01-13-2019, 07:55 AM | #131 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Modern Monster Hunting Guns [XM500, MICOR Leader 50, etc.]
'Proper' grenade fuses are likely to be a problem. Industrial high explosives range from quite low powered (ANFO - it's cheap and fairly safe) to as good as that used as filler in grenades (PETN, etc.). The good stuff it likely to be doped to make it easy to tell who made it, and thus make it easier to work out who supplied it to the people who used it, etc.
Casings, notched wire fragmentation coils, & etc. will be easy to make. They are not a problem. Note that if fragmentation is where you expected to get most of your wounding from, even a fairly weak explosive like ANFO or black powder will do.
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
01-13-2019, 09:34 AM | #132 |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
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Re: 'Home-made' Grenades and Other Ordnance
In most industrial applications, if you want a bigger boom you add more explosive. Yes, that seems obvious, but the lack of ability to do that (e.g. because it has to fit inside a warhead, or be carried by a complaining squaddie) is what drives military explosives to greater REF, which is basically just energy density.
I believe RDX shaped charges are commonly available for shattering recalcitrant rocks. As I understand it, you need a permit for commercial explosives even in the USA, but it shouldn't be too hard to arrange if there are appropriate industries in the portfolio. Why don't we see terrorists doing this stuff? Because making explosive devices that are two-way reliable (don't go off until you press the button, do go off when you do) is quite hard to get right. And again, if they can get a guy to the target wearing a dynamite vest, they don't need a smaller package to carry the same boom.
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01-13-2019, 09:51 AM | #133 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Sidearms for Monster Hunters (actually, also their security)
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The Kel-tec's grip is also skinny and hard and I heard one shooter compare firign it to catching a pitched baseball without a mitt.
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Fred Brackin |
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01-13-2019, 10:44 AM | #134 | ||
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: The plutonium rich regions of Washington State
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Re: Sidearms for Monster Hunters (actually, also their security)
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Luke |
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01-13-2019, 01:56 PM | #135 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: Sidearms for Monster Hunters (actually, also their security)
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01-13-2019, 02:12 PM | #136 | ||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: 'Home-made' Grenades and Other Ordnance
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Of course, the point that such explosives have tags and other methods to monitor if it turns up in the hands of terrorists and criminals is well taken. Of course, having a shipment disappear, allegedly into the hands of some revolutionary faction would not be too difficult, given that some of these companies are genuinely operating in areas with widespread violence and even civil wars.* Basically, the cover story they'd need is simply taking a real tragedy and changing a single line item on the report about it, i.e. the location of a store of explosives when an attack was made. The fuzes might be a bigger problem. I don't know how easy grenade and mine fuzes are to make if you can't buy obviously military things, but do have access to everything that construction, mining or petrochemical firms might need. It's been established that there is a highly skilled armorer on the Penemue, a former SAS man who became a gunsmith when he retired. Of course, his specialty is custom small arms and making small lots of custom match ammunition, not heavy weapons or explosives, but he's a gifted machinist and he did receive some explosive training in the regiment. Then there are two former combat engineers, one Navy SEAL and one French Foreign Legion. There's a fair chance that one of the as-yet-undetailed hunters might have a combat engineering or demolitions background, as well. I suppose I could roll dice on whether Kessler managed to recruit a highly skilled engineer skilled in demolitions, perhaps someone from his mining companies. What background would one need to be able to make professional quality fuzes? *Granted, at the time an insecure situation turns to civil war, they'd want to evacuate, but in the already established background, that hasn't always worked and employees of one of Kessler's mining concerns have been kidnapped and killed.
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01-13-2019, 03:22 PM | #137 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Modern Monster Hunting Guns [XM500, MICOR Leader 50, etc.]
It depends what kind of fuse, really. Your basic timed fuse for mining and demolition purposes will be dead-easy to get for a mining company, and plenty of people will know how to get them. They need not be super safe when set in the explosives, because that's only done as the final part of readying the charges.
Fuses for grenades are a different matter - they're set to a much shorter time (a few seconds rather than tens of seconds or even minutes), and need to be compact, easy to arm and actuate (ideally as part of the act of throwing them), yet safe and difficult to arm accidentally. If you're willing to have grenades that have to have their fuses lit, fireworks style, you'd just need an old-style fuse that's fast-burning and cut to the right length. I'm not sure if fuse of that sort of speed (inches per second, rather than either effective instant or many seconds per inch) is common these days. If it's not, then it'd have to be made. I'd say that this would be Explosives (Fireworks).
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
01-13-2019, 04:50 PM | #138 | ||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: Modern Monster Hunting Guns [XM500, MICOR Leader 50, etc.]
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A billionaire has had thirty years to consider the problem of how to acquire military style ordnance, for those exceptional cases when Monster Hunting cannot be done without going in really heavy. Well, actually, considering that before he set up the Monster Hunters, he had already spent thirty years employing mercenaries for illegal things in Africa and elsewhere, I expect that he had acquired the odd mortar, case of grenades and other ordnance before, through the black and grey market. Granted, maybe he just kept acquiring things from his network of contacts. I'm just trying to determine how technically difficult it is to make an unlicensed copy of common grenades, mines or other ordnance. What kind of people would have the skills to make unlicensed copies of military grenade or mine fuzes? Assuming that they had a few years to go from whatever their civilian profession was to applying the same principles to running an illegal bomb factory, I guess. What kind of equipment do you need to manufacture fuzes? And is any of it so controlled that it cannot be legally bought through mining companies, construction companies or anything other than huge defense contractors? Quote:
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01-13-2019, 06:06 PM | #139 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Modern Monster Hunting Guns [XM500, MICOR Leader 50, etc.]
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Pull the pin and release the spoon and a spring causes a lever to strike a percussion cap. That ignites a 4-5 second pyrotechnic fuze. That sets off an equivalent to a commercial blasting cap and the filler goes "Boom". The German system used in WWI and II used a pull-string connected to a friction igniter that lit a pyrotechnic trail. When working on grenade myths the Mythbusters tended to use decommissioned grenade bodies re-filled with C4.
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Fred Brackin |
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01-13-2019, 06:17 PM | #140 |
Join Date: Mar 2008
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Re: Modern Monster Hunting Guns [XM500, MICOR Leader 50, etc.]
One system used a spiral groove with a cover. Hole in the top lights one end of the fuse in the spiral light, hole in the other side ignites the blasting cap.
Claymores should be easier, you don't have to have a delay, hit the remote or someone hits the tripwire and boom. Really small pistol, NAA Sidewinder https://gastatic.com/digest/wp-conte...12/Photo-J.jpg Last edited by dcarson; 01-14-2019 at 12:06 AM. |
Tags |
cover ops, high-tech, modern firepower, monster hunters, tactical shooting |
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