Tank Busting, How to do it on a budget Options

[Crusher Bob]

If SR explosizes rules are as wonky as some of the Champions rules, then blowing a hole the same diameter as the earth in a wall as thick as the earth (i.e. enough explosives to blow up the earth) is trivially available at your local building contractor.

[KarmaInferno]

[Arethusa]

I guess it's a good thing no hand grenade would ever be able to open up the sewers, then.

[Austere Emancipa...]

Maybe a thermal detonator...
How much asphalt + dirt/whatever is there before you get to the sewers, in general? 2 meters? To create a crater big and deep enough for an MBT to drop into it, you'd definitely need 100+kg of high explosives, less if you can dig them into the ground and direct them downwards. At which point it'd be easier just to direct them upwards and cause at least a mobility kill on the MBT.

[SpasticTeapot]

My idea:
Take 1 part magnesium, 1 parts Elmer's extra-tackyglue, and 4 parts napalm to 8 parts finely-ground thermite. Mix well, and add cornstarch until it reaches a consistency not unlike silly putty and is extremely sticky. Place in a baloon shortly before use.
When target is within range, throw baloon. With any luck, it will splatter into a large lump on the target's exterior. Fire at splattered mixture with incendiary or explosive round of your choice.
This should then ignite the napalm. Although napalm in itself is nasty, the magnesium which it would ignite would, in turn, ignite the thermite. The resulting heat produced should melt a nice big hole in anything with less than an inch of solid-steel armor, and shatter or warp almost all composite materials.
The one big downside to this type of weapon? You're toast (bad pun, I know) if you get anywhere near fire.

Another thing which remarkably few PC's use are passive weapons, such as caltrops. Dump a bunch of sharp objects in the vehicle's path, and the tires become punctured, then accumulate so much junk that the car loses control. Place a few buried grenades on remote fuses in front of or behind the sharp objects, so that if a driver manages to stop in time flips over after losing its tires, you can blow it to little bits without any personal risk.

[Austere Emancipa...]

I was going to say something about composite armors vs. thermite, but you also refer to caltrops so I assume you weren't going to use these tactics against anything but HMMWV-equivalents and lighter ground vehicles.

I wouldn't count on a balloon myself. Thermate grenades are around, they are cheap and accessible, and they're meant for exactly this kind of thing. The glue is useless here -- napalm will stick to a sloped metallic surface just fine.

Actually, all that other sticky stuff would probably make the thermite melt its way into steel at a much slower rate, since it does not have as much direct contact with the steel. In any case, unless you'd be using hell of a lot of the stuff, 1" of steel armor is extremely optimistic. The AN-M14 TH3 thermate hand grenade (with 26.5 ounces of TH3) only melts its way through ½" of steel armor.

[weblife]

How about the vehicles sensors and windows?

Would a "normal" incendiary grenade that detonates in the air, just above a vehicle, raining sticky fire all over it, not obscure vision?

Thermal sensors on the vehicle would be pressed to ignore the immediate and high heat, the cameras would have burning goo on them, and unless the window cleaners is made of fireresistant rubber, the windshield will be a mess too.

Whats your take on targeting the sensors in this manner?

As far as my original scope, this thread has gone into the woods. And its not looking back. :D - Home grown explosives, napalm and rigging buried guerilla traps.. heh.

[Austere Emancipa...]

It'd probably be better to have the grenade detonate in front of the vehicle. I don't think the thermate spreads much, but it might cover a decent area on the face of the vehicle if it's thrown at it and detonates in air.

It'd definitely disable thermal and video sensors (thermate burns extremely bright, enough to damage your eyes if you look straight at it). Against an MBT or other heavily armored military vehicle this might be an effective use of the grenade -- aiming at the high-center of the turret, just above the gun mantlet, would allow you to disable most of the sensors on a modern MBT and probably several on most future MBTs as well.

Against a vehicle which actually has windows of any kind, including very thick, armored composite designs, disabled sensors will only be a side-effect: people inside the vehicle will be much more concerned with the thermate burning through the vehicle. Most "fire-resistant" materials still don't like temperatures in excess of 2,000 degrees C.

[Foreigner]

This'll probably get me flamed pretty badly, but:

How about a combination "low tech/high-tech" approach?

In a Punisher comic several years ago, the title character incapacitated a heavily-cybered opponent by using a remote-controlled toy car packed with a charge of C-4, and detonated by remote-control; he maneuvered it under the guy's feet, and when it went off, the baddie lost both legs below the knees.

Unfortunately, both legs were cyberware, and he carried spare parts. :) He was back in action two panels later.

A similar approach was used twice in the 1986 Clint Eastwood film The Dead Pool.

If such toys are available in the SR universe, I'd think it would at least be theoretically feasible. (An explosives-laden mini-drone would probably work, but I was hoping that there was a less costly delivery method out there.)

I'm at a loss as to how you'd get such a contraption past the tank's sensors, though.

--Foreigner

This post has been edited by Foreigner: Apr 15 2005, 02:26 PM

[Austere Emancipa...]

The minidrone/toy car would still have to carry a shaped charge heavy enough to actually penetrate the bottom armor of the MBT and to knock it out of action. Most toy cars that I'm aware of will not manage this. With a 2005-tech, cheap toy car, you'd also have to see the MBT and the toy car while you're controlling it, so I'd be more worried about how you manage to evade the sensors instead of the car. By the 2060s-70s, MBTs would also carry EW kits that would enable them to very quickly pick out your position from the communication with the toy car/drone.

A few simple(?) solutions: 1st, only try this in urban terrain where you only have to guide the drone for a very short distance. 2nd, control the drone through a wire. A drone with a signature well above 6, rudimentary sensors to allow you to guide it without having LoS to either the drone or the MBT, and high enough load capacity to carry a warhead capable of knocking out a tank, should be easy to acquire and not too expensive.

Still, this would require access to basic rigger gear, a drone worth 500-1000 :nuyen:, and the warhead capable of penetrating tank armor. Unless you are or have in your team a drone rigger with lots of really cheap drones and someone with a very high Demolitions skill and lots of high explosives, this isn't something you can whip up quickly. In most cases, you're better off getting Great Dragon ATGMs -- which apparently are easier for criminals to access than C-12 or thermite.

[Nikoli]

the drone+explosives is good for pretty much anything shy of a MBT.
The great dragons are pretty good for everything else.
Another option is the tazer-like special warheads that fry the rigger in control of the vehicle, or the dog-brain, or anyone touching the wheel for that matter. No driver = much less threatening tank.

[Austere Emancipa...]

MBTs ought to be protected against electric attacks. It's certainly an option to keep in mind against many other types of vehicles, however.

[Fortune]

[KarmaInferno]

There's always setting up a shaped charge in a manhole pointed up, and luring the tank over it.

In the final Virtual Seattle adventure, my team set up the Uberest Shaped Charge Evar, to take out an heavily armored vehicle. Gutted a flying drone of anything but the flight elements, and packed an ungodly amount of explosives into it as an improvised shaped charge. Then a mage hit it with a number of stealthy spells to make it undetectable and we just flew it over the target vehicle. It made a car-sized crater in the road, nevermind taking out the car.

Oh, and Hi Mr Nice Government Person! :wavey:


-karma

[Austere Emancipa...]

You could quite easily create the ÜSCE if that were your only goal. Military applications rarely call for a shaped charge warhead heavier than about 150kg, since that's quite enough to penetrate up to 6 meters of reinforced concrete when properly applied. When you have to penetrate more than that, it's usually more efficient to use a kinetic energy penetrator combined with a smaller HE warhead. You can blow apart the heaviest MBTs on a hit to the gun mantlet at a poor angle with a warhead far lighter than that.

Still, anything below 150kg certainly has no claim to the title. [Edit]Seems there were prototypes of the BAe Broach multiple warhead system (basically a dual shaped charge design) for 2000lbs bombs, where the shaped charges alone weighed about 300kg. Heck, the German WWII Sturmtiger fired rockets with a shaped charge weighing more than 100kg.[/Edit]

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Apr 15 2005, 08:53 PM

[PBTHHHHT]

[Apathy]

[Edward]

There is always the kazi system.

My GM created them once. Take a small rotor drone max out its speed and use the drone itself as a kinetic kill weapon by deliberately crashing into the MBT. With a methane engine over powered for speed and a pilot willing to push the drone beyond maximum safe speed (stress is irrelevant, we are trying to crash the thing) an impact velleity of 250m/ct would be achievable. That translates into 300KPH. I am farley shore the vehicle collision rules make this a confident kill how dos it sound for reality.

If you don’t think its fast enough a jet turbine powered small fixed wing UAV could probably be pushed to 600m/ct or 720km/h.

Just make certain your RCD is set up to minimise dump shock.

As to caltrops they tend to be heavy bulky and difficult to transport in an easily assessable location. And considering they would not bypass armour on a tracked vehicle body/2-armor(L) to a tank is not likely to be an issue.

Edward

[Austere Emancipa...]

[KarmaInferno]

[Weredigo]

this is a bit of a brainstorm.

Coffee Can, chunk (about size of baseball) of C-4 or 5 wired with remote detonator. Fill rest of coffee can with Dikoted Ball Bearings. I wouldn't expect much if it was detonated beside or on top of the tank, but if set off underneath the tank would it punch through? If set off directly underneath the tank would it punch trough, or damage it enough to immobilize the industrial beast?

[Critias]

Nothing says "on a budget" quite like a coffee can full of dikoted ball bearings.

[Austere Emancipa...]

No on all counts. Ball bearings, dikoted or not, are absolutely not the sort of projectile that will penetrate an MBT -- not unless they are propelled at speeds far in excess of anything but perhaps a massively powerful rail gun can manage.

An explosive of about baseball size would most likely prove too weak even to blow a track on a current tech (2005) MBT if it went off right underneath. A coffee can filled to the brim with C-4 might be enough to sever a track, though. A coffee can (1.5l-2l) filled with C-4 except for a small hollow and a perfectly shaped copper liner might just be enough to penetrate the bottom armor on an '05 MBT if it's pointing straight up. For a '65 MBT, I'd rather go with a cylindrical metal object with a volume of at least 5l, with C-12 instead of C-4.

[Edit]A chunk of C-4 the size of the largest allowed baseball in Major League Baseball would weigh ~0.36kg. In SR terms, that's a whopping 1D, -6/m Damage Code.[/Edit]

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Apr 22 2005, 09:29 AM

[Demosthenes]

[Critias]

Well, see, what you do is slap the C-4 onto the side of the tank, take cover, and wait for the boom. Then, scramble atop the tank while he's laughing at you. After the laughter from inside stops and the tanker pops his head out to look for the guy who just wasted some C-4 (and screwed up his pin-up style paintjob of the Baroness) on his tank, you clobber him over the head with a coffee can full of ball bearings.

Then take his tank. And laugh.