Folks be all blowed up in Boston...
04-16-2013, 04:36 PM
#41
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I'm excited to see that at least some of the major news organizations are spinning this story into a story of "heroism" and providing media coverage to the "heroes" of the event rather than trying to focus on "who" blowed folks up, or "why". It's refreshing for an event to be "faceless" for once.
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04-16-2013, 05:06 PM
#42
I'm excited to see that at least some of the major news organizations are spinning this story into a story of "heroism" and providing media coverage to the "heroes" of the event rather than trying to focus on "who" blowed folks up, or "why". It's refreshing for an event to be "faceless" for once.
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04-17-2013, 02:07 AM
#49
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So, serious question from someone who is not well-versed in improvised explosive devices.
Why a pressure cooker?
I really can't quite grasp this. It seems like a highly sub-optimal vessel to make a bomb out of.
As compared to an old fashioned pipe bomb made from threaded iron pipe, it seems to me that a pressure cooker would tend to have a much lower yield strength. They're typically made of aluminum, and they have a large, weak seal between the lid and the pot which would seem to provide a significant failure point. In my admittedly simplistic understanding, this would cause the intensity of the explosion to be lower.
Consider a pile of smokeless powder sitting on the ground. You light it, and it goes *FOOF*. But there's not really an explosion per se, just a big flash. You could light an ounce of powder on a table with a long match with very little danger to yourself.
You get an explosion by containing the energy of the powder within a strong vessel and allowing it to build up until it exceeds the ability of the vessel to contain it, resulting a a *BOOM*.
A vessel with a higher yield strength should, by this logic, produce a bigger *BOOM*. Like running a high-compression engine in detonation vs. running a low compression engine normally (vs. just pouring some gasoline onto the ground and lighting it.)
At this point, I've done enough googling on the subject that I'm now probably in at least half a dozen federal databases, and while I've found a lot of descriptions of pressure cookers in use as IEDs, I have yet to find any material which objectively compares them to other common vessels (eg: iron pipe) in terms of effectiveness as measured by explosive yield per unit of propellant mass or total volume.
Why a pressure cooker?
I really can't quite grasp this. It seems like a highly sub-optimal vessel to make a bomb out of.
As compared to an old fashioned pipe bomb made from threaded iron pipe, it seems to me that a pressure cooker would tend to have a much lower yield strength. They're typically made of aluminum, and they have a large, weak seal between the lid and the pot which would seem to provide a significant failure point. In my admittedly simplistic understanding, this would cause the intensity of the explosion to be lower.
Consider a pile of smokeless powder sitting on the ground. You light it, and it goes *FOOF*. But there's not really an explosion per se, just a big flash. You could light an ounce of powder on a table with a long match with very little danger to yourself.
You get an explosion by containing the energy of the powder within a strong vessel and allowing it to build up until it exceeds the ability of the vessel to contain it, resulting a a *BOOM*.
A vessel with a higher yield strength should, by this logic, produce a bigger *BOOM*. Like running a high-compression engine in detonation vs. running a low compression engine normally (vs. just pouring some gasoline onto the ground and lighting it.)
At this point, I've done enough googling on the subject that I'm now probably in at least half a dozen federal databases, and while I've found a lot of descriptions of pressure cookers in use as IEDs, I have yet to find any material which objectively compares them to other common vessels (eg: iron pipe) in terms of effectiveness as measured by explosive yield per unit of propellant mass or total volume.
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04-17-2013, 08:32 AM
#53
My forensic accounting teacher is an active FBI special supervisory agent. Last night he was discussing the event because he is also a trained explosives expert. He said the most likely reason a pressure cooker was used instead of an iron pipe was for two reasons. If it were discovered in the backpack it would not have been immediately recognizable as a bomb like an iron pipe would have been. The other reason is because the person who made it was not an expert. He was talking about the blast itself and how it was actually really ineffective for the size of the device and density of the crowd. The blast was very asymmetrical and reminded him a lot of simple IED's that were used in Iraq.
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04-17-2013, 09:14 AM
#54
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He also said the scene was "something you see in Baghdad, not Boston."
It's sad to think that there are people out there - even if they represent such a miniscule percentage of the human population - that think targeting non-combatants like women and children to mutilate, maime and kill is acceptable to accomplish some goal.
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04-17-2013, 11:06 AM
#57
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I am open to that possibility, though I haven't seen any data on the non-combatant casualties (and doubt accurate info even exists or is available to the public).
I appreciate your use of the word "resemble" to note that there is a difference. Primarily, that (at least in theory), the drone strikes are targetting combatant targets and sometimes taking non-combatants out as "collateral damage."
I have lots of issues with the use of drones, but I think it's important to distinguish the primary targets here.
I appreciate your use of the word "resemble" to note that there is a difference. Primarily, that (at least in theory), the drone strikes are targetting combatant targets and sometimes taking non-combatants out as "collateral damage."
I have lots of issues with the use of drones, but I think it's important to distinguish the primary targets here.
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