this may be a very stupid question, but one i've been wondering for quite a while.

whats the 'proper' way (if there is one)
to safely disarm a 'device' (safely as in, not let it go off)


have i been watching too many hollywood movies?


say there is a explosive device wired to an electrical detonator.
what is the most probably way to disarm it?

i know every device is different, but i'm asking what is one sure way to disarm such a device?

is it as easy as cutting the 'blue' wire or the 'red wire' as depicted in many hollywood movies?

If you can remove the 'fuze' element that usually renders the bulk explosive safe. If that's not possible you can try to move the whole thing to a safe place and blow it the fuck up.
Another way is to use a very small charge or high pressure water jet thing to destroy the electrical bits but not make the whole thing det.

I think its fair enough to say that there's more than one type of electrical timer and it's fairly unlikely that they'd have colour coded wires exposed in a such a manner to make it so easy.

Hollywood bomb defusal scenes are almost completely fabricated.

If the entire device is visible, it really is as simple as cutting one single crucial link in the chain: Power source, blasting cap, trigger ...

It's trickier when the device is inside a container, because the bomb squad can't just "assume" that there's no trigger that'll make the device go off if the container is opened.
That's when those robot mounted scanners with cutting tools and water jets become invaluable.

Military ordinance disposal is usually a by-the-book procedure if the bomb is intact, but they may be detonated on the spot if that's deemed safer.

Surely the whole "cutting the coloured wire" thing in movies symbolises that the bomb has been designed with "booby traps" to fuck up anyone trying to disarm it? That would make more sense.

Either way im pretty sure that most people who would ever want to make a bomb would make sure that cables and other electrics would be carefully hidden and sealed from the elements and prying eyes...

IEDs and shit aren't really that complicated, just devious.

heh.
i was thinking of making a 'fake' device, to see what happens.

you know those 6v big lattern batterys?
if you take that out you have 4 dynamite looking things.

well i only have 3 now, but if i were to solder weird looking wires, and then solder an old LCD panel from a calculator which would look like a detonator, then that would be look like a device imo.

it's useless, but its also fun to make and look at it.

Call me when you get to jail.

haha.
i'm not going to drop it off at a railway statoin for fun.

what with all those 'report all suspicious and unattended bags'

ill just have it in my room.

like an ornament like a vase or something :D

I won't go into the precise reasons , but cutting the power source will most likely end up with you dieing.

Some company used to make these awesome clocks modeled after the classic time bomb multi-stick-of-dynamite-and-curly-wire-attached-to-clock-face jibbery. Some business desk clerk got fucked on for having one on his desk when his secretary called the feebs and shit.

I won't go into the precise reasons , but cutting the power source will most likely end up with you dieing.
You watch too many movies asshole STFU GTFO. Moko was right on the money, and you don't have a single fucking clue what you are talking about. If you did, you WOULD have gone into precise details. So either post the details, or:



stfugtfokthxbai

I won't go into the precise reasons , but cutting the power source will most likely end up with you dieing.

The only way that cutting off the power would cause a detonation is if there is a back up power supply such as a second battery or a capacitor wired into a relay to cause detonation on main power cutoff. But to say cut off the power supply would assume you kill all available power to the device and if you do this it will not detonate. Simple fact of life, blasting caps do not detonate when you cut the power to them, only when they have electricity going to them.

The only way that cutting off the power would cause a detonation is if there is a back up power supply such as a second battery or a capacitor wired into a relay to cause detonation on main power cutoff. But to say cut off the power supply would assume you kill all available power to the device and if you do this it will not detonate. Simple fact of life, blasting caps do not detonate when you cut the power to them, only when they have electricity going to them.

Don't forget heat and shock. But yeah, I got your point, just givin ya shit. I wasn't going to bother explaining the concept to the kid because it's just a waste of time. People who THINK they know about explosives (ie from movies and ACB etc) seem to think that what they've heard and seen on TV is gospel, and if you disagree, well then you are stupid, even if you CAN recite the synth for countless explosives, and even if you DO show them proof otherwise.

They don't care, because MacGyver said so, or Jolly Roger said so, and that's that.

so if you were in a situation where there is a bomb in front of you, and you cannot escape.

which wire would you cut?

(not coloured wire, but from where to where), countering the fact that the wires might be booby trapped.

"Cut the blue wire"
"But all the wires are blue"
"Then cut em all"

Just remove the detonator's from the explosive, then remove explosives from the vicinity. Should work. Also, wouldnt taking the battery out of the timer work?

what if there is no blue wire?
blue would only be the colour of the insulator.
which could be anything.

normally there'd be a boobytrap, or a backup battery right?

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d60_1198103437

(1) If it's just a simple blasting configuration (bulk HE, detonator, battery), cutting a lead from the battery to the detonator will generally render the thing inert.

(1a) If there's a timing circuit involved and you can see the detonator, cut a lead to the detonator (assuming that there are just two leads).

(2) If the device is actually configured as a bomb, it may be difficult-to-impossible to render safe. There are so many ways to booby trap an actual bomb that it takes real expertise to even recognize what the designer has built. Hence the bomb-resistant containers, blast suits, robots, etc, etc.

When my brother was a police detective, he watched a video done by the BATF that showed a bomb in a hospital that was so booby trapped that the best decision was to kiss your ass goodbye. The point was that a really good designer can put together a device that cannot be defused. Before someone calls bullsh*t on that, think about your favorite method of rendering a device safe, and then think how long it would take you to devise a circuit that will close as soon as your method is employed...water, freezing, X-ray, etc.

Bomb suits wont keep you alive, just in one piece...

Liquid Nitrogen. Freeze the fucker.

Boom.

The only way that cutting off the power would cause a detonation is if there is a back up power supply such as a second battery or a capacitor wired into a relay to cause detonation on main power cutoff. But to say cut off the power supply would assume you kill all available power to the device and if you do this it will not detonate. Simple fact of life, blasting caps do not detonate when you cut the power to them, only when they have electricity going to them.

I was thinking of an inductor storing some energy in a magnetic field, that would then collapse and release a final burst if power to it was cut. But yes, if you can cut off all power to the blasting cap then of course it won't explode. I was just saying that it can be much more complex than snipping the wires from the battery.

I was thinking of an inductor storing some energy in a magnetic field, that would then collapse and release a final burst if power to it was cut. But yes, if you can cut off all power to the blasting cap then of course it won't explode. I was just saying that it can be much more complex than snipping the wires from the battery.

Easier then that - A relay held open by current from the main battery, secondary power source concealed.


Actually, how's that for an idea? It would certainly fuck with your charge's density, but have the timer/det circuit actually concealed inside the explosive itself, in the case of plastique just mould it around the PCB. Good luck defusing that one, eh?

I won't go into the precise reasons , but cutting the power source will most likely end up with you dieing.

Why do you think I said "if the entire device is clearly visible"
It's very easy to set up a secondairy circuit triggered by cutting the power source, FMJ just described the basic idea there. If you've got eyes on the entire circuit, you can work around that.

Now, when you see two seperate power sources, both of them with an interruptor juiced by the other source, then you've got something to worry about! At least for what cutting the power is concerned.

Some company used to make these awesome clocks modeled after the classic time bomb multi-stick-of-dynamite-and-curly-wire-attached-to-clock-face jibbery. Some business desk clerk got fucked on for having one on his desk when his secretary called the feebs and shit.

I have the magazine cutout from the magazine that used to sell them.

hahaha

People have no sence of humour these days

Except for the north Koreans :p

http://www.spin.com/features/everybodystalkingabout/2006/07/060705_korea/

A friend who owns a comic/bookstore near me got harassed by the cops a number of years ago for doing this.

He sliced up a couple of poster tubes into 10" or so lengths, painted them red, bundled up seven of them with some strips of duct tape, and topped it off with an old analog alarm clock and a bunch of telephone curly cord wrapped around. He intended to use it as an actual clock in his store (and he does, it's still there) but some busybody "tipped" the police about the thing that'd been sitting high on a bookshelf gathering dust for years.

Turns out there's actually a law in this state about carrying or keeping an "explosive device lookalike" within a certain asinine distance of a bank, government office, or school (something like 1000 yards or some stupid shit, which covers about 75% of the residencies in this end of the state one way or another). There is, of course, a bank in the very end bay of the shopping center across the lot from his store.

Never you mind that he owns the store, it's his property, and he can do what he damn well pleases with it. And nobody in the bank can even see the thing, and 99.9 percent of people coming in the store don't even notice it unless it's pointed out.

In the end, the bookstore owner managed to talk the cops out of arresting him. The bomb-clock sits there to this day, as does the offending bank. I have no clue how many times it's been brought up since then.

But it just goes to show you the sort of stupidity you can find yourself involved in if the wrong people find out about your harmless play.

I think liquid Nitrogen is sometimes used to freeze everything.

A new method (just patented and being trialed now) is using sticks of thermite to deactivate mines. Rather than blowing them up they just burn it up, very successfully too!

http://www.disarmco.com/news_info.asp?id=10

So many possible ways that it could be a problem could have light sensative switchs could have parralel colapsing circuits could have multiple powersupplys could have mercury switchs motion detectors accelerometers could have altimeters could be remote could be wired could be timed could be chemical could just be fused it situation provides a unique way of handling it ... which does not always may it as simple as removing the cap from a HE device it really depends on how well this person knows there electronics and how fail safe he wants it to be

I was also going to call xarf out on the power supply comment, although I suppose the implications of doing anything to a live bomb are only limited to the MacGyver spirit of the creator.

The pizza man bomb comes to mind:

http://www.smh.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1062548948876_2003/09/04/pizzadevice,0.jpg

According to reports it was nigger-rigged with booby trapped keyholes and all sorts of traps. I would have thought encasing a bomb in epoxy would be a good final step in production...

Warweed, are you ever going to bring warweed.com back online?

yes i have privatly hosted but it is in development stages and is not fully online yet as there is alot of work to do and one of the machines i was doing some development on got tampered with and some how corrupted 12 scsi hot swaps so im data mining them now give me alot of time as ww2.com will be much better with ALOT of new features

that said i have been extremly busy the last few months so i have minimal time to do the things that need to be done and to argue with php for 4 hours just to get somthing running is a pain in the arse

my favorite way to render a device safe is to blow it up. there is no way to counter that!
but seriously imho I think the best way to make a bomb undifussable(sp?) is to make a real bomb and then have a seprate fake bomb. the fake bomb would look like it can't be defused but won't have any explosives. and they could be linked but mostly likly they won't be and the real bomb will be on a remote control or timer detonator.

This is borderlining on inappropriate content.

If you ever design a device with an electronic circuit, for the love of god make sure you know how to defuse the entire thing, and have the blasting cap exposed!

for sure.. there is no legal reason for a collapsing circuit ina explosive device other then for the purpose terrorist activitiys thou if you were to i would Probally encase the circuit in epoxy and run a ribbon cable with a bunch of false leads to aid in making more of a pain in the ass to people to defuse.... though there is no such thing as a explosive that can't be disarmed there are deterances to do so

1. Remove detonators
2. throw away far(ideally in an open field with plenty of space for shrapnel to fall
3. Remove main explosive charge/s and "dispose off"


Careful of light sensors, vibration sensors, electric circuits which involve the car's frame to activate the detonator(ie. the body is negative, and when you touch the body and the timer/remote etc it goes "boom"), heat sensors, basically anything which may set off a bomb by your own interfering . Luckily most people dont have the time/experience/skills/supplies to make an "undefusable device"(which is possible, just not practical)

Most "planters of devices"(terrorists, freedom fighters, kewls) wont bother buying 2 different coloured wires, so the movies saying "cut the blue/red wire" doesnt apply EVER. Taking the batteries out is another option, but some timers are run by a capacitor, which discharges when it's turned off and goes "beep" which would still make it go "boom"


edit : aww looks like warweed beat me to some of it

fail... alot of people can make alot of really cheap and easy trips... mercury switchs .. and temprature triggers lots of crap

I've been 'studying', a lot of what I'm reading puts shrapnel as the most dangerous aspect of a blast, followed by the heat and possible resulting fire then the actual blast wave. Though I think that only applies to things like car bombs and not multiton cache dets, the shock wave on those reaches far past the range of any shrapnel. The vids I seen on liveleak and such, many of the military guys don't give enough consideration to shrap.

Shrap is stopped by vests much easier than bullets, and there's simply no stopping a shockwave.

Simple...disarm the primary if you can, it will leave the bulk and most powerful part of the explosive useless.

That's simply not possible when dealing with 800 pounds of acetone peroxide.

1. Clear the area.
2. Blow it up.

But seriously, a truly failsafe bomb would adhere to the following:

• Any attempt to interact with the trigger mechanism would cause it to fire (technically impossible without quantum superposition and the like, but you can get awfully close with classical mechanics).

• No part of the device that reveals the internal workings is visible.

• Any active attempt (e.g. x-ray scanning) to gain information on the triggering mechanism triggers it.

• Any "passive" methods of gaining information on the triggering mechanism are rendered useless (e.g. covering bomb with lead to stop any escaping E.M. waves from the internal circuitry)

• The response time of the triggering method is quicker than the response time of anything/anybody attempting to diffuse it.

Forget that hollywood shit about disarming bombs. This is not even remotely done in hardcore military operations.

All the "disarmment" involved is sending a guy in a bibendum costume identify the substance to evaluate the damage it could cause, evacuate the area then send a robot that will spray either liquid nitrogen to freeze it and move it to a safebox (titanium box where it will be safely detonated) or hyper-pressurized water to set it off.

OR it is a remotely detonated bomb and you click the button when something approaches...

What is this habit people have to always make things stupidly complicated ?

From what I understand, there are a few "basic" concepts for proper device disarmament.

The first is fuze removal. How this is done all depends on the device. Proper manufactured ordnance has easily identifiably *types* of fuze, so at least it'll be obvious what not to do.
IEDs would mean you'd have to reverse engineer the thing. There is no "magic bullet" that would work every time, and it'd probably be safer to just surround the fucking thing with sand bags and direct the blast in a safe direction.

The second is inerting the fuze. Again, this all depends on the fuze type with proper ordnance, and could be anything from blasting the PE crystal from the front of a HEAT munition with high velocity water to sticking a pin in the correct spot to ensure another pin cannot move.
IEDs might have you snipping a wire, unscrewing a component, binding a pin, all depends.

The third, while not necessarily disarmament, is to just let it blow up. Put it in a hole, surround it with sand bags, carry it (IF you know what you're doing) to safe location, and place some explosives on it.


I think the biggest things contributing to your well being would be adhering to some basic rules like not kicking the device, opening it up without being positive what to do, using and electronics around it, etc.

I think the biggest things contributing to your well being would be adhering to some basic rules like not kicking the device, opening it up without being positive what to do, using and electronics around it, etc.

Have you seen the IED hunter video? Bored soldier in iraq tackles, kicks, and drops IED's... Good stuff.

And yeah, the water is to blow apart the detonator, not to make it explode, they use real explosives for that.