Carlos said:
I was just thinking about how easy it was to breach walls in our FMA game with
standard grenades while the guy is standing their pretty much in the same room
watching. The physics of explosives preclude being able to do that
unless you have a specialist shaped-charge or a huge mongo grenade that
will kill anyone within proximity even the breachers. Ands I don't think a
secured underground scientific facility like the one we were fighting in would
be made out of sheetrock.
============================================
In actual fact, the HEAP grenades probably would have punched holes in the
walls, but it might have been a melon sized hole... (but it never happened).
The only two breaches made (man sized) were made by a dedicated engineer
figure with breaching charges to hand... he blew through two walls with a
tamped explosive. Despite the fact I may have said grenades could breach, we
never actually did this and you are right that it probably is unreasonable. Do
I beleive you could make a "breaching" grenade? You bet. Rifle launched... not
thrown, though if you had something like a 5th element grenade with a spike
that would stick into the wall....
And I'm with the other guys who say that civilian construction is done by the
cheapest bidder most times (so is some military construction). Myself, I think
I could breach the wall in my office barehanded in about two minutes (might
break a toe or some knuckles). Give me a crowbar, and I bet I could be through
the wall in 60 seconds. (Admittedly, it'd be a serious effort). Would all
places be like this? No.
Would training facilities? Some. Would offices? Most. Even in secured
installations I've attended, with TEMPEST shielding and a minimum Secret or
Top Secret to enter, many times the outside walls are fortified, but the
inside walls look a lot like my office wall. Around server rooms and such they
usually have cinderblock, or in other spots stuff is locked up which is
classified, but many of the other walls were drywall, gyprock or plaster.
Aside: Nanotech might make a spray (or a spray grenade) of stuff that eats
<insert wall material> or a simple chemical that disassembles it on the
molecular level (accelerated decay). This would make an awesome breaching
tool. It
might be available to engineers in a flamer-like spray dispenser... a
quick blast and wait 30 secs and you have a man sized hole...
Aside: Also, I might suggest that, if you like TDX, it would be possible to
build a gravitationally polarized explosive and use it for some VERY nasty
booby traps (chop PA in half...). You might be able to use this type of tech
to make a breaching charge.
I can see we're going to have a lot of fun compiling our "FMA:CQB-2183"
supplement....
Grav polarized explosives were in an old JTAS, but not an issue I have.
------Original Message------
From: "Barclay, Tom" <tomb@bitheads.com>
To: "Gzg Digest (E-mail)" <GZG-L@csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: March 15, 2001 12:07:10 AM GMT
Subject: Los thoughts on breaching
Aside: Also, I might suggest that, if you like TDX, it would be possible to
build a gravitationally polarized explosive and use it for some VERY nasty
booby traps (chop PA in half...). You might be able to use this type of tech
to make a breaching charge.
Best of the Journal Vol #1,
With a credit to James Blish and his Okie series.
(Wry Grin to the comments about dating selves on this very game system
earlier...)
David
> -----Original Message-----
***
Grav polarized explosives were in an old JTAS, but not an issue I have.
***
I missed the first part of the discussion, but the polarized explosives were
called TDX in the article. As for which JTAS, as I've found it in the first
Best Of, it's in one of the first four.
Considered great for clearing forests or bridge supports.
The article cites James Blish's Cities In Flight aka Okie series, though I
don't remember it coming up there.
Ok who's ready for a class on breaching? (What I'm about to tell you has all
been learned the hard way) First off, there are three main types of breaches:
1. Mechanical breaching. This is basically "picking the lock, SWAT-type
RAM, or the Tom B. "gimme a crowbar and a minute and I'll get through a wall",
or in FMA example either a techie running a hand held bypass or a PA guy using
a power glaive to scoop out a wall. These should generally be
multi-action
events unless mister PA is litteraly running through a typical 20th century
sheetrock and 2x4 type wall. This is the least desirable method as it takes
the most time, often while making noise, thus exposing the breacher to a
longer period of risk, (though a bypass or lock-picking could be a
stealth entry.) During the planning stages of dynamic ("loud boom boom") entry
this should never be consider this is a primary method.
2. Ballistic breaching: This is another alternate means of gaining entry
through a window or a door. It entals basically shooting out hinges and locks
with a shotgun using certain types of rounds (rifled slugs, bird shot, buck
shot, and specialist breaching rounds such as "shocloc" "lockbuster"
and "hatton" rounds) These require extremely accurate placement. Again
during planning stages this is never considered as the primary means of entry
due to its unrelaiability. (though it may occasionally be necessary). The
reason is that this breach is not reliable or positive means of gaining entry,
and it does not supply teh speed, surprise, and violence of action necessary
to minimize friendly losses upon entry. Though if your main breaching charge
fails then this is the alternative. An FMA type attempt requries, I would say,
an appropriate weapon, a dr to see if it's successful based on troop quality,
weapons effectiveness, opposed by the door strength, this could be improved by
spending an additional action (aim) to make sure you get it right. As for an
apporpriate weapon, those would either be a shotgun or better off the GL
fitted to most ARs would be loaded with tehse specialist rounds.
Explosive breaching. This should always be the primary means of dynamic
barrier penetration.
1. It must be easy to carry and be "pre-setup". There's normally no time
to do any special rigging of the breach at thetime of emplacement. So in FMA
terms this is something you have to have going into the game and track as a
seperate munition.
2. It must be able to be placed on the breaching surface silently an d within
seconds once you get there.
3. The charge must be large and efficient enough to cut a large-enough
hole so that you can rush through it without getting hung up, since once you
create a breach, you create a natural fatal-funnel for enemy fire. On
the other side of the coin, the explsoion must be small and directed enough to
allow the breachers to remain close enough to the breach so that they could
get through it before anyone on the other side recovers and starts filling the
breach full of lead.
4. In short it must be relaible, durable, (so the rig doesn't fall apart on
you when you are carrying it,) easy to transport, safe for the breacher, and
uses the least amount of explosives possible.
Just remember a breaching charge is a cutting charge, which uses a
proportionately small amount of explosives,. specifically placed and shaped to
cut a hole. And almost always this is done in door not a wall. i think people
are seriously overestimating the easye of creating a breach even in regular
civilian construction. A normal charge not cutting charge of sufficient
uqantity could achieve teh same result but woiuld destroy
everything around it and put the breachers/assaulters at risk unless
they were far enough away from the breach to negate the advantage of placing
and entering the breach.
Sample breaching devices could be Tom's spray-type example, (we actually
have a caulk gun type applicator, detcord precut and prepareed and placed with
100mph tape, a doorknob charge, a charge placed on a piece of cardboard that
you apply to a door with tape (it only has to stick for less than a minute.)
There are also more esoterinc breaching charges., Just coming into sevrice is
a charge that looks like a cross between a panzerfaust and a
closed umbrella that goes onto an adapter-fitted M4 or M16. You fire it
at the door from x feet away, it opens like an umbreall and makes an immediate
breach. Cool.
Note that all of these point to specialist rounds or charges that need to be
That's true about larger scale infantry fighting, Stargrunt/Dirtside
scale stuff. For larger conventional operations there are specialist engineer
breaching charges, large affairs, and even specialist CEV Combat Engineer
vehicles, with mongosso large breaching shells that just blow the f**k out in
a wall. Neither of those affairs allow you to follow a breach in immediately
however, (Remember I'm talking about CQB as it is normally seen in FMA, arms
length type of fighting) if your close enough to go right in
after a charge large enough to breach the side of a concrete/brick
apartment wall, your close enough to kill or incapacitate yourself in the
blast. However for the purposes of CQB not MOUT in general, those charges are
generally impractical to handle for the purposes of dynamic entry. Then there
are other concerns such as damage to the facility you are assaulting (Since
most FMA type battles I've seen are capture the facility intact type of
affairs.) or the people you are trying to rescue capture.
Of course then there can be other specialist sci-fi cutting devices of
the
laser - plasma type. Potentially PA mounted.
Los
[quoted original message omitted]
I agree with most of what Los says, but...
> Just remember a breaching charge is a cutting charge, which uses a
...I have to disagree with this, at least for large-scale MOUT. Special
Ops may well be different, of course, since you may want some of the
people in the attacked room to survive :-/
Both the British and the Swedish army wants to be able to blow a hole
in the walls - *not* in the doors. Why? Because quite often the
defenders are already oriented towards the doors, so if you go through the
door and your breaching charge doesn't knock them out (temporarily or
permanently) you'll get hurt. By going through the walls you can enter the
room from any direction, thus getting a better chance of surprising the enemy.
Later,
Tom,
Make sure you make those nanites have a short lifetime or they will eat their
way through your own troops as they step through the breach <G>.
Good idea though. FMA:CQB-2183 when is it due out <G,D,R>
Bob Makowsky
<<Some good stuff snipped for clarity>>
[quoted original message omitted]
G'day folks,
Ok, a few thoughts on the discussion - breaching and future
construction...
Construction:
I think this discussion is *seriously* underestimating the likelihood of 200
years of technological development producing methods of building construction
that are a) a whole lot stronger and safer than the ones we use, and b) really
inexpensive and simple to use, in their own context.
For example, here in Toronto there is a comapny called Royal Plastics that has
developed a method of housing construction that could shake the construction
industry. They produce large extruded plastic panels that are hollow and
interlock. An inexpensive extruded aluminum frame is set up where you want
your house, you lock together these big panels like a giant lego set using the
frame as a guide, and then pour concrete into them. The concrete hardens, the
roof is put on, and voila, finished structure. In a demonstration, they put up
a small single family home using a team of four unskilled labourers over the
course of a single weekend. For different
climates, stuff like insulation can be pre-mounted on/in the panels. So
can wiring/electrical/phone/cable and plumbing. They can come
pre-painted.
Windows are a snap-in piece. Etc etc etc. The problem with this
method is that it can build a house using four labourers in a weekend... and
so would put the construction industry out of business overnight. There is no
jurisdiction in North America that is willing to grant the bylaw changes
necessary to allow this construction method - the economic destruction
would be staggering. So, the company is now marketing the stuff as a means
of putting up quick housing in disaster-struck areas, in the developing
world, etc. The method is far less expensive than conventional construction,
is very quick, and uses less resources. Granted, it is by no
means *perfect* in every way - there is something to be said for good
stone
and brick... but still - it's a great example of innovation
here-and-now
making things a lot different. And that would produce *concrete* houses
-
a much bigger headache for the crowbar croud.
How about this: the firm of Bloggins and Sons, a large NAC construction firm,
is given the contract to put up a research complex for an engineering company
developing new military equipment. They arrive on site, clear the
area and lay the foundation using fast-setting perma-crete. Sets up in
five minutes, and you can apply it perfectly flat with a special piece of
construction equipment. The plans for the walls, etc are laid out in a
holographic grid for the engineers to check, and then the construction robots
go to work. They extrude walls at the correct height and thickness using a
variety of adjustable forms, using a quicker setting version of
perma-crete that is suitable for internal walls. It sets up in 20
seconds at the thicknesses used (only 4 cm thick needed for internal walls
because
that is plenty for weight-bearing structures... no need to use the
slower setting 20cm thickness like in the foundation). No wiring, because of
course everything is wireless - ok, maybe some power conduits or
something. Water is provided, as is waste disposal. Heat and light are
generated by conductive panels flush mounted with the wall. Or whatever.
The 2,000 square meter facility is completed in five days, with
fit-and-finish taking an additional three days. The move-in, scheduled
for the following day, is interrupted by the arrival of the ESU special
operations team, who got their dates wrong and turned up exactly one week
early. Oops.
Luckily for them as they go crashing around inside the beautifully finished
but empty complex, they are carrying the newly developed Glonnex Industries
entry charges, freshly stolen from New Buckingham...
Breaching:
Same comment from above applies here. Los has given us examples of the clever
types of breaching charges being developed *now*. Well, 180 years from now,
Glonnex Industries launches their "Sure Entry" specialist explosive entry
product series. The centerpiece of the system is an explosive charge launched
from a standard 25mm GL. Remember that NAC (for example) rifles (and
presumably all their other weapons) use laser range
finders and air-burst fused grenades - and this would be common to
everybody. The Glonnex charge works by exploding exactly 2m from the surface
you want to breach. The projectile sprays out a roughly
rectangular pattern of a liquid chemical, which forms a web-like pattern
on the surface aimed at. This chemical sticks to the surface, and foams up
after 1/2 second contact with air. The foaming process takes only 10
seconds to complete, and the chemical increases in volume significantly,
forming strips of material on the target surface approximately 1.5cm thick.
The outer 5mm of this material, in longest contact with the air, solidifies
into an extremely hard surface. The inner material, in contact with the wall,
does not solidify quite so solid. The hard outer surface loses it's explosive
properties as it solidifies. Detonation of the
now-formed breaching charge is controlled by (whatever - a hand held
remote, a deployed timer that goes with the projectile and is set before you
fire it, a chemical process that just happens after a certain period of time,
whatever). The explosive goes off, and the outer surface, now *really hard*
gives a tamping effect, so the explosive is effectively shaped. The explosive
cuts though the offending surface in a 2m x 1.5m roughly regtangular pattern,
with the material inside the pattern being shattered into 20cm square pieces.
Danger radius of the explosion is 2m.
The process takes 11 seconds from firing to explosion. In go the assaulters.
And there are different varieties of the projectile, for heavier and lighter
(or maybe I should say stronger and weaker) surfaces. Different dispersal
patterns accourding to how you set the projectile. Etc etc.
Maybe it works just fine in vaccuum. Maybe it is applied by a hand-held
pistol sized applicator which also has a "trigger it" button. Maybe there
are more specialized engineer-carried versions for all the complicated
types of materials you might encounter, and the infantry are issued only a
couple of "standard" versions based on what they are likely to find in the
target area, etc etc etc. Whatever.
My point in all this is that we're debating how breaching should work in
FMA by making reference directly to modern-day construction and
breaching methods. That makes sense to a degree... But while it is perfectly
reasonable to say that 200 years from now, construction may go to the
lowest bidder and use low-cost construction methods - there is NO reason
to
think that the "low-cost, simple" construction methods THEN would bare
*any* relation to what we use now. Or maybe they do. Same with the breaching
charges.
The real issue is that we should just decide on the game effect we want, and
then make up some PSB to cover it.
Game effects I think are reasonable:
1. Breaching charges come in 2 types, 1 that the engineers carry that can cut
through *anything* (except the wonder material that the person who writes the
scenario says you can't get through, because for scenario reasons you have to
get the key or find the guy with the code or whatever). The second type is the
general issued type that fires out of a grenade launcher, and can get through
most common doors and walls. 2. The charges are clever, and can be used by
someone in the same room as the explosion, with NO danger of injuring the
user, except sitting on the thing as it goes off (in rules terms, you have to
be 2" away from the
explosion or something bad happens - what I haven't really thought about
-
someone else can suggest an appropriate effect - maybe a d8 impact hit
on any figure within 2" when the explosion goes off). 3. Being on the other
side of the explosion should be bad, but not for more than 3" or 4" in game
terms. Perhaps if a figure is within 4", they
take a d10 impact hit. The charges are designed to cut/shatter a
roughly
1.5m x 2m hole (or bigger if you're using the special PA size versions -
remember you can dial-in a different spray pattern on the grenades), so
people can go through. 4. It takes 1 action to prepare the charge (you have to
set the pattern and prepare the timer), and 1 action to use. It fires, and
*wham*, there's a breach. 5. Firing one doesn't make a lot of noise, but the
explosion sure does. 6. Firing one doesn't produce enough smoke to cause smoke
effects in game.
Ok, now write PSB to fit...
I really don't think it should get any more complicated than that, or else
we'll end up with a page of rules covering different material types, different
breaching charge types, rules for danger distances and effects on the firers'
side of the wall, rules for danger distances and effects on the targets' side
of the wall, etc etc etc.
********************************************
> Ok, a few thoughts on the discussion - breaching and future
Thatw as my point exactly in an earlier post
> Breaching:
I snipped a lot of good stuff adrian wrote, and I think at this point this
conversation is on two lists so I don't know what I said here or over there,
but while some things change, such as devices, the basic principles of
breaching and how explosives and explosions work don't change. The device you
explained is similar to one we alredy use as an attachment to an
M4/M16
like a very wierd looking rifle grenade.
> The real issue is that we should just decide on the game effect we
Remember one of the key effects you want out of a breach is to kill or at
least stun for a few seconds anyone in the room of the other side so you can
go through the breach safely.
> 4. It takes 1 action to prepare the charge (you have to set the
The two operant things you said here, which is pretty much what I've said, is
that it takes an action to prepare (After all if you want to have your GL full
of breaching charges don't turn around in the next actino and expect to fire
off an HE unless you've specified whats in a dual capacity magazine ahead of
time.) and don't stand around the thing.
And your foam device is something similar we already have in a caulking gun
form, I don't know if it's practical as spitting out of a ballistic GL,
perhaps a dedicated launcher/applicator that hangs from your belt and
you use once and toss (or reload).
Now as far as minimun safe distance to be from something when it goes off,
that we already have defined in various tables. (I have a whole chart with
weights as low as.01 lbs out to 5 lbs that we sue to calculate safe distances
for breach training and operations. I'll just give an example, a breaching
charge with an equivallent of 1 lb of TNT has a minimum safe
arming distance of 9 meters if you ahve no protection and 2+ meters if
you have some cover. Stuff does come flying back at you, and it doesn't take
much of a glance at any non-PA figure to see that there's enough
potential exposure to make any sane person leery of being within one range
band (FMA what's that 4 meters?) in the open.
And my take on all this is that breaching devices increase dramtically in
easye of employment and effectiveness but building materials (espeically in
the kinds of the facilities most all FMA battles occur in) also increase
dramatiocally in durability so that you remain more or less where you always
(in terms of danger/effectiveness) are but with new toys.
My motto, for every invention/device and equal and opposite
invention/device
to keep things in check. It's the way of the world. I mean hey with all the
technological advances, it's just as dangerous to be an infantryman nowadays
as it was 1860. I'm sure the same will be true in 2260 with brief ascendency
of one side or the other in between.
> From: adrian.johnson@sympatico.ca [mailto:adrian.johnson@sympatico.ca]
[SNIP]
> They produce large extruded plastic panels that are
[SNIP]
> Windows are a snap-in piece. Etc etc etc.
Why am I getting visions of a Little Tike's Playhouse...
> The real issue is that we should just decide on the game
Too often these kinds of discussions fail to arrive at a solution is because
we, as gamers, each have an idea of what we believe reality is. Adrian is
right. Games will never be reality. Let's decide what game effects we would
like to see and build the rules accordingly.