anonymous@hpwrce.HP.COM (02/15/91)
From: anonymous@hpwrce.HP.COM
A co-worker and I would like your opinion of our idea for destroying Sadam's
underground bunker(s).
How about dropping a huge steel rod from a B52? The steel rod could be
guided to the target by the same laser technology as other munitions. The
sheer velocity and weight of the steel rod should allow it to penetrate
the earth and concrete above the bunker. We could even put a point on it so
it would penetrate further.
We estimated the speed that it would achieve if dropped from 50,000 feet by:
m*g*h = (1/2)*m*v**2
g*h = (1/2)*v**2
32 ft v**2
----- * 50,000 ft = ----
sec**2 2
v = (50,000 * 32 * 2)**.5 = 1789 ft/sec (as fast as a bullet)
We also guess that a B52 can carry a 10 or 20 ton rod to drop. Conservatively,
10 tons traveling at 1000 feet per second seems like it may do the trick to
me. What do you think?dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu (Daniel Mocsny) (02/18/91)
From: dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu (Daniel Mocsny) In article <1991Feb15.073631.12702@cbnews.att.com> anonymous@hpwrce.HP.COM writes: >A co-worker and I would like your opinion of our idea for destroying Sadam's >underground bunker(s). I have another idea for going after bunkers. How about training some sort of animal to climb down airshafts? Say you have a platoon of trained monkeys, each with an explosive vest set to go off when the little guy gets below ground? (I'm not sure how to manage that. Perhaps you could put a radio receiver on it that would listen for a beep from a geostationary satellite. If it misses N consecutive beeps, it fuzes the satchel charge in the monkey's vest.) Then you load your monkeys into a container and parachute it next to a bunker. All the hostiles are hiding in the bunker during the air raid anyway, so nobody is topside to guard against the little guys clambering out of the container and down the airshaft. To motivate your troops, you could prepare the target by sending in an F-117A to drop a laser-guided bunch of bananas down the airshaft. :-) (Then again, if you could drop bananas down the airshaft, you probably could just put a bomb down it and forget about the monkeys. Ah well.) But seriously, folks, is anybody working on robot crawlers that can work their way into targets that are hard to hit directly from the air? How about a mechanical tarantula that carries a bomblet, survives an airdrop, hides in the weeds, and then crawls around at night looking for parked aircraft? A few thousand of these dropped around an airbase would make life very interesting for the next few days. -- Dan Mocsny Internet: dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu
cga66@ihlpy.att.com (Patrick V Kauffold) (02/19/91)
From: cga66@ihlpy.att.com (Patrick V Kauffold) > I have another idea for going after bunkers. How about training > some sort of animal to climb down airshafts? . . . > . . . fuzes the satchel charge in the monkey's vest.) The animal rights people have objected strenuously to uses of animals for war, particularly when the animal might get killed. Yes, really. The navy experimented with using bottle-nose dolphins (California dolphin, or something like) to place demolitions and limpet mines. They also experimented with using sea lions for similar missions; both animals were trained to help divers in non-combat types of diving operations.
cramer@uunet.UU.NET (Clayton Cramer) (02/21/91)
From: optilink!cramer@uunet.UU.NET (Clayton Cramer) In article <1991Feb18.052927.10010@cbnews.att.com>, dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu (Daniel Mocsny) writes: > > I have another idea for going after bunkers. How about training > some sort of animal to climb down airshafts? Crazy ideas are never new? During WW II, the U.S. had a similar idea involving bats. The bats were fitted with explosive charges, cooled off (bats tolerate inactivity cause by cold much better than most mammals), defrosted, and then dropped over at least one Japanese city. The theory was that they would roost in Japanese buildings, the timers would go off, and the resulting fires would cause great fires in the incendiary material of a Japanese city. In practice, it didn't really work very well. War brings out such...creativity in people. -- Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid,pixar,tekbspa}!optilink!cramer "Well, maybe the Holocaust was right *for that culture*." -- a moral relativist with whom I work. You must be kidding! No company would hold opinions like mine!
arthur@Eng.Sun.COM (Arthur Leung) (02/26/91)
From: arthur@Eng.Sun.COM (Arthur Leung) i found this in february 18, 1991 issue of aviation week: -- arthur -------- US Speeds Development of Kinetic Weapons Designed to Penetrate Underground Command Centers (Lancaster, Calif) ..... One Defense Dept.-sponsored test involved accelerating a 300lb. metal rod to about Mach 1.6, then driving it into a simulated hardened bunker. Data from the test indicated the rod penetrated several layers of compacted soil separated by 2-ft.-thick sections of reinforced concrete above an underground room. The rod continued through the room's concrete roof and floor, and finally stopped almost 100ft. into the ground - below the bunker's floor. High-speed penetrators were developed originally to deliver nuclear weapons. This technology develop[ed into what Sandia National Laboratories officials call "terradynamics" studies. Analysis and tests of Earth penetrators led to development of efficient body shapes and materials, and definition of the impact velocity required to penetrate specific materials to a desired depth. Sandia scientists also have developed computer models capable of predicting impact loads, deformations and material failures.
adrian@cs.heriot-watt.ac.uk (Adrian Hurt) (02/28/91)
From: adrian@cs.heriot-watt.ac.uk (Adrian Hurt) In article <1991Feb22.231247.3218@cbnews.att.com> jmasly@mainz-emh2.army.mil (John Masly) writes: <About how during WW2, the Russians tried to train dogs to carry explosives under enemy vehicles, by persuading them that there was food under the vehicles.> > The experiment failed because the dogs >were never conditioned to the noise of a battle. When the Russians tried >this tactic out, the dogs were so scared of the general noise, that they >just stood in place and shook. In the version I read, the problem was that the dogs ignored German vehicles, and went for Russian vehicles like the ones with which they had been trained. Source: "The Book of Heroic Failures", by Stephen Pile. "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott Adrian Hurt | JANET: adrian@uk.ac.hw.cs UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian | ARPA: adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk