REF of Tannerite and other east to mix binary explosive?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Icelander

So with access to the kind of equipment that a petrochemical company might plausibly acquire and the services of university-educated chemists with flexible attitudes toward the law, you might obtain perfectly serviceable FAE that is not traceable to any buyer or source?

A petrochemicals company has perfectly legitimate access to commercial explosives, though you'll need someone covering up the fact that some of it is being redistributed to unofficial uses.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Anthony

A petrochemicals company has perfectly legitimate access to commercial explosives, though you'll need someone covering up the fact that some of it is being redistributed to unofficial uses.

I know that some commercial explosives are sold with taggants to allow forensics at crime scenes to trace exactly what lot they came from. I don't know what kind of explosives you can get without such taggants, but I imagine that Monster Hunters would rather accept lower REF or even having to manufacture less effective explosives than they could buy through cover companies if the alternative is eventual exposure.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I know that some commercial explosives are sold with taggants to allow forensics at crime scenes to trace exactly what lot they came from.

Some, but it doesn't seem to be universal. The oil industry uses explosives on an industrial scale for mining purposes, and might well just manufacture it in-house.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Some, but it doesn't seem to be universal. The oil industry uses explosives on an industrial scale for mining purposes, and might well just manufacture it in-house.

Do you know what kind of explosives that would be and what REF a fairly safe and easy to handle variety might have?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Do you know what kind of explosives that would be

http://www.eurenco.com/content/explo...as-extraction/ for example.

[Pursuivant]

Agricultural anhydrous ammonia is readily available from farm supply companies in virtually any farming area of the U.S. It is mainly regulated because it can be used as a precursor for methamphetamines.

In small (up to c. 1 kg) quantities, it's easy to get black powder and its modern substitutes for historical style guns. It's also not that hard to get similar quantities of smokeless powder.

Natural gas and propane is readily available. Natural gas and propane explosions are legal in some states for dealing with agricultural pests. Noisy airbursts are used to scare away birds. Gas pumped into burrows and ignited is used to destroy gopher and ground squirrel colonies.

All are good for low-explosive blasting.

High explosives are much more tightly regulated, especially after 1995. Rather than illicit DIY, it's probably better to just get a sufficiently high level blasting license, buy what you need legally, and then divert some of it for illicit purposes. That gives you ready access to dynamite and blasting caps. Unless you're using it in urban areas or are otherwise endangering the public, law enforcement might turn a blind eye. An ex-SEAL shouldn't have any problems getting some sort of blasting license as part of his transition from military to civilian life. Either treat it as a part of Explosives skill or as a Perk.

For that matter, with a sufficiently good cover story and sufficient lead time, it might be possible to legitimately use high explosives to blast monster lairs in remote locations. Just disguise any blasts as as construction site preparation, stump removal, test bores for oil prospecting, mining or demolition operations, or movie special effects.

Keep in mind that, like guns, different counties and states have their own restrictions on explosives use - generally stricter in the West Coast and Northeast states and in cities. Even small explosive devices like firecrackers are illegal without a license those areas. Rural and more politically conservative areas are more concerned about explosives as potential fire hazards and noise problems.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

For that matter, with a sufficiently good cover story and sufficient lead time, it might be possible to legitimately use high explosives to blast monster lairs in remote locations. Just disguise any blasts as as construction site preparation, stump removal, test bores for oil prospecting, mining or demolition operations, or movie special effects.

Although many regulators will want to have a sign off from the property owner and a preliminary site inspection, which the monsters living there may not cooperate with.

But yeah, if you work with a monster hunting operation that has a few million dollars to spare for constructing cover stories, it's certainly easier and safer to build a reasonable cover than to acquire explosives illicitly. I strongly recommend a secret monster hunting (or similar operation) buy some subsidiaries - a machine shop, a special effects studio, a heavy equipment rental business, a travel agency, a logistics or import/export business, and an engineering/architectural consulting firm for example. These don't need to be very expensive - good enough to land *some* outside jobs, but not necessarily good enough to be successful without agency funds propping them up. But you do need a big operation (or a multimillionaire patron) for this sort of thing, constructing a plausible cover is more of a problem if you're a freelancer.

[Kromm]

If you have generous funding and a strong cover for buying high explosives legally, then you have the administrative resources and social contacts to engineer a "someone broke in and stole 100 kg of high explosives" tall tale and make it stick. That makes the taggant/traceability issue a nonissue: The explosives were of known origin, but were stolen and used by unknown parties.

What's important is to make sure that those using the explosives (the "thieves") are a few removes from those pitching the lie – not coworkers, employees, family, members of the same church, or other known associates. Otherwise, the inevitable investigations will turn them up.

But a well-financed front outfit that secretly bankrolls monster-hunters should already be dealing with them via dead drops and burner phones . . . Leaving a door unlocked and sending a burner-to-burner text "Tonight" isn't realistically traceable.

—

As for "what soldiers can do": I knew people who worked with explosives in the military. As a kid, I just had to ask questions. Perhaps they were lying, but the impression they gave me was that the regular forces do not train troops in producing explosives from raw ingredients, only in using commercially manufactured explosives.

Even adapting artillery shells or other explosives intended for non-demolitions purposes wasn't in the training of ordinary troops. "Only special operators learn that stuff."

I was given the strong impression that even special operators don't learn how to cook explosives from scratch, as a general rule. It's too dangerous, too slow, and too obvious.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I was given the strong impression that even special operators don't learn how to cook explosives from scratch, as a general rule. It's too dangerous, too slow, and too obvious.

As someone who loved organic chemistry, that sounds reasonable. You need a lot carefully controlled temperature or things will explode and if you do things too quickly... well, again with the explosions.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Kromm

If you have generous funding and a strong cover for buying high explosives legally, then you have the administrative resources and social contacts to engineer a "someone broke in and stole 100 kg of high explosives" tall tale and make it stick. That makes the taggant/traceability issue a nonissue: The explosives were of known origin, but were stolen and used by unknown parties.

If necessary, yes.

However, if you do that every time you need to blow something up, you're drawing a lot of attention to all your cover companies. Unless it's for something where the best possible explosives are absolutely vital, I can see many Monster Hunters, even quite well-funded ones, preferring completely untraceable explosives, even if that means a lower REF.

I just don't know what REF is reasonable for that. I know that Tannerite is literally sold at Walmart for REF 0.55 and no way of tracing it, at all. And no one stopping a heavily armed guy with it in the South will be able to arrest him, as long as he has a CHL for his weapons, because Tannerite is something real rednecks actually use to blow up stuff in rural areas, for fun, when they go shooting.

What's the next level up from that? Something you can buy or make without necessarily having it traced back to you? Something that might not be the most powerful explosive available at late TL8, but is considerably better than black powder and can actually work as a breaching charge or as the blasting agent in a satchel charge with silver shrapnel?

Originally Posted by Kromm

What's important is to make sure that those using the explosives (the "thieves") are a few removes from those pitching the lie – not coworkers, employees, family, members of the same church, or other known associates. Otherwise, the inevitable investigations will turn them up.

But a well-financed front outfit that secretly bankrolls monster-hunters should already be dealing with them via dead drops and burner phones . . . Leaving a door unlocked and sending a burner-to-burner text "Tonight" isn't realistically traceable.

Over the years, these connections will mount up. Hence, ideally, as little actually illegal activity as possible.

Just don't get caught actually killing monsters. And never travel anywhere with stolen explosives, unless it's literally the only way to save the world or a significant part of it. Try to use all the contacts and wealth you have to obtain explosives that won't be traced to anyone.

Originally Posted by Kromm

I was given the strong impression that even special operators don't learn how to cook explosives from scratch, as a general rule. It's too dangerous, too slow, and too obvious.

I agree, which is why it seemed fairly odd that normal Explosives (Demolitions) skill included the ability to make plastic explosives at full skill, according to High-Tech.

I'd think that making explosives was a separate skill from the science of deploying them safely and effectively.

That being said, it's a skill that apparently some people who are drawn toward a career in breaching and military engineering do learn. I've read more than one biography of an USASF Engineer Sergeant, SEAL breacher or other SOF demolitions expert who spent his teen years blowing up stuff and joined up for the opportunity to do that legally.