Explosives Questions, and other miscellany Options

[Kagetenshi]

I've got some runners who need to take down a power station. It needs to be down for a period of one week, and must cost at least (insert large but nonastronomical figure here) to repair.

First, a bit about the power station. It's modeled after the station in Brainscan, though it is not that station, nor am I running Brainscan right now. It's got slightly more automated security, live guards come by every once in a while, but there isn't a little league game going on nearby.

The method chosen by the players at the moment is that they're going to steal a van, fill it with an improvised fuel-oil and fertilizer bomb, and blow the place to Hell and back that way. The van they're thinking of is a basic box van, not too big, probably something like an ordinary U-Haul.

So how much of the stuff should they need to blow the station to pieces, and also how much damage should it do if they cram the thing to the gills? How much should this cost?

The station is reinforced concrete but not serious hardened materials.

~J, menace to society

[Crusher Bob]

How does the place actually generate the electricity? Then best way to wreck a power station is probably to destroy the electromagnetic turbines that turn rotary motion into vurrent. Fixing they would take a lot of time and money. An improvised truck bomb might not do the job though, as the blast footprint might not get the turbines. Dropping an big bomb on the place would probably work better, as you'd get a better blast pattern.

Just distributiong thin strands of conductinve material over the site will also keep it down for a while, as the material will promote blowing out equipment. (see earlier thread about graphite anti power plant bomb).

The power plant will probably have a premeter fence and concrete barriers, so just getting your truck bomb close enough might require some work...

Any mucking around in the power plant is likely to leave you trapped by the cops outside.

My best seat of the pants plan would involved rigging the truck bomb for remote control, then a conventional assault on the power plants premiter defenses to get teh truck bomb past them. This hopefully give the team plenty of time to make a getaway (though that depends on the surrounding area). Adding the graphite fibers (or similar) to the truck bomb would be a bonus.

[Arethusa]

Think Oklahoma City.

[Kagetenshi]

It isn't a power plant, it's more of a transformer station.

And I remember Oklahoma City, but that doesn't tell me how much they need to just waste this building :)

~J

[cykotek]

How big is the building? As was demonstrated in Oklahoma, two 55-gallon drums of properly mixed AN-FO explosive will gut a building that stands (if memory serves) about 14 stories tall. I've heard experts remark that if the two barrels had been on opposite sides of the building, it would have dropped like a stone.

The short answer? 55 gallons is too much. 20 gallons might be too much. And remember, ammonium nitrate is on several government chemical watch lists right now, and probably still will be in 205x and 206x.

I'd also suggest a Demolitions (B/R) check for whoever is doing the mixing. While not real hard, you can still screw up the mixture and lose effectiveness.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[SirKodiak]

Wow, what a fantastic way to get the FBI to start reading the Dumpshock forums. I know it can be hard to find players in some places, but I'm not sure this is the way to do it ;) .

[SporkPimp]

Um, the lookup I did showed that 2,200 kilograms of ammonium nitrate was used in Oklahoma City. That would be an Ares Roadmaster full of the stuff. And the graphical representations I've seen of the truck showed that the thing was completely packed with the explosive in a sort of honeycomb configuration, not just a couple of barrels in the back of the truck.

Where are you getting this "two barrels" figure?

(Side note: driving a truck full of explosives into it would be "easy" -- "just" send a smaller bomb in first to blow through one of the concrete barricades.)

Also, what's the facility made out of? If it's old/big enough, there might be some plasteel-7 used in its construction, facilitating solvent usage... even if there isn't, you need to find a weak-point or use a lot of explosive. Like, hundreds of kilos.

Although if you're just trying to shut the place down for a while, you might be better off contaminating it or messing with the more delicate components than just slamming a bomb into it. A 'dirty bomb' (:please:) of some sort would shut the place down regardless of the actual structural damage, and keep it closed until decontamination completed. And it might not require the wholesale slaughter of whatever personnel are on-sight, to boot!

-Albert

[Dragonslayer]

Ok the building in Brainscan is not a power plant its a little transformer substation, the kinda deal that sits on the edge of town and converts those high tension lines into something more usable in cities. There's no legend on the map but my guess, and I'm being generous is about 60 feet by 25 feet. It's only perimeter defenses are a chain link fence and the fact that it sits on a 1 foot slab of concret. There are transformers outside the substation. It's only got one door. Really the way I'd go about messing it up is drive the truck through the fence, crash into, or through the transformers, anybody got any idea how sturdy those are? Back the truck in against the door, hopefully open it some too. Rig the back door on the truck to open, and have it open, then blast the bomb. I'd go with something pretty small seeing as it's going off in a confined space. I'd probably also put some nails and other things to act as shrapnel to make sure any equipment gets broken.

Speaking as a GM the way I'd do this is have someone roll demolitions knowledge and try to figure it out, given enough success, call timeout for a bit and sit down calculate barrier ratings, and then figure out how big a bomb you'd need to knock the walls down. Give that amount to the players as the ideal "just right" amount to use. They'll use a bit more, so I wouldn't have a problem saying if it all goes to plan the building comes down. And I'd estimate if everything goes to plan it could come off in around 30 seconds tops. Quite simply they'd never see it coming and could likely not stop it. You rig the truck and the team just has to get clear after the building comes down.

[Siege]

Hello you fine, fine Homeland Security People.

As I am _not_ going to try and look up "Car Bomb Building 101" on the net, I'm just going to do some random speculating here.

Points of access to the power station?

Since your players are throwing subtlety out the window, use three different car bombs.

First - attack a perimeter fence, enough explosive to make a hole and draw a lot of attention.

Second - run a slightly larger explosive into the entrance. Bigger explosion, oh hell - this was the diversion, quick! Front gate!

Third - run the primary explosive through the now-breached and presumeably lightly defended security fence. Oh frag, the diversion we're ignoring is the primary assaul...boom.

You might take a note and make efforts to seriously impede any traffic from approaching the facility. Primary and secondary check points before the main entrance, stone blocks ringing perimeter and a reinforced steel-concrete shell protecting the primary power facility.

Odds are, if the players are thinking this, someone else thought about it too and has taken steps to prevent it.

-Siege

[SirKodiak]

[SporkPimp]

I'd have to second the "what are they trying to do" question. That really determines the best responses... does the place need to be completely annihilated? If so, explosives are definitely it. But what kind and how are they placed? Is the facility a tough nut to crack, security-wise? If so, carefully placed charges aren't an option, and you'll have to be crude about things. Is collateral damage an issue? If so, fuel-air explosives are better for completely destroying shit without causing spillover, and much harder to trace. If not, conventional explosives are much cheaper and easier to make, not to mention *find*. Does the facility require on-site personnel to operate? If so, your little raid will be a carefully premeditated multiple-homicide terrorist attack -- it might be smarter to just make the facility uninhabitable (or inoperable) rather than toppling it. Forcing an evacuation and a week's decontamination (or repairs) would be cleaner (and might even be cheaper) than the brute-force approach. For that matter, what about persistant harassment -- if you pay the workers double, they might have that facility back up in a week, but what can they do if a few spirits using the "Accident" power (or a well-placed second bomb, or a decker/rigger interfering with communications amongst the repair effort) shut the place down every two days?

But if blowing the place to Hell is really the best option, then you need to tell us how big the place is and what materials it's made out of.

And I do hope you say "Plasteel-7" :D :D :D :D :D

-Albert

[Kagetenshi]

[toturi]

Depending on how and where the substation is built, there are different considerations for the design of the reinforced concrete (RC) structure. For example, concrete is weak in tension but great in compression, so is the substation designed to withstand lateral loading? A substation in an earthquake zone or typhoon country would be designed against lateral loads.

A car bomb parked next to an RC structure built to withstand lateral loading would do better exploding on the roof.

[Zazen]

[toturi]

But depending on how you design it, you put in either more or less steel. If more, yes, it does become stronger in the tensile zone but correspondingly it become weaker in the compressive area. Putting in more steel isn't a cost effective solution since steel is much more expensive than concrete and is weaker in the heat resistance aspect as well as in the unltra low duration dynamic loading aspect, which forms a major component of most explosions.

So unless a building is specifically built to withstand explosive loadings, for example some US embassies (that I know of), most buildings are surprisingly easy to make unsafe with explosives

[Austere Emancipa...]

As has been implied, making a power plant unusable for a week is not very difficult. Does the place require actual human controllers present at all times? If so, I might even suggest a chemical attack: nerve agents will stick around the surfaces for at least a week, and cleaning up the whole place will take really damn long. Just blowing up the main power lines leading out of the plant would take the whole place out for a long while.

I'm mostly concerned with the "must cost at least (insert large but nonastronomical figure here) to repair" bit. Repairing power lines or transformers doesn't cost that much, and neither does a chemical clean-up. I'd expect the most expensive systems in the power plant are the generators themselves (depending on exactly what kind of power plant this is) and the computer hardware controlling the plant. Getting those is really difficult without using very large amounts of explosives and getting them really close.

As for Oklahoma, alledgedly McVeigh told his lawyer that the bombed weighed in at about 4,800lbs of ammonium nitrate + nitromethane (13 barrels with 350lbs of ammonium nitrate and 20lbs of nitromethane each). By far the most often quoted bomb weight is 4,800lbs, with 4,000lbs a distant second, and anything else only quoted by some "I don't have any proof but I'm still the only one who's right" people.

[nezumi]

I have to admit, I still love the idea above about checking if the facility uses plasteel-7. I have images in my mind of flying a crop duster overhead with the solvent, and watching every piece of equipment fall THROUGH the building, into the foundation. I think that would pretty effectively destroy a power station.

[Diesel]

I think the chemical attack combined with prompt infiltration and destruction of either the turbines or control systems with explosives would probably be the most effective attack. You might want to hire additional runners, as you've got a lot to do before the cops come.

[KarmaInferno]

How about just soaking the place with salt water while the live guards are out?

I imagine everything getting rusty would cost a fair bit to fix and gum up the system fairly well. Might take longer than a bomb, though.

And it's a little less of a "OMG, we're being attacked!" sort of sabotage.


-karma

[Herald of Verjig...]

Any problem in SR can be solved by a rock(or troll or cow) from sufficient altitude or an abundance of explosives. This should make them the final resort unless you are just sick of the GM pulling surprise opposition on you.

What type of power plant is it (no, I didn't read oll the posts)? Most power production methods can generate more power than the plant can actually process. So dump some more fuel in the coal bin, pull out a few control rods or something similar. Mess up the combustion rate, fission rate, or cooling process and that should do all the damage you need.

The above requires a competant decker or worse depending on the power production facility type.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Herald of Verjig...]

It workes better for combustion plants. Easier to overide the loading mechanism so that it just keeps pouring more fuel into the fire. Too much heat will eventually melt some of the mechanisms.

As for any variety of nuke plant, yes any modern facility would have many levels of fail-safe.

[nezumi]

[Austere Emancipa...]