Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Preon1 on July 01, 2004, 09:41:15 AM
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I've attached a story on the front page of today's Washington Times stating that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is trying to target American females for kidnapping and beheading. This kind of news was inevitable.
Beheadings, sadly enough, are becoming mundane. Expanding these attacks to specificly target women is a logical step, but I shudder to think what might happen when that becomes mundane as well. I see a new, much more sensational form of terrorism: Terrorists filming the brutal torture of captives and broadcasting it with the singular purpose of shocking Western civilization...
In a sense, it's a success on the part of our most recent security efforts to deny terrorists access to high profile and soft targets. However, what will our responce be when terrorists capture Americans, film their desecration, and then force the images on the world using computer viruses or other such methods of mass delivery?
One part of me hopes that eventually, these terrorists will offend the sensibilities of the people they supposedly represent and will be caught and killed. On the other hand, my patience for these people is wearing thin and I for one am seriously considering nuking the capitols of countries that don't get thier act together.
Washington Times
July 1, 2004
Pg. 1
Zarqawi Targets Female Soldiers
Terrorists told to kidnap U.S. women
By Rowan Scarborough, The Washington Times
Terrorists in the Abu Musab Zarqawi network in Iraq are specifically trying to kidnap an American female service member to further horrify the U.S. public.
Two senior defense sources said the word is being passed within the network on the importance of taking one or more women hostage.
"We have heard through intelligence channels that several extremist organizations are attempting to capture coalition servicemen and women," said a senior military officer in Iraq. "We have instituted additional force protection methods to thwart these attempts."
Another defense source said there is an "edict, either on paper or as an order," within terrorist networks to capture an American female service member.
Of the 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, about 11,000 are women. They perform a variety of jobs, serving as drivers, medics, aviators, police and clerks. By law, they are banned from land combat, but they can still come into close contact with the enemy.
Zarqawi is the most wanted man in Iraq, with a $10 million U.S. reward for his capture or death. The Jordanian-born international terrorist has made killing Americans and their allies his chief goal as a way to prevent Iraq from moving to a moderate democratic state.
He beheaded American Nicholas Berg, and his network released the video for the world to see.
Militants are holding an Army soldier and a Marine, and have kidnapped many aid workers and contractors from coalition countries. Some have been killed.
The defense source said Zarqawi's network apparently wants to further shock the Western world by kidnapping servicewomen and displaying them on videotape. Part of the terrorists' strategy is to cause so much bloodshed that President Bush loses public support for the war and is forced politically to bring the troops home.
The source also said that the terrorists might be planning "payback" for a U.S. female soldier seen taking part in the abuse of Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
The Arab world has seen a series of photos of the abuse, including Army Pfc. Lynndie England holding an Iraqi inmate by a leash attached to his neck. The Army has filed criminal charges against her.
The U.S. military is taking extra precautions to ensure that no more Americans are taken hostage.
Convoys move from base to base with heavy security. Soldiers on patrol stay in regular contact with headquarters.
During the war to topple Saddam Hussein, Iraqis ambushed the 507th Maintenance Company and took three female soldiers prisoner. Pfcs. Shoshana Johnson and Jessica Lynch were rescued. Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa died in captivity.
During the 1991 Persian Gulf war, Maj. Rhonda Cornum, a flight surgeon, was captured by Iraqis after her Black Hawk helicopter was shot down while on a rescue mission. Maj. Cornum, who suffered broken bones, was held eight days and sexually abused by her captors.
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Bush, just give the ok to use Fuel to Air explosives.
Karaya
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Originally posted by Masherbrum
Bush, just give the ok to use Fuel to Air explosives.
Karaya
Please excuse my ignorance: what are "fuel to air explosives"?
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http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/fae.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/fae.htm
Enjoy.
Karaya
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Originally posted by Masherbrum
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/fae.htm
Enjoy.
Karaya
IMO, these are worse than Nukes
Sorry, but the server I'm routed through here at my office won't let me go to that web site: "Weapons", it says. Apparently they are protecting me from myself ( I work for a very liberal organization...a large school district in Houston).
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Here you go, hang on.
Karaya
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Fuel-Air Explosives [FAE] disperse an aerosol cloud of fuel which is ignited by an embedded detonator to produce an explosion. The rapidly expanding wave front due to overpressure flattens all objects within close proximity of the epicenter of the aerosol fuel cloud, and produces debilitating damage well beyond the flattened area. The main destructive force of FAE is high overpressure, useful against soft targets such as minefields, armored vehicles, aircraft parked in the open, and bunkers.
The Marine Corps and Navy withdrew their remaining fuel-air munitions from operational service following Operation Desert Storm. By 1996, the Army's Operations Support Command transfered the CBU-55 and CBU-72 to demilitarization, and by mid-2001 only a few hundred remained to be demilitarized.
Russia used such "thermobaric" weapons sparingly during the 1994-1996 war in Chechnya. These were employed outside the city of Grozny against villages and mountain positions. Only the RPO-A flame thrower, which has a thermobaric round, was used in fighting in Grozny itself. When the fighting rekindled in the fall of 1999, Russian forces bombarded some villages in Dagestan with thermobaric bombs, but initially limited their use. When the Russian Army was committed, it slowly advanced across Chechnya's plains, preceded by conventional artillery fire. The advance, however, stalled when it finally reached Grozny and the mountains. Conventional artillery could not force out the Chechens and the Russian Army looked for other ways to move them. Two methods were apparently opposed-chemical weapons and thermobaric weapons. The Russian political leadership apparently vetoed the use of chemical weapons, but allowed the use of ground-delivered themobaric weapons. Air-delivered thermobaric systems were only used outside the city.
Fuel/air explosive represent the military application of the vapor cloud explosions and dust explosions accidents that have long bedeviled a variety of industries.
Accidental vapor cloud explosion hazards are of great concern to the refining and chemical processing industry, and a number of catastrophic explosion accidents have had significant consequences in terms of injury, property damage, business interruption, loss of goodwill, and environmental impact.
And every year, many serious explosions and fires occur in industrial plants as a result of dust. Many materials form dust clouds that can easily ignite and explode, injuring personnel and damaging plant. This is a well-known phenomenon in the coal mining, grain storage, and the woodworking and paper industries. Many miners have been killed and injured and massive production losses have resulted from coal dust explosions in underground coal mining operations. Of the 129 grain dust explosions that occurred nationwide between 1987 and 1997, about half involved corn. Eleven were caused by wheat dust and 10 by dust from soybeans. Billions of tiny, highly combustible particles of grain are generated by grain kernels rubbing together as they move along conveyer belts and shifted between bins. Inside the enclosed chambers, those particles rise in a cloud. When the dust gets in with the right mixture of oxygen and comes in contact with a spark or even an overheated bearing on a conveyer belt, it is extremely explosive.
Almost all organic material in the form of a dust cloud will ignite at temperatures below 500 oC - approximately the same temperature as a newly extinguished match. Cotton, plastics and foodstuffs such as sugar, flour and cocoa can also, under the right conditions, act as explosives. In order for a dust explosion to take place, the dust particles must be of a certain size and the amount of finely granulated material per unit of volume must lie within certain critical values. There is generally a direct correlation between particle size and explosive hazard. The smaller the particle, the more reactive the dust. As the materials become smaller, they disperse and remain suspended more easily, increasing the potential for ignition and propagation of the reaction. Industrial explosion prevention measures include, where possible, providing nitrogen gas purging to ensure that the oxygen concentration is kept below that required for combustion.
For vapor cloud explosion there is a minimum ratio of fuel vapor to air below which ignition will not occur. Alternately, there is also a maximum ratio of fuel vapor to air, at which ignition will not occur. These limits are termed the lower and upper explosive limits. For gasoline vapor, the explosive range is from 1.3 to 6.0% vapor to air, and for methane this range is 5 to 15%. Many parameters contribute to the potential damage from a vapor cloud explosion, including the mass and type of material released, the strength of ignition source, the nature of the release event (e.g., turbulent jet release), and turbulence induced in the cloud (e.g., from ambient obstructions).
TNT generates well over 4,000 psi overpressure in close proximity to the source of the explosion, along with significant radiant heat effects from the explosion's fireball. Conventional high explosive munitions also produce fragments from the munition case, as well as fragments from material in the target area that is broken loose by the high blast overpressures.
There are dramatic differences between explosions involving vapor clouds and high explosives at close distances. For the same amount of energy, the high explosive blast overpressure is much higher and the blast impulse is much lower than that from a vapor cloud explosion. The shock wave from a TNT explosion is of relatively short duration, while the blast wave produced by an explosion of hydrocarbon material displays a relatively long duration. The duration of the positive phase of a shock wave is an important parameter in the response of structures to a blast.
Although the detonation combustion mode produces the most severe damage, fast deflagrations of the cloud can result from flame acceleration under confined and congested conditions. Flame propagation speed has a significant influence on the blast parameters both inside and outside the source volume.
The blast effects from vapor cloud explosions are determined not only by the amount of fuel, but more importantly by the combustion mode of the cloud. Significant overpressures can be generated by both detonations and deflagrations. Most vapor cloud explosions are deflagrations, not detonations. Flame speed of a deflagration is subsonic, with flame speed increasing in restricted areas and decreasing in open areas. Significantly, a detonation is supersonic, and will proceed through almost all of the available flammable vapor at the detonation reaction rate. This creates far more severe peak over-pressures and much higher amounts of blast energy. The speed of the flame front movement is directly proportional to the amount of blast over-pressure. A wide spectrum of flame speeds may result from flame acceleration under various conditions. High flame front speeds and resulting high blast over pressures are seen in accidental vapor cloud explosions where there is a significant amount of confinement and congestion that limits flame front expansion and increases flame turbulence. These conditions are evidently more difficult to achieve in the unconfined environment in which military fuel-air explosives are intended to operate.
This help at all? (this is from the 2nd link)
Karaya
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Originally posted by slimm50
Sorry, but the server I'm routed through here at my office won't let me go to that web site: "Weapons", it says. Apparently they are protecting me from myself ( I work for a very liberal organization...a large school district in Houston).
Which district Slimm? My fiancee has recently applied and is probably going to get hired by the Cypress-Fairbanks school district....so a move back to the Houston area is coming up for me.
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Women are equal, didn't they get the memo? No big thang.
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I think I tried it with corn starch one... :)
Dont remember if it worked and I dont want to try again.
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Originally posted by GScholz
It is "Fuel-Air" not "Fuel to Air". It's meaning is a fuel and air mix creating an explosive gas.
Really? I didn't know that. Yawn
Karaya
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It’s actually "Fuel-Air Explosive".
Basically a "bomb" that discharges a vapor (aerosol) cloud of "fuel", then ignites it.
Since the fuel is aerosolized it burns quickly creating a rapidly expanding "overpressure" wave.
It’s rather devastating; I saw pics of Chechens in which it was reported that the Russians used such weapons.
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oops was replying at the same time....
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Whoopity-doo, have a cookie.
Karaya
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Originally posted by Masherbrum
Whoopity-doo, have a cookie.
Karaya
HAHAHA!!!!
:rofl
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Originally posted by sling322
Which district Slimm? My fiancee has recently applied and is probably going to get hired by the Cypress-Fairbanks school district....so a move back to the Houston area is coming up for me.
H.I.S.D.
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poor thread... so hijacked :mad: