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ShadowDragon8685
And no, I don't mean that silly "Thermite Burning Bar" in the BBB, either.

I mean Thermite. It's a powdered mixture of aluminimum and iron oxide which, when ignited, burns at 2,500 degrees centigrade. (When done right; YMMV.)

The cool properties of thermite are:

1. It's very, very, very hot.
2. Because it's Aluminium oxidizing with the oxide of another metal, it dosen't need external oxygen to burn. This means there is literally no way to stop the reaction once it's started.
(Don't just take my word on it if you're skeptical. Check Wikipedia.)
3. It's dirt-cheap and easy to make, plus unless you're trying to "powder" the metals involved (Aluminium and rust) by packing bars of aluminum and rust flakes around a bomb, you can't have a catastrophie while making it. (Just remenber your eyes, mouth, and body protection; this is powdered metal you're working with.)
4. Did I mention that once you start the reaction, there's no stopping it? Not water (they use Thermite for underwater welding!), not CO2 gas, not Halon, not nothing. I'm not sure the stuff won't burn in a vacuum.
Kagetenshi
You can stop it burning by cooling it very rapidly or by scattering it. Furthermore, you seriously underestimate the danger of grinding aluminium. It's not fantastically dangerous, but it still takes some care to avoid some nasty things happening.

That said, we use it early and often.

~J
ShadowDragon8685
They poured the stuff into liquid nitrogen. I don't see any (practical) ways to stop it if that didn't work.

And as for scattering it, the only way I see of doing that would be to throw a frag grenade into the container of it. And really, are you going to throw a frag grenade into a pile of reacting thermite? Because I'd think you're loco.

The main idea behind using it, though IME, would be as a distraction - arrange it in flowerpots around the target site, possibly with flower-shaped ignition sources. Once they start going off, the fire surpression won't work on it, and people will panic and GTFO.

Or on top of the engine block of every car in the garage - that'll be a nice distraction - though better to put it over the fuel tank if the cars are driven by combustible fuel stored internally.

Or just set off a 55 gallon drum of the stuff on the roof. smile.gif
Austere Emancipator
Thermate gets used a bit in my games. A few incendiary grenades are often carried around, but they aren't used for much more than immobilizing vehicles and flushing people out.

QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685)
Or just set off a 55 gallon drum of the stuff on the roof. smile.gif

This would also just serve as a distraction, right?
ShadowDragon8685
QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)
Thermate gets used a bit in my games. A few incendiary grenades are often carried around, but they aren't used for much more than immobilizing vehicles and flushing people out.

QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685)
Or just set off a 55 gallon drum of the stuff on the roof. smile.gif

This would also just serve as a distraction, right?

That depends on your objective; it almost certainly WILL get the building evacuated. smile.gif

Of course, that'll be because there's a torrent of molten hot iron and liquid aluminum oxide pouring down and melting it's way through the building, but if you're good and have fire-resistant suits, you can grab something while everybody's gone.
Serbitar
Wasnt thermite extremely expensive and had an availablity of ultra high?

Forgot the numbers.

Edit: ok, not that bad. Avail: 12/14 days; SI: 2; 500 Nuyen/kg (see kg, not pounds or feet or gallons)
Ryu
The usability of thermite is often questionable in my opinion.

Welding is not somethings my runners had to do.

Silent destruction certainly is something that does come up.

Using a thermite bar to open something is not very realistic, and a controlled thermite reaction takes too much time and preparation.


If you go custom and aim for destructive value, try putting magnesium in a thermite tube.
mmu1
Our group uses it a lot.

Aside from the normal use for property destruction or heavy-duty cutting, we've used it to kill several things with absurd regenerative powers.
A character of mine also forced a guy's face down into a burning thermite charge and held him there until he stopped twitching, but he had it coming. (He'd used elementals and spirits to bury 30-40 people alive behind tons of rock, though we were only going to beat the crap out of him and turn him over to our employer, until he had the bright idea to use one of his spirits to hold our rigger hostage to avoid capture, and hurt her badly in the process. The spirit got banished, and he died screaming.)
In addition, I think we used a burning bar as a threat to get someone talking, but never had to actually fire it up and make good on it, fortunately.
Austere Emancipator
QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685)
Of course, that'll be because there's a torrent of molten hot iron and liquid aluminum oxide pouring down and melting it's way through the building, but if you're good and have fire-resistant suits, you can grab something while everybody's gone.

Considering how long it will take for pile of thermite to burn through a layer of reinforced concrete underneath it, it seems pretty unlikely you're going to get a lot of it melting its way through much further than the spaces just below the roof. Depending on the type of building, you'd probably manage to get the roof on fire which, in my view, still only counts as a distraction. At any rate, seems to me like it'd be much easier to fire an incendiary mortar round onto the roof than to smuggle a half-ton metal container on there.

QUOTE (Ryu)
Silent destruction certainly is something that does come up.

Thermite is only "silent" in the same sense that a sound suppressed gunshot is -- ie. it makes a whole damn lot of noise. But if the option is high explosives, it's often the better option for a shadowrunner.

For burning through things, a thermic lance is much more effective than a straight burning agent like thermite. Those have also seen use in my games.
Ryu
I know about the noise; we did some thermite burning in school - I know why I loved the natural sciences. I think that you can use it in an industrial environment without anyone not knowing the "right" sounds of the place being the wiser. As oposed to anyone near a major explosion.

We did not need thermite so far because noise is no issue if you are far away, and much destruction can be caused with the right technical skills alone. As in taking a hammer to the right places of the controlling electronics.
Marmot
Screw thermite, we had our troll attack someone with a thermal lance in the genitals once. Now if that isn't hardcore, I don't know what is.
X-Kalibur
QUOTE (Marmot)
Screw thermite, we had our troll attack someone with a thermal lance in the genitals once. Now if that isn't hardcore, I don't know what is.

The guy getting back up and fighting would be pretty hardcore.
Marmot
This is true, but the question would then be: After taking a thermal lance to the genitals, would you want to get back up?
Butterblume
I am still trying to figure out a way of using termites on a run nyahnyah.gif.
PBTHHHHT
The answer is very carefully. It's kinda like you shouldn't be running with scissors... oh you mean... nyahnyah.gif
KarmaInferno
We used carpenter ants, is that close enough?

Snuck into a site earlier and seeded the area with the ants. Waited til they called an exterminator and intercepted the call. Showed up as the exterminators.

smile.gif

Thermite can make an effective interrogation tool. I'll leave it at that.

biggrin.gif


-karma
PBTHHHHT
Nice. Question for ya, what did ya stick inside your extermination cans for equipment?
Kagetenshi
We got offered a run by the U.B. It may or may not involve termites.

~J
Fix-it
thermite is an ideal way to destroy things because it is rediculously easy to aquire.

You need:

Scrap iron
Aluminum
Some way to set it off (magnesium and model rocket fuses)

for the from-the-barrens-down-on-his-luck runner type, it's right next to AK-47s as an everyday weapon.


QUOTE

4. Did I mention that once you start the reaction, there's no stopping it? Not water (they use Thermite for underwater welding!), not CO2 gas, not Halon, not nothing. I'm not sure the stuff won't burn in a vacuum.


it would, because you have an oxygen supply in solid form (FeO2=iron oxide=rust)
but there's no knowing how effective it will be.
ShadowDragon8685
I know - that's why it works underwater. smile.gif

I guess it depends on the kind of vacuum - are we talking orbit, or a vacuum chamber? If we're talking orbit, it would probably disperse, but in a vac chamber, it might work... But it woulden't look normal. No flame - just metal getting hotter and hotter...

Plus, setting it off in vacuum would be hard.
Sir_Psycho
Is thermite like this in any of the rulebooks?

If not, anyone want to cook up some house rules?
Kesslan
Thermite is one of those oddities in the rulebooks. I think part of the only reason it's so expensive and has such a high avail raiting. Isnt because it's hard to use, but because at least in the every day setting... you really just dont see it being used at all.

It's one of those specialty industrial/military application type things. And even then it's not too common. But in the end if your careful, and know what your doing, it's stupid easy to make.

Personally I've rarely ever used incindiaries on runs. And the few times I did, it was almost allways to burn evidence. Nothing makes ash out of evidence better than some incidiaries the fire department cant put out! Woo!
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Kesslan)
Thermite is one of those oddities in the rulebooks...

...It's one of those specialty industrial/military application type things. And even then it's not too common. But in the end if your careful, and know what your doing, it's stupid easy to make.

...expecially for someone (like my retired character Leela) who has Demolitions with Chemistry, Metallurgy, and Explosives Background knowledge.
Ryu
About the only problem one might have producing thermite is accidentially igniting the aluminium while grinding it, right?
Ophis
One player of mine has a tendency to use burning bars on down vampires (regen that sucker!) another had the tendancy to try and work Thermite into every plan, ever only for it to get vetoed by the saner (all the rest) parts of the team. I think his best one was trying to work out how much termite it would take to burn through thirty floors of the Renraku Arc to allow the depositing of a box on a particular floor.
Kesslan
Well at least your better than one demo expert ork I used to have. He had an RV that eventually basically became one big FAE bomb. Not so much because he converted it into one, but because I wound up building so many of various strengths 'just incase' and storing them in the RV.

To this day, I am glad nothing ever happened to that RV to cause the FAEs to go off. That woulda been one hell of a mushroom cloud. (Not to mention the several sets of LAWs, claymores, spare grenades, and about 20lbs of various grades of Plastique, and about 10 cans of foam explosive also kept in said RV)

Thermite is oddly the one thing I almost never found use for. I think the ONLY time I ever used it was to setup a small can of it on the engine block of a target's vehicle before a run.
KarmaInferno
I ended a SR campaign that way.

Being the team demo expert (and rigger), my character's van was in much the same state as yours, chock full to the gills with explody things. At the end of the big climax firefight, the "bad guy" managed to get to his limo and hightail it out of the building.

As soon as his vehicle exited, it got rammed sideways into an alcove by a rather large van. My van. I took enough time to wave at the nice man though the windows, and calmly exited out the rear of the van, while he and his guards futilely tried to break out the bullet resistant glass as all his doors were jammed shut by the wall on one side and my van on the other

Grabbed a missile launcher on the way out, and deliberately walked away slow enough for my teammates to catch up to me, and handed the launcher off to the one guy who had a particular mad-on for the bad guy. This bad guy had been dogging us for the better part of two game years and had killed the aforementioned team-mate's sister.

The van went up in a very pretty set of explosions. From later reports the detonation was enough to set off seismometers all up and down the west coast. And after we picked ourselves up from getting knocked on our asses by the extended blast, we got to do the classic walk away into the sunset.

=)


-karma
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Ryu)
About the only problem one might have producing thermite is accidentially igniting the aluminium while grinding it, right?

That or tetanus (depending on your source of rust), yes.

~J
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
QUOTE (Ryu @ Dec 15 2006, 04:23 AM)
About the only problem one might have producing thermite is accidentially igniting the aluminium while grinding it, right?

That or tetanus (depending on your source of rust), yes.

~J

...1. that is why you have the comp skills in Chemistry and Metallurgy.

...2. and you of course wear the appropriate safety gear, though last I recall, Aluminum is a non ferrous metal.
Fix-it
you COULD have problems if you ground up the rust on the same grinding wheel as the aluminum. a few specs of molten iron maybe. but nothing enourmous.
KarmaInferno
Bit more serious than that, actually.


-karma
Kyoto Kid
...that's why Leela would wear a fire retardant hood, coveralls, and gloves.

and why her workshop is on the other side of the Grande Estate from the manor.

...thank you for observing all safety precautions... and, have a nice day...
Fix-it
hence the reason you're not supposed to grind alumium anyway. you use a file, you lazy bum.
Sir_Psycho
M&M specifies that Thermite is 10D. I'm not sure if grinding iron reacting with aliminium residue would do the full 10D damage. M or S, maybe.

Also, I'd say that grinding aliminium with a kit (chemistry or standard tool kit?) would be using a file, so it's not gonna happen. Using a Shop would involve using a belt grinder, like that article, so it could happen. I'd say a Facility would have in built safety. You may not even have to touch the grinding apparatus yourself.
Kagetenshi
I have full faith that a wired, high-Quickness character could cause ignition with a file wink.gif

~J
ShadowDragon8685
Cybersammies with precisely one point into Craft (Chemistry) using machine-shop tools aside, you're probably safe enough while making thermite, unless you try to use the same belt grinder on both metals.
Sir_Psycho

So how about rules for this? : biggrin.gif
Mortax
Thermite is way too easy to make...
Aluminum, yes, it is non-fe, but it is still somewhat toxic, and the powder is HIGHLY flammible. Not sure if I should point this out, but it's not a huge secret....
[ Spoiler ]


As far as using it, most of my teams havent. Mortax did a few times, usually in small quantities to weaken a hinge, wall, ect before "hey Koolaid"ing through it. it kept things realitively quite until he knocked down the wall. Never used it for interrogation, though that sounds like a good one. I was always more of popsicle and blowtorch kinda guy.
Moon-Hawk
OH YEAH!!
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Sir_Psycho)
So how about rules for this? : biggrin.gif

...uhhh, do we throw burning Thermite in the middle of them?
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Mortax)
Not sure if I should point this out

Why?

~J
Fortune
'Cause bomb-making is bad, don't ya know. wink.gif
Mortax
Covering my own hoop. smile.gif And I'm not sure somepeople on this board should have access to explosives. smile.gif

But as I said,it wouldn't take much to find this out on your own. Hell, I learned it in chem 101. (Man, that was a fun teacher....)
Ryu
I was more concerned with self-ignition than with small patches of thermite created due to doing both metals on the same set of tools. IŽd assume someone doing small batches manually would be safe from the former, and the later happens on a glitch.

Someone in my game using "proper" tools without the necessary skills would suffer. AR handbooks are there for a reason.
Wounded Ronin
Well, I've only known one player to use thermite, and he was a physics major in real life. I think more runners should use thermite. I really do.
ShadowDragon8685
In some situations it might even be the "Stealthy" option for a forced entry. smile.gif
Mortax
see my comment in the lockpicking thread. wink.gif
yoippari
Something that hasn't been brought up and isn't even in the book is that thermite leaves behind liquid iron. Thermite burns at about 5500 F and iron melts at 2900. Metal that hot takes a while to cool down. It also generates a lot of sparks and smoke along with a "roar" of boiling iron, definetly not a very stealth friendly door opener.

I found the video of a friend of mine using thermit to make alloy steel (iron melts down into a crucible with the other alloying elements). This is a 9 pound charge.
http://s63.photobucket.com/albums/h151/Bre...nt=MOV01705.flv

9 pounds is more than you need to destroy a door hinge but it gives you an idea of how noticeable thermit is. BTW, that video was taken in broad daylight, the camera has to compensate for how bright the reaction is by lowering the overall brightness.
Kagetenshi
Boiling? I rather doubt that.

Anyway, in addition to the liquid iron the thermite also probably leaves behind liquid whatever-you-were-thermiting, providing it didn't go gaseous.

~J
ShadowDragon8685
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
Boiling? I rather doubt that.

Anyway, in addition to the liquid iron the thermite also probably leaves behind liquid whatever-you-were-thermiting, providing it didn't go gaseous.

~J

Thermite, Thermite, the magical stuff!
The more you use, the less you fuss.
The less you fuss, the better you feel,
So please use thermite with every deal!





And I imagine that wood would simply burn off.
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