Yes this is part of the reason it's so dense with potential energy... Just large amounts of unoxidized pure aluminum is one of the most unnatural high energy things in nature. Thus why you have to pour so much energy into making it.
PIRA did, in fact, make their own shoulder-launched anti-armour rockets and heavy mortars, including horizontal-launch mortars to use against vehicles.
(One of the police officers who accepted the George Cross on behalf of the RUC/PSNI lost both legs to a a professionally but homemade horizontal mortar).
Plus, on one memorable occasion, building and attempting to use a vehicle-mounted industrial sized flamethrower against a fortified position.
Ah yes! I remember. The Manure Sprayer they fed napalm through. They actually did it twice, once in the 1920s during the War of Independence and and again in the 70s if I recall right.
I did not realize the Rockets and Mortars were homebrew. I was always under the impression that was something Ghedaffi smuggled to them.
That's shockingly more impressive.
.
A. R. Openheimer's "IRA the Bombs and the bullets" has been on my list for a while. Just moved up, will have to review it.
They landed three on Downing Street. There is a surprisingly decent series of articles on Wikipedia about the “barrack buster” and several improvised mortar attacks as far afield as Germany.
They did receive a lot of standard military weaponry from Qaddafi but nothing with enough payload to destroy buildings.
As you allude to in the article, homemade weapons are often fairly intuitive whereas using a military mortar correcting requires quite a high level of skill almost certainly dependent on formal training. The IRA mortars were effectively catapults, used line of sight over short distance to get the payload over a perimeter wall.
They may have also had libyan mortars (I've never heard of them) but the primary ones they used were made from propane tanks just like the ones in your picture of ISIS. I would be amazed if ISIS didn't get the idea from the IRA.
Maybe we are over-thinking this through trying to devise thermal weapons against a well-armored tank? Perhaps the more practical approach would be ... cans of paint. Or maybe fragile glass bottles filled with viscous paint, deliberately targeting the optics and sensors which are (necessarily) on the outside of the tank's armor.
Of course, the problem would be getting close enough/accurate enough to hit the sensors. Perhaps a drone dropping paint instead of fire/explosive might be within the capacity of partisans? The perfect should not be the enemy of the good; if even some of the tank's sensors could be blinded, then the partisans could perhaps get close enough to employ thermite on the wheel bearings.
As a side comment, my limited understanding is that tanks are generally employed with a screening force of infantry, recognizing how much at risk the tank is to professional-level anti-tank weapons. Perhaps that infantry screen would be the weak link in the deployment of the tank? If the infantry outside the tank are eliminated/disabled, the tank's Rules of Engagement might cause it to withdraw?
So this is one of the weird developments of 21st century warfare.
As armies have gotten more and more casualty adverse tanks have lost most of their infantry screen.
This is really apparent in Gaza where Hamas fighters could just run up and place charges right on the hull of the tanks. The Israelis just preferred to accept the occasional Hamas fighters damaging their tanks and causing massive concussions to the soldiers inside than putting lots of unarmored infantry out there for Hamas fighters to shoot at.
Actuaries in western countries place the value of a young human life at something like 5-10 million dollars now... (and western armies treat their own lives like that at the start of wars, if not the end) So screen a 3-20 million dollar asset with 600mm of effective armor with fleshy men worth 5-10 million in a plate carrier, no longer makes sense.
.
As for the paint YES! 100%!
That was actually going to be part of this piece but got pushed off to a subsequent one, that really you want multiple different chemical avenues to blind a tank, Thermic heat, Smoke, Paint, burning tires, flash.
By the time this series is done I want to publish a simulation of a full ambush of an armored convoy using nothing but ridiculous garbage... not really realistic (if you didn't have explosives you still wouldn't do it, you'd take smaller targets) but instructive as to the theory
I know from experience that epoxy based paint is almost impossible to get off glass, and too thick for a see-clear to throw off (do tanks even have those). I can imagine systems that would defeat them but I don't think they're in use. Also epoxy paint is two part, which would make it complex to mix and deploy.
Neither steel wool nor sparklers are reliable primary ignition mechanisms for thermite because, even should they burn hot enough, heat flux to the thermite is often insufficient due to the positioning of the sparklers in the powder, its packing density, and the dwell time needed for open flames to initiate the primary.
Electric matches for model rockets + secondary oxidizers can help, but all of this is complicated by agitation during the delivery of the ordnance to target.
I agree with the general principle that incendiaries are a more accessible category of improvised weaponry in logistics-constrained circumstances, for which conventional security forces opposing insurgents, guerrillas, etc., ought be prepared. Additionally, drones reduce the delivery risk, and provide various capabilities like onboard batteries for electric ignition; lithium-ion thermal runaway could also potentially serve as an integrated primary stage.
It'd strongly depend upon the fineness of the Aluminum, most thermites are incredibly coarse, and thus much safer to work with but harder to ignite. like just suitably fine Aluminum powder on it's own will form a fuel air explosion ( I considered hypothesizing a bottle of just pure Aluminum powder as an improvised thermobaric... but that's an insanity for another piece)
This part of the role of the gasoline actually, if the aluminum is milled fine you still want it to clump and react with the the rust to form the liquid metal, not react with the air and flash ignite.
Theoretically the Gasoline does the job of preheating the thermite mix (similar to the propane torches used in railway thermite welding). But again in theory.
.
Also i didn't get into this but a big part of the effectiveness is just number of bottles thrown, Most likely some would fail to ignite on their own but be ignited by others that do successfully.
Obviously if you get one burning and spitting at 2500degrees that will get others going.
Thermal runaway if going down the Lithium route could be interesting as an ignition…
Cell chemistry and method of ignition comes to mind as the key considerations. Lithium burns nicely when it goes, but chemistries are becoming more stable, and you would want it to really kick off.
Theoretically, as it’s a chemical reaction in the cell string itself, external burning primers could be done away with. Though question would then be inducing it.
A nail through a cell can be effective, shorts through the cell itself and allows it to really go, but the ideal here would be it doing so inside of whatever payload is being delivered rather than outside, so nailing in a closed box might be tough.
A short circuit could be induced, though external cables if thin will run the risk of just burning out before the cell does.
Though, on that same thought process, resistive coils inside of a bottle with a signal controlled high current latching relay could allow an embedded cell short circuit, with a lot of current, either igniting based on the resistors basically melting or based on the cell itself blowing. Relay welds shut as latched, and only a small voltage signal feed needs connecting to finish the circuit….
My immediate thought was to ignite with some kind of low power high heat rocket engine used as a plug. Which is incredibly scuffed and will definitely bow someone’s hand off. But combining that with a plastic bottle coated in a sticky substance would make a incendiary that sticks to a spot before vomiting out molten thermite under the rocket motor thrust
M111 Offensive Hand Grenade. Developed at Picatinny Arsenal, the first new lethal hand grenade to enter service since 1968
pressure wave penetrates corners, behind furniture, and through interior walls without deadly ricochets, keeping friendly troops safer. The M111 replaces the Vietnam-era Mk3A2 concussion grenade, which was phased out because its body contained hazardous asbestos.
Soldiers will carry both the M111 and the older, steel-cased M67 fragmentation grenade. Troops can utilize the M111 for close-quarters clearing indoors, and rely on the M67 for maximizing lethal fragmentation in open terrain.
"Tanks are the force, along with Airstrikes, that stripped the virtue out of warfare and made it “Pay to win”, and hell probably brought about the decline of western masculinity."
Sorry that was the repeating rifle and the machine gun. The tank meant you could have something like cavalry again.
No, conventional cavalry was a staple of warfare throughout ww1 and into ww2.
It is a myth and “heard thought” that Repeating rifles or machine guns rendered them non-viable. The truth is more cavalry regiments were being trained up to and during the the 40s, that they worked very well as the fastest most logistically simple troop delivery and manuever option (much of the “blitzkreig” was actually done by horse cavalry)
Indeeds its never really gone away… horse troops are used in Ukraine today. Rather armoured vehicles displaced horses and motorcycles… too some extent traditional cavalry or motorcycle cavalry declined for political reasons as opposed to tactical: the perception of survivability as much as the reality.
In truth the massive logistical umbilical chord of fuel, parts, and repair crew has struggled to actually get faster for the tank at the operational level (miles per day) than it was for horses.
.
Although i am overstating it a little to make the point
The cavalry wanted to do cavalry charges, which they thought would allow them to "break through". The repeating rifle made that tactic unviable.
They still had a small role as scouts. And mounted infantry could move faster since it wasn't their legs that got worn out.
Neither of these roles justified the sheer amount of money spent on them. You don't need much training, or really good horses, for mounted infantry. And you don't really need many scouts.
The number of cavalry being trained up has not much to do with their actual utility. It has much more to do with the backgrounds of the high-level officers at the time. In WW1 and 2 the highest level officers at the time came from a cavalry background, so lots of money was spent on them.
See the battleships of the Royal Navy (and German) in WW1 and 2 for another waste of money.
This is just untrue and the product of shitty left wing war reporting. The cavalry was (outside of a few units) trained as a mobile infantry force. It was utilized this way throughout both wars to good effect.
Cavalry was dropped pretty much exactly whenever a military got enough trucks to carry people around instead of using the horses.
The charge was still in the books and actually effective when deployed properly. Namely against a flank, unprepared position or enemy in the open. The western front didn’t have any effective charges because the front was way too congested. However every other front of the war had successful cavalry actions of both the mounted infantry and traditional shock type (except galipoli for the same reason as the west).
Even in napoleon’s day charging a prepared position or disciplined infantry was futile at best and suicidal at worst. Ney charged the entire heavy horse at disciplined British infantry at Waterloo and achieved exactly nothing. The same applied in the world wars and every early 20th century war. The Russians figured out deep battle, the doctrine they still use, in the Russian civil war with an army whose only mobile capability was cavalry. They invented the technical in that war by strapping two maxims to a wagon in that war as well.
It was futile provided the infantry held, which they weren't guaranteed to. Even if they did hold, a dying horse slamming into three ranks of men at 30-40mph could easily break a square.
They didn't do those charges just for funsies. It was often suicidal, but also often highly successful.
I think you're wrong about molotovs in that while fire might not endanger the vehicle anymore, it can seriously damage it's crew's ability to see. A bottle of extremely sticky paint would probably be more effective though.
Also... why are you picturing people throwing these by hand at close range? That genuinely would be suicidal. It'd make far more sense to deliver them with cheap drones. Tanks are already having trouble fighting off drones carrying HEAT rounds, I can only imagine what your meltatinis would do (assuming they work, neither of us can be sure how effective they are having never made one).
Can someone enlighten us to police force demographics or create a timeline of escalation of when The feds or governor issued commands for something other than more SWAT team attrition.
chemist call Aluminum "Congealed electricity" because of the absurd melting point. it takes months for a smelter to get hot enough to start production
Yes this is part of the reason it's so dense with potential energy... Just large amounts of unoxidized pure aluminum is one of the most unnatural high energy things in nature. Thus why you have to pour so much energy into making it.
A small point of fact:
PIRA did, in fact, make their own shoulder-launched anti-armour rockets and heavy mortars, including horizontal-launch mortars to use against vehicles.
(One of the police officers who accepted the George Cross on behalf of the RUC/PSNI lost both legs to a a professionally but homemade horizontal mortar).
Plus, on one memorable occasion, building and attempting to use a vehicle-mounted industrial sized flamethrower against a fortified position.
Ah yes! I remember. The Manure Sprayer they fed napalm through. They actually did it twice, once in the 1920s during the War of Independence and and again in the 70s if I recall right.
I did not realize the Rockets and Mortars were homebrew. I was always under the impression that was something Ghedaffi smuggled to them.
That's shockingly more impressive.
.
A. R. Openheimer's "IRA the Bombs and the bullets" has been on my list for a while. Just moved up, will have to review it.
They landed three on Downing Street. There is a surprisingly decent series of articles on Wikipedia about the “barrack buster” and several improvised mortar attacks as far afield as Germany.
They did receive a lot of standard military weaponry from Qaddafi but nothing with enough payload to destroy buildings.
As you allude to in the article, homemade weapons are often fairly intuitive whereas using a military mortar correcting requires quite a high level of skill almost certainly dependent on formal training. The IRA mortars were effectively catapults, used line of sight over short distance to get the payload over a perimeter wall.
They may have also had libyan mortars (I've never heard of them) but the primary ones they used were made from propane tanks just like the ones in your picture of ISIS. I would be amazed if ISIS didn't get the idea from the IRA.
"The tank sees through its optics"
Maybe we are over-thinking this through trying to devise thermal weapons against a well-armored tank? Perhaps the more practical approach would be ... cans of paint. Or maybe fragile glass bottles filled with viscous paint, deliberately targeting the optics and sensors which are (necessarily) on the outside of the tank's armor.
Of course, the problem would be getting close enough/accurate enough to hit the sensors. Perhaps a drone dropping paint instead of fire/explosive might be within the capacity of partisans? The perfect should not be the enemy of the good; if even some of the tank's sensors could be blinded, then the partisans could perhaps get close enough to employ thermite on the wheel bearings.
As a side comment, my limited understanding is that tanks are generally employed with a screening force of infantry, recognizing how much at risk the tank is to professional-level anti-tank weapons. Perhaps that infantry screen would be the weak link in the deployment of the tank? If the infantry outside the tank are eliminated/disabled, the tank's Rules of Engagement might cause it to withdraw?
So this is one of the weird developments of 21st century warfare.
As armies have gotten more and more casualty adverse tanks have lost most of their infantry screen.
This is really apparent in Gaza where Hamas fighters could just run up and place charges right on the hull of the tanks. The Israelis just preferred to accept the occasional Hamas fighters damaging their tanks and causing massive concussions to the soldiers inside than putting lots of unarmored infantry out there for Hamas fighters to shoot at.
Actuaries in western countries place the value of a young human life at something like 5-10 million dollars now... (and western armies treat their own lives like that at the start of wars, if not the end) So screen a 3-20 million dollar asset with 600mm of effective armor with fleshy men worth 5-10 million in a plate carrier, no longer makes sense.
.
As for the paint YES! 100%!
That was actually going to be part of this piece but got pushed off to a subsequent one, that really you want multiple different chemical avenues to blind a tank, Thermic heat, Smoke, Paint, burning tires, flash.
By the time this series is done I want to publish a simulation of a full ambush of an armored convoy using nothing but ridiculous garbage... not really realistic (if you didn't have explosives you still wouldn't do it, you'd take smaller targets) but instructive as to the theory
I know from experience that epoxy based paint is almost impossible to get off glass, and too thick for a see-clear to throw off (do tanks even have those). I can imagine systems that would defeat them but I don't think they're in use. Also epoxy paint is two part, which would make it complex to mix and deploy.
I'm sure a similar one part paint exists though.
Neither steel wool nor sparklers are reliable primary ignition mechanisms for thermite because, even should they burn hot enough, heat flux to the thermite is often insufficient due to the positioning of the sparklers in the powder, its packing density, and the dwell time needed for open flames to initiate the primary.
Electric matches for model rockets + secondary oxidizers can help, but all of this is complicated by agitation during the delivery of the ordnance to target.
I agree with the general principle that incendiaries are a more accessible category of improvised weaponry in logistics-constrained circumstances, for which conventional security forces opposing insurgents, guerrillas, etc., ought be prepared. Additionally, drones reduce the delivery risk, and provide various capabilities like onboard batteries for electric ignition; lithium-ion thermal runaway could also potentially serve as an integrated primary stage.
Great comment.
This is part of the challenge of the theorizing
It'd strongly depend upon the fineness of the Aluminum, most thermites are incredibly coarse, and thus much safer to work with but harder to ignite. like just suitably fine Aluminum powder on it's own will form a fuel air explosion ( I considered hypothesizing a bottle of just pure Aluminum powder as an improvised thermobaric... but that's an insanity for another piece)
This part of the role of the gasoline actually, if the aluminum is milled fine you still want it to clump and react with the the rust to form the liquid metal, not react with the air and flash ignite.
Theoretically the Gasoline does the job of preheating the thermite mix (similar to the propane torches used in railway thermite welding). But again in theory.
.
Also i didn't get into this but a big part of the effectiveness is just number of bottles thrown, Most likely some would fail to ignite on their own but be ignited by others that do successfully.
Obviously if you get one burning and spitting at 2500degrees that will get others going.
Thermal runaway if going down the Lithium route could be interesting as an ignition…
Cell chemistry and method of ignition comes to mind as the key considerations. Lithium burns nicely when it goes, but chemistries are becoming more stable, and you would want it to really kick off.
Theoretically, as it’s a chemical reaction in the cell string itself, external burning primers could be done away with. Though question would then be inducing it.
A nail through a cell can be effective, shorts through the cell itself and allows it to really go, but the ideal here would be it doing so inside of whatever payload is being delivered rather than outside, so nailing in a closed box might be tough.
A short circuit could be induced, though external cables if thin will run the risk of just burning out before the cell does.
Though, on that same thought process, resistive coils inside of a bottle with a signal controlled high current latching relay could allow an embedded cell short circuit, with a lot of current, either igniting based on the resistors basically melting or based on the cell itself blowing. Relay welds shut as latched, and only a small voltage signal feed needs connecting to finish the circuit….
My immediate thought was to ignite with some kind of low power high heat rocket engine used as a plug. Which is incredibly scuffed and will definitely bow someone’s hand off. But combining that with a plastic bottle coated in a sticky substance would make a incendiary that sticks to a spot before vomiting out molten thermite under the rocket motor thrust
we got a new grenade a few years ago
M111 Offensive Hand Grenade. Developed at Picatinny Arsenal, the first new lethal hand grenade to enter service since 1968
pressure wave penetrates corners, behind furniture, and through interior walls without deadly ricochets, keeping friendly troops safer. The M111 replaces the Vietnam-era Mk3A2 concussion grenade, which was phased out because its body contained hazardous asbestos.
Soldiers will carry both the M111 and the older, steel-cased M67 fragmentation grenade. Troops can utilize the M111 for close-quarters clearing indoors, and rely on the M67 for maximizing lethal fragmentation in open terrain.
Growing up in England in the 1950s and 1960s we used to make sugar bombs and blow the shit out of things. Basically fertiliser, petroleum and sugar.
My dad/uncles did it too. My grandmother went to her grave convinced the IRA blew up her flower bed.
I once blew a towel holder off the wall in the boys toilets at my grammar school.
Thanks for another lovely article! Also thermite can be made into a lance, which is currently used for low order EOD techniques:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKnemkfrhTI
I think in it's simple form is a plaster of paris tube with thermite in it. Igniter on the front end.
"Tanks are the force, along with Airstrikes, that stripped the virtue out of warfare and made it “Pay to win”, and hell probably brought about the decline of western masculinity."
Sorry that was the repeating rifle and the machine gun. The tank meant you could have something like cavalry again.
No, conventional cavalry was a staple of warfare throughout ww1 and into ww2.
It is a myth and “heard thought” that Repeating rifles or machine guns rendered them non-viable. The truth is more cavalry regiments were being trained up to and during the the 40s, that they worked very well as the fastest most logistically simple troop delivery and manuever option (much of the “blitzkreig” was actually done by horse cavalry)
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/wwii-german-cavalry-horses-of-the-blitz/
Indeeds its never really gone away… horse troops are used in Ukraine today. Rather armoured vehicles displaced horses and motorcycles… too some extent traditional cavalry or motorcycle cavalry declined for political reasons as opposed to tactical: the perception of survivability as much as the reality.
In truth the massive logistical umbilical chord of fuel, parts, and repair crew has struggled to actually get faster for the tank at the operational level (miles per day) than it was for horses.
.
Although i am overstating it a little to make the point
The cavalry wanted to do cavalry charges, which they thought would allow them to "break through". The repeating rifle made that tactic unviable.
They still had a small role as scouts. And mounted infantry could move faster since it wasn't their legs that got worn out.
Neither of these roles justified the sheer amount of money spent on them. You don't need much training, or really good horses, for mounted infantry. And you don't really need many scouts.
The number of cavalry being trained up has not much to do with their actual utility. It has much more to do with the backgrounds of the high-level officers at the time. In WW1 and 2 the highest level officers at the time came from a cavalry background, so lots of money was spent on them.
See the battleships of the Royal Navy (and German) in WW1 and 2 for another waste of money.
This is just untrue and the product of shitty left wing war reporting. The cavalry was (outside of a few units) trained as a mobile infantry force. It was utilized this way throughout both wars to good effect.
Cavalry was dropped pretty much exactly whenever a military got enough trucks to carry people around instead of using the horses.
The charge was still in the books and actually effective when deployed properly. Namely against a flank, unprepared position or enemy in the open. The western front didn’t have any effective charges because the front was way too congested. However every other front of the war had successful cavalry actions of both the mounted infantry and traditional shock type (except galipoli for the same reason as the west).
> Cavalry was dropped pretty much exactly whenever a military got enough trucks to carry people around instead of using the horses.
Also when they sorted out the fuel supply problem. Having infantry vehicles that fuel themselves is incredibly useful to a resource poor military.
Horses and pack mules are still used in some niche remote locations to this day.
Just because they could no longer charge infantry like they used to doesn't mean they had no effectiveness on the battlefield though.
Even in napoleon’s day charging a prepared position or disciplined infantry was futile at best and suicidal at worst. Ney charged the entire heavy horse at disciplined British infantry at Waterloo and achieved exactly nothing. The same applied in the world wars and every early 20th century war. The Russians figured out deep battle, the doctrine they still use, in the Russian civil war with an army whose only mobile capability was cavalry. They invented the technical in that war by strapping two maxims to a wagon in that war as well.
It was futile provided the infantry held, which they weren't guaranteed to. Even if they did hold, a dying horse slamming into three ranks of men at 30-40mph could easily break a square.
They didn't do those charges just for funsies. It was often suicidal, but also often highly successful.
I love it.
I think you're wrong about molotovs in that while fire might not endanger the vehicle anymore, it can seriously damage it's crew's ability to see. A bottle of extremely sticky paint would probably be more effective though.
Also... why are you picturing people throwing these by hand at close range? That genuinely would be suicidal. It'd make far more sense to deliver them with cheap drones. Tanks are already having trouble fighting off drones carrying HEAT rounds, I can only imagine what your meltatinis would do (assuming they work, neither of us can be sure how effective they are having never made one).
Lucifer is clearly just a disciple of chaos, undivided.
Can someone enlighten us to police force demographics or create a timeline of escalation of when The feds or governor issued commands for something other than more SWAT team attrition.
Think you commented this on the wrong thread
A tank is useless without fuel to move it or ammo to fire it.
🤖
Yes right call. Totally ai.
Banned