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GrinderTheTroll
Hi all,

My last thread got me thinking about what might be required to take down a more complex structure. The goal is to develop some way for a team to plant explosives and take-down a structure like an n-story office building.

I think an Extended Demolitions Test would be required and the GM needs to have an idea about what percentage of supports would need to be destroyed to colapse the structure, maybe between 25-35%, but that's a guess. Assuming the worst, you'd need to destroy 100% of the supports.

I'd figure the number of hits and interval would be functions of size and structure complexity and you'd grant dice pool bonuses for have information about the structure handy (blueprints, physical walk through, video) as well as working with other demo experts.

Any ideas or thoughts?

Thanks,

~GTT
Shadowmeet
I think that you would also need knowledge of Structural engineering.

Seriously, demolitions may be about getting the most bang for your buck, but if you do not know where to place the stuff, you could end up with an implosion when you want an explosion, or vice versa, not to mention you might take out the wrong supports, and the building crumbles in a way that hinders you, etc.

Architecture and Structural engineering are positives.
hobgoblin
and as i have stated in said thread, i think that you would need much less to weaken said supports to the point of collapse then you would need to blow a 1sq.m. hole in the same material.
Bira
QUOTE (Shadowmeet)
I think that you would also need knowledge of Structural engineering.

Seriously, demolitions may be about getting the most bang for your buck, but if you do not know where to place the stuff, you could end up with an implosion when you want an explosion, or vice versa, not to mention you might take out the wrong supports, and the building crumbles in a way that hinders you, etc.

Architecture and Structural engineering are positives.



Wouldn't Demolitions already cover this stuff? It's an Active Skill, where as Architecture/Structural Engineering are Knowledge skills. "Where to place the stuff" seems to be pretty much the same as "getting the most bang for your buck".

Geekkake
A cargo truck. 1,000 kgs of explosives. Leave it in the underground garage and go home. And by "go home", I mean leave the country, make sure there's no extradition treaty, change your face and fingerprints, and hope you didn't leave any genetic or astral evidence.
hobgoblin
hmm, 1000 kg of SR commersial explosives would give a rating of about 35.

70 after the doubling against barriers.

should make a nice big hole even in a blast bunker wink.gif
Austere Emancipator
Just because I happened to Google "ton TNT", here's 500 tons of TNT in the early stages of forming a fireball. The ships in the picture are light cruisers, somewhere around 150 meters in length. Here's an almost identical detonation from a different angle, and a bit further into the explosion. I think that should be about enough to flatten any surface building smaller than 4 city blocks.
stevebugge
http://science.howstuffworks.com/building-...g-implosion.htm

Some Info on the subject, I would estimate that they are using far short of 500 tons for any of these.
GrinderTheTroll
QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)
Just because I happened to Google "ton TNT", here's 500 tons of TNT in the early stages of forming a fireball. The ships in the picture are light cruisers, somewhere around 150 meters in length. Here's an almost identical detonation from a different angle, and a bit further into the explosion. I think that should be about enough to flatten any surface building smaller than 4 city blocks.

Although I am hijacking my own thread by responding to this, 500 tons of TNT would equate to about (500*2000)/2.2 kg = 454,545.5 kg.

DV = Rating * SQRT(Kg-of-explosive)

DV = 3 * SQRT(454,545.5) = 3 * 674.2 = ~ 2,023 which would yield ~4km blast diameter before it stopped dealing damage.
stevebugge
Here's a thought. Imploding a building could really be a series of demolitions tests. Figure you just have to punch a hole in most or all of the support columns, which depending on the size of the building could range from Average material for places like stripmalls on up to Armored/Reinforced Material for things like Arcologies. The number of columns to be destroyed could be determined by the footprint of the building, and each column could require a separate test or the GM could set an extended test. At any rate a controlled implosion of a large structure should probably take several days of set up time. For the unwieldy truck bomb option go with a regular test and hope no one looks in to why there is suddenly a very large shadow market for explosives in bulk.
Shrike30
There's always fertilizer and motor oil... why not just use 8-10 trucks?
Shadowmeet
QUOTE (Bira)
QUOTE (Shadowmeet)
I think that you would also need knowledge of Structural engineering.

Seriously, demolitions may be about getting the most bang for your buck, but if you do not know where to place the stuff, you could end up with an implosion when you want an explosion, or vice versa, not to mention you might take out the wrong supports, and the building crumbles in a way that hinders you, etc.

Architecture and Structural engineering are positives.



Wouldn't Demolitions already cover this stuff? It's an Active Skill, where as Architecture/Structural Engineering are Knowledge skills. "Where to place the stuff" seems to be pretty much the same as "getting the most bang for your buck".

Not exactly. Demolitions is more about placing for the most damage.

There are demolitions experts who can create a bomb, and who can disarm them, but do not have the information necessary to say "Implode a building."

While, yes, a Demolitions expert can create a bomb that is meant for maximum damage, and create certain situations to maximize the damage in a specific way (wall on side A and side B, but empty on side C), they will have trouble making a building behave in a specific way unless they have knowledge of how a building is built, what components are needed for structural integrity, etc.

Think of it in terms of terrorist bombings. Most are done with maximum destructiveness. However, as you will notice, a lot of those people are also suicide bombers, and the explosions will often create unneccesary damage, or damage beyond the scope of the origional explosion. That's fine. They like it that way.

However, people who implode buildings for a living do more damage with less, because they take out key supports in certain order. They make the building work against itself. So, these people have skill in two areas, and are often more highly sought after than someone who can "blow shit up."
ornot
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they usually spend a considerable period of time setting up those explosions that bring down old tower blocks? Running tests on the materials, knocking out many of the non-supporting walls and a bunch of other stuff?

I was just thinking in terms of the original post and a team hired to carry out illicit demolitions. Without a lot of the planning and on-site ground work, I'd have thought it'd be tough to bring down a large building in a controlled fashion.
Austere Emancipator
QUOTE (stevebugge)
I would estimate that they are using far short of 500 tons for any of these.

Yes. 500 tons of TNT is, as the professionals call it, A Whole Fucking Lot!

QUOTE (ornot)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they usually spend a considerable period of time setting up those explosions that bring down old tower blocks? Running tests on the materials, knocking out many of the non-supporting walls and a bunch of other stuff?

Absolutely. Depending on the building and how it needs to be taken down, they may well spend weeks or months on it to make sure it crumbles in just the right way. But, depending on what, exactly, the runners are paid to do, it might still be preferable to spend a few days studying the the building and a few hours placing the charges, just so it doesn't fall right on top of the adjacent buildings and end up demolishing 8 blocks of downtown Seattle.
hobgoblin
QUOTE (GrinderTheTroll)
QUOTE (Austere Emancipator @ Jul 10 2006, 02:42 PM)
Just because I happened to Google "ton TNT", here's 500 tons of TNT in the early stages of forming a fireball. The ships in the picture are light cruisers, somewhere around 150 meters in length. Here's an almost identical detonation from a different angle, and a bit further into the explosion. I think that should be about enough to flatten any surface building smaller than 4 city blocks.

Although I am hijacking my own thread by responding to this, 500 tons of TNT would equate to about (500*2000)/2.2 kg = 454,545.5 kg.

DV = Rating * SQRT(Kg-of-explosive)

DV = 3 * SQRT(454,545.5) = 3 * 674.2 = ~ 2,023 which would yield ~4km blast diameter before it stopped dealing damage.

heh, what if the rating of TNT is closer to maxed out plastic rather then commersial?

thats rating 15, people grinbig.gif

or 10113 after hijacking the numbers wink.gif

i think i just added 3 KM to the blast radius love.gif
hobgoblin
QUOTE (stevebugge)
http://science.howstuffworks.com/building-...g-implosion.htm

Some Info on the subject, I would estimate that they are using far short of 500 tons for any of these.

that was a interesting read.

it specificaly talks about them not blowing big holes in metal parts but rather use a special kind of explosive to slice them.

just goes to show that the square meter hole of SR isnt realy appliable for demolition uses wink.gif
Austere Emancipator
I don't know if "blowing up a square meter hole" is applicable to anything that's got to do with steel. Sure you can do that with sheet metal, but once you get to stuff that's ½cm or thicker all you're likely to do is smash a small hole in it. Vaporizing a 1-meter length of a steel beam is a stupid concept to begin with -- unless the beam's right next to an absolutely massive explosion, it's just going to break off at one point and bend

RDX is only special in this particular context, BTW. It's the main ingredient in nearly all US military plastic explosives, and found inside most explosive warheads used by NATO countries. Most plasticized military explosives have very high detonation velocities. For example, ANFO, which is the most common explosive used in mining and construction (and demolishing concrete, I imagine), has a detonation velocity of about half that of C-4, while RDX detonates less than 10% faster than C-4. C-4 is therefore pretty good for shearing steel beams, but not a good choice for mining.
hobgoblin
hmm, so instead one could go with a 1 sq.cm. hole punched for each -1 done to rating maybe?
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