilotons (roughly a
> third of the size of the Hiroshima bomb). And Jane's
> claims that the US probably has larger ones.

Odd, I thought hte Hiroshima bomb was a net of 2.5 kilotons, not 25kT? Are
you sure of the ratio there ... ? :-)

Sean
GM Pax
Message no. 6
From: Mongoose m0ng005e@*********.com
Subject: Fuel Air Bombs : Another question?
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 12:32:48 -0500
:So if I piy thogther something along the lines of an insect sprayer,
:maybe with a 10 litre can full of kerosene, pumped it up real hard and
:left to spray in a room, then set up a timed flare or incendiary
:grenade and ran like hell, what do you guys think would happen to the
:room?

:Would this tactic work outdoors? In an alley for example?
It would burn real nice, and there might even be a "whoosh" type
fireball, with a minor "eplosion"- but nothing near the effect of a FAE. It
would do very little outdoors, except make a nice bonfire. More important,
you would most likely not have a powerful shockwave- no hypersonic
combustion / high explosive effect.
The trick is, the fuel mixture has to be VERY complete, and the ignition
at the best possible moment, because you want to liberate ALL the enrgy in
the fuel, all at once. The concerns are very similar to those of combustion
of fuel in an automotive engine, which is poorly understood even today.
If you left open some gaseious fuel cylinders (propane, accetalyne, even
natural gas, though its by far the least potent), and preferably also some
oxegen cans, and ignited that, you'd get a big boom, though the effect
outside would be minor (the gass would disapate to fast to build up a
concentrated cloud). If you strapped some explosive charges to said
canisters, then had an ignition microseconds later, the effect would be even
better. If you computer designed the charges and timing, per adavnced
Demolitions knowledge, the effect would be optimal.
Note, however, that you don't need real rocket science- a common way to
add power to home built bombs is just to surround them with heating fuel and
or welding canisters- its not an optimal "fuel air bomb" effect, but the
fuel does produce more enrgy than the explosives alone. The Oaklahoma City
bombers and the World Trade Center bombers both used this tequnique, in
addition to thier home brewed high explosives.


:
:Thanks for all the replies
:
: -- BRUCE <gyro@********.co.za>
:
: <hard@****>
:
: Theres nothing like a netfight
: Everything is True
: Nothing is Forbidden
:
:
:

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Fuel Air Bombs : Another question?, you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!