REF of Tannerite and other east to mix binary explosive?

[Kfireblade]

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?

[Anthony]

Quick googling suggests a REF of 0.55 for tannerite, so marginally better than ANFO. Probably safer to work with though, priorities for civil explosives tend to be ease of use, price, and safety, not bang for the weight.

[Icelander]

What kind of REF is reasonable to expect for the explosives that an enthusiast in the modern US can buy or make for themselves?

Is Tannerite at REF 0.55 the best option to make their own breaching charges for well-funded Monster Hunters with access to anything that civilian security companies and/or mining companies might buy?

Assuming that they don't want to be arrested as terrorists or buy black-market explosives.

GURPS High-Tech allows you to make your own plastic explosives with a roll against Chemistry or Explosives (Demolitions).

What kind of equipment do you need to do this without penalties and is any of it the kind of stuff that gets you put on watch lists? What do you need for +1 or +2 equipment bonus to skill?

Realistically, do you need any materials that are strictly controlled in the modern US to make plastic explosives?

In a harshly realistic campaign, would plastic explosives made by someone with Explosives (Demolitions) at skill 14-15 be identical to military plastic explosives if the character made his skill roll?

Or might it be realistic to have the REF and/or Malf. be slightly worse than plastic explosives you can buy, at least if they are made without a high-tech factory?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

GURPS High-Tech allows you to make your own plastic explosives with a roll against Chemistry or Explosives (Demolitions).

What kind of equipment do you need to do this without penalties and is any of it the kind of stuff that gets you put on watch lists? What do you need for +1 or +2 equipment bonus to skill?

Realistically, do you need any materials that are strictly controlled in the modern US to make plastic explosives?

In a harshly realistic campaign, would plastic explosives made by someone with Explosives (Demolitions) at skill 14-15 be identical to military plastic explosives if the character made his skill roll?

Or might it be realistic to have the REF and/or Malf. be slightly worse than plastic explosives you can buy, at least if they are made without a high-tech factory?

There are a bunch of concepts tangled together here. Combing them out will take a couple of posts.

"Plastic explosives" invariably consist of an actual explosive substance mixed with "plasticisers", which make a chemical substance, usually crystalline, behave like modelling clay. The plasticiser also cushions the explosive against impacts, making it harder to set off accidently.

Plastic explosives came into use during WWII, where their moldability was excellent for sabotage (wrapping explosive round something you want to break lets you do the job with less explosive), and made them easier to conceal. Their long shelf lives (plasticiser probably prevents the explosive substance from reacting with air) were also very convenient. But ordinary Army engineers still used TNT for most jobs. It was cheaper.

A new generation of explosive substances, mainly RDX, became readily producible at the time that plastic explosives were being invented. They were used for plastique, because they were more powerful than previous explosives, so you could supply your commandos and saboteurs with less weight of explosive and still get the job done.

That's why people think of plastic explosives as being more powerful: they are, but because they are based on a better explosive, rather than because being "plastic" adds to their power in itself. It does make them easier to use effectively for blowing up objects, but if that isn't the problem, you can just use more of an older and cheaper explosive.

Making a plastic explosive requires the appropriate explosive substance, the stuff you need to mix it with, and a means of doing the mixing. Wikipedia's article about C4 describes the process. You could do it by hand for a small quantity if you have steady nerves, or Overconfidence, and you'll probably only get an explosion on a critical failure.

It's notable that terrorists don't try to do this. They need explosions for political purposes, rather than practical demolition, and try to minimise their handling of explosives.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Icelander

What kind of REF is reasonable to expect for the explosives that an enthusiast in the modern US can buy or make for themselves?

Depends on how much they want, what skills they have, what legitimate reasons they have for wanting those chemicals, and how worried they are about blowing themselves up. There's nothing particularly special required to produce nitroglycerine (RE 1.5).

Originally Posted by Icelander

Realistically, do you need any materials that are strictly controlled in the modern US to make plastic explosives?

You need materials that will attract attention if procured in large quantities. You also need skills that will be hard to obtain without being a professional rather than an enthusiast, stuff that's high RE is generally also really good at killing amateurs experimenting with it.

[johndallman]

The plasticiser, binder, and so on for plastic explosives are industrial chemicals with other uses. If you buy a lot of them and you aren't a chemicals company, questions may be asked, but the explosive substances are the thing that people really worry about.

DIY nitroglycerine is a bad idea. TNT is much safer, and RDX is almost as safe, once made, and more powerful.

To make TNT, you need toluene, which is a common industrial chemical, and lots of nitric and sulphuric acids. Wikipedia has industrial and lab-scale processes. Making small quantities, up to a kilogram or so, would use the lab process, and is plausible on a Chemistry roll, with a critical failure being an explosion and a failure being a fire, acid spill, or explosion with enough time to run away.

TNT isn't used in any plastic explosives, but it is easy and fairly safe to melt and cast it. Again, note that terrorists don't make TNT: it's dangerous unless you're a skilled chemist. It's also readily picked up by explosive-sniffers, which detect the nitrogen compounds that evaporate slowly from many explosives.

To make RDX, you need formaldehyde, ammonia and lots of nitric acid. The Woolwich process is probably the easiest to do on a small scale. Making a small quantity would be like making small quantities of TNT.

RDX is used in many plastic explosives, and terrorists don't try to make it. Explosive-sniffers will find it easily.

Acetone peroxide used to be a favourite terrorist explosive, because it contains no nitrogen, and thus did not show on older explosives-sniffers. It isn't hard to make, but it is very dangerous, prone to exploding of its own accord.

[Icelander]

I'm mainly considering this in the context of people who were Engineer Sergeants (18C) in USASF, breachers in the Navy SEALs or other SOF unit and/or have otherwise had demolitions training in a military context.

Now they are technically civilians (or possibly reservists) and do not have legal access to military explosives, but require breaching charges and explosives for various other, Monster Hunting related purposes.

They can have access to cover companies involved in mining or even Hollywood pyrotechnics, as well as quite a lot of money, but obviously, they don't want anything they are not legally allowed to have, but have to use to destroy a monster, to be traced back to these companies by forensics science. So, unless the world was likely to end otherwise, they'd try to use nothing that comes with forensic tags or is only available through very hard-to-get special licenses.

We're talking Explosives (Demolitions) at skill 14+, with some experts possibly having skill 16+. It should be possible to employ people with Chemistry 14+, if necessary, but I'm also interested in what former SOF demolition experts could do on their own.

[Dalillama]

If you want Gelignite, you can put it together in a home lab from easily obtained materials, but it'll take some time, because you'll need to refine some and combine others to make the reagents you'll need to make the actual explosive. Any University trained chemist could do it with $2000 worth of equipment, a space to work, and a powerful disregard for their own safety. That stuff's about as strong as dynamite, but moldable and more stable. RDX is gonna need some harder to come by materials that'll probably get you on a list if you buy in quantity, and also probably some specialized knowledge; I'm not sure what, I don't know offhand how to make that stuff.

[Anthony]

Also, fuel-air explosives don't require any particularly interesting chemicals, the hard part is making it actually detonate effectively.

High RE is not terribly important to the purposes you mention. Also, don't forget incendiaries, napalm-like substances are very easy to make.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Also, fuel-air explosives don't require any particularly interesting chemicals, the hard part is making it actually detonate effectively.

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?

Originally Posted by Anthony

High RE is not terribly important to the purposes you mention.

Yeah, I think a lot of what I want can easily be done with REF 0.8 to 1.2, in that region.

REF 0.55 might be sub-optimal for actually blowing up monsters, but depending on how risky it is to get anything else, it might make sense. You can literally get Tannerite at Walmart.

I'm trying to get a feel for what kind of explosives someone very fond of explosives, who used to be breaching specialist in the military, might arrange to have in a civilian capacity.

Would he buy them?

Would he make them?

Or arrange to have his employer hire someone to make them?

And what kind of REF is reasonable for something that would be fairly easy to handle, safe and available to a private security contractor... who also happened to be an innovative hillbilly who likes blowing stuff up.

I mean, I know he plays with Tannerite, because that's available at Walmart, but how reasonable is it to increase the effective REF from there?

Originally Posted by Anthony

Also, don't forget incendiaries, napalm-like substances are very easy to make.

Very good point.

Napalm-like and thermite-like incendiaries are definitely something Monster Hunters might need on occasion.