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Old 03-29-2020, 08:17 AM   #31
MrFix
 
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Default Re: REF of Tannerite and other east to mix binary explosive?

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Originally Posted by Kfireblade View Post
Dose GURPS have a write up somewhere for binary explosives aside from ANFO, particularly Tannerite? If not dose anyone know about what the REF should be?
REF is not an in game value but real world value. An explosive "60% more effective than TNT" is REF 1.6 since TNT is REF 1

Tannerite is shown to be "45% less effective than TNT", hence REF 0.55. You can easily find out explosive power of virtually any materiel as long as such numbers exist in open sources.
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Old 03-29-2020, 10:08 AM   #32
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Default Re: REF of Tannerite and other east to mix binary explosive?

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I would call than an error. My own feeling is that the skills for making (Chemistry) and using (Explosives) explosives are as different as the skills for making (Bioengineering, Computer Programming, Engineer, etc.) and using (Physician, Computer Operation, Electronics Operation, etc.) any other technology. Something for me to fix in a putative future edition.
Reading the description, I agree. Making plastic explosives by taking normal explosives and blending them with a soft binder isn't too hard. Of course, knowing which explosive and which binder is the trick. However, unless you really need the ability to mould the explosives at the point of use, there's not much point doing this anyway.

For basic demolitions, etc., if I couldn't obtain commercial blasting explosives and had to make my own, I'd stick with ANFO. The ingredients are easy to get in vast quantity, and in some places you can still get the fertiliser in uncut form in quantity without having to show much proof of being a legit farmer. It's easy to make up and safe to do so, and is fairly safe to handle, etc. The hardest part is getting detonators that'll set it off reliably. It's not particularly powerful, but the solution (just use more) is usually acceptable unless you're humping everything long distances on foot.
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Old 03-29-2020, 12:42 PM   #33
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Default Re: REF of Tannerite and other east to mix binary explosive?

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That is why you do it once and think big. Don't arrange for your associates to "steal" a few kilos or tens of kilos at a time, as needed; arrange for them to make off with a few tonnes, which ought to be enough for quite a lot of demolition, and warehouse it somewhere uninteresting. Yes, there will be aggressive investigations, but they aren't magically more likely to succeed because more went missing; people might look harder for an important quantity, but they'll have just one "transaction" to trace, not dozens that establish a pattern.
The problem with that is that if you stole a shipment of commercial explosive with taggants, you've given law enforcement a perfect calling card at each and every site that you have to use breaching to enter a monster lair or a grenade, mine or satchel charge against some terrifying thing.

Not only can they connect every site in a dozen countries together* and thus know that what seems to be a minor noise complaint (because no remains were found at the site of an explosion in some out of the way place) is connected to several mass murders, but anyone found with some of the explosive from that lot is going to be a Person of Interest, if not a suspect, in many murder investigations.

That's a hell of a lot worse than being arrested for improper handling of commercial explosives that you are allowed to have at work, but not where you were arrested with them.

*Something that realistically just doesn't happen under ordinary circumstances (international law enforcement cooperation is orders of magnitude more complicated, slower and less useful than the movies present), unless you happen provide them with such a perfect hook to link the crime scenes together when the explosives are traced.

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Think of Walter White and friends stealing a tanker train worth of methylamine rather than trying to buy a few hundred millilitres at a time from supply houses. (Despite being about drugs, Breaking Bad is actually full of interesting possibilities for explosives thieves, users, and makers: specialized skill sets, vastly complicated secret labs, an obsession with purity, huge one-off thefts, support of a transnational cover conglomerate, transactions via burners and dead drops, etc. Replace "meth" with, say "RDX," and DEA adversaries with ATF adversaries, and make the end-user skill set "Explosives" instead of "being a drug addict.")
That's actually very good advice.

I'm thinking that any Monster Hunting organization that is going to operate for more than a few missions needs similar resources to Gus Fring. And if you can use commercial explosives that come without taggants, that's far preferable, of course, even if that reduces your effective REF.

I'm just not sure if you can get something between Tannerite at REF 0.55 and the REF 1+ commercial products that all come with taggants. I'm hoping Tovex (REF 0.8) might be the answer, but I'm not prepared to rule that they lack it just because the manufacturer website doesn't mention it. I'll have to do more research.

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
I would call than an error. My own feeling is that the skills for making (Chemistry) and using (Explosives) explosives are as different as the skills for making (Bioengineering, Computer Programming, Engineer, etc.) and using (Physician, Computer Operation, Electronics Operation, etc.) any other technology. Something for me to fix in a putative future edition.
Excellent.

That allows me to distinguish realistically between the military trained explosives experts who have very high Explosives (Demolitions) and the enthusiasts who might have similar training, but also have a point in Chemistry (Optional Specialization: Explosives) and maybe a couple of points in Explosives (Fireworks). One PC has just this skill set, because he grew up with a favorite 'uncle' who was a Hollywood pyrotechnic expert and worked summers with him, as well as having always been fascinated with blowing things up.
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Old 03-29-2020, 03:41 PM   #34
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Default Re: REF of Tannerite and other east to mix binary explosive?

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Originally Posted by Icelander View Post

The problem with that is that if you stole a shipment of commercial explosive with taggants, you've given law enforcement a perfect calling card at each and every site that you have to use breaching to enter a monster lair or a grenade, mine or satchel charge against some terrifying thing.
This is true. On the other hand, you could engineer things so that, to all appearances, whoever stole the bulk lot is selling parcels to random criminals and troublemakers. I'm pressing this point hard (work through cutouts, develop contacts, engineer covers, etc.) because I think social manipulation is underrepresented in action genres. :)

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I'm thinking that any Monster Hunting organization that is going to operate for more than a few missions needs similar resources to Gus Fring.
When I ran my action-oriented campaign, I ended up going with an organization with resources closer to Merck & Co. The idea was to have such a huge and powerful global conglomerate that millions of dollars and entire truckloads of cargo could just get lost in the round-off error. Given all the things real-world transnationals have successfully covered up for years (up to and including killing entire villages with toxic waste), I find "a huge conglomerate can equip and hide the operations of a private army" easier to believe than "unnatural monsters exist," so I can't see it harming willing suspension of disbelief in a monster-hunting campaign.

So to push my Breaking Bad callout: At least "all of Madrigal Electromotive GmbH, not just Los Pollos Hermanos and not just the bits Lydia Rodarte-Quayle knows about."
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Old 03-30-2020, 08:23 AM   #35
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Default Re: REF of Tannerite and other east to mix binary explosive?

How easy would it be process out or alter the taggants from a finished explosive, as opposed to manufacturing the explosive itself? What if you add another taggant, perhaps in higher concentrations than the first as a way to "override" it?
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Old 03-30-2020, 10:34 AM   #36
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Default Re: REF of Tannerite and other east to mix binary explosive?

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How easy would it be process out or alter the taggants from a finished explosive, as opposed to manufacturing the explosive itself? t?
I would expect it to be definitely harder. You'd ahve to break everything down to a liquid state and then run it through a very fine filter and finally return it to a usable (and stable) solid state.

Spoofing the forensics guys with fake taggants sounds hard too. Mostly because of lack of legitimate access to taggants. Counterfeiting taggants is probably rather hard also.

There may be problems with taggants in the future as taggants are as nearly indestructible as TL8 can make. So "old" taggants never go away. They just get more and more scattered. They'll only show up in very small concentrations compared to taggants from the incident in question but the forensics people will have to screen all taggants found and exclude the contamination by statistical means. The more legitimate use of material with taggants there is the faster you hit contamination problems.
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Old 03-30-2020, 11:00 AM   #37
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Default Re: REF of Tannerite and other east to mix binary explosive?

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How easy would it be process out or alter the taggants from a finished explosive
Assuming you don't consider liquids to be finished, very hard. Think of it as trying to remove dye from modeling clay, except the clay can explode.
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Old 03-30-2020, 02:37 PM   #38
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Default Taggants in Explosives

I can find court cases from 1979 onwards where taggants were cited, including taggants in Tovex 220. It seems that they've been added on a massive scale to commercial explosives in the US since 1970. However, Switzerland is the only country to require taggants for all explosives manufactured there, since 1980.

Countries that ratified the International Civil Aviation Organization’s Convention on Plastic Explosives from 1991 legislated or regulated the manufacture and sale of plastic explosives, requiring, among other things, physical taggants. The US gradually adopted that, as far as I can determine, between 1996-2002, with local laws and regulations, Presidential findings, federal regulations and eventually the Safe Explosive Act of 2002.

All of which tells me that you can still buy explosives in the US without taggants, as long as they are not legally defined as plastic explosives. However, because some types of commercial explosives have taggants added voluntarily by manufacturers (and this was secret to the buyers in several court cases I read), you'd need some relevant skill to know which types were taggant-free.
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