New York Blackout

[nbk2000]

Well, it seems that those pesky terrorists are at it again.

New York is sitting in the dark, along with most of the northeastern seaboard. Some 50 million people are without power right now.

Now, personally, I think some technician at Con-Ed fell asleep and hit the OFF switch with his twinkie stuffed face, but I just KNOW it's going to be blamed on terrorist hackers or some bullshit by tommorrow at the latest.

It's just too good of an excuse for any corporation to pass up.

Plane blows up in mid-air because striking mechanic left a bolt loose in the engine...TERRORISTS!

Hotel burns up with 200 people in it because they were too cheap to install fire sprinklers...TERRORISTS!

Bridge collapses because city is too cheap to pay for anti-corrosion treatment of the structural supports...TERRORISTS!

There's a book called "Blackout Looting" that I got somewhere in my CD archives that describes the effect of the '77 blackout in New York. If the power stays out for three days, the niggers will be burning and looting the city like crazy.

If I was an Al-Quiada terrorist, I'd see this as a sign from God to strike against the Great Satan, to instill terror and chaos. What better time to blow up a few tunnels and buildings than in the pitch black of a moonless manhattan night?

MWAHAHAHA! Watch the multitudes stampede out of manhattan in a terrorized frenzy, with robbers picking off the weak, and looters clearing out the abandoned high rises.

Escape from New York, the sequal!

[megalomania]

Night has fallen over the eastern lands and reports of looting have begun to trickle from the east side of Cleveland. Water is also out for most of the affected, so the people have begun to burst open the hydrants. Of course water reserves will only last a few more hours.

I am suprised the negros would wait 3 whole days before beginning the looting. They estimate the power will be back up within 12 hours, but we shall see. I would imagine the looting will begin tomorrow night when all the hoodlems coordinate their activities.

[knowledgehungry]

If only it happened to california, God Damn i wish that state would dissappear.

[Sarevok]

Imagine, for a while, the effects of a global blackout (like it happened in Escape from L. A., when Snake Plissken turned all the world's power off)... It would be worst than a meteor. Without electricity the world would be doomed. Instead of killing some fools with a bomb, the "terrorists" could work to destroy the electric-power industry.

Our very sick society is also very fragile...

[nbk2000]

I didn't say the niggers would wait three days, just that it'd take them that long to set the city on fire and be rampaging in the streets. I've seen niggers start sniffing about for stuff to loot within minutes of a power outage (in cali). :rolleyes: 'Course, this is the same race that'll fuck a dead woman as long as she's still warm. :eek:

If you want cali to disappear, pray for The Big One (earthquake) and it 'll slide off into the ocean! :D

[frogfot]

I really hope there happens something big during blackout, so my egoistic bum can watch something interesting on news :D
Yesterday I was watching a movie and it was interrupted with this news, but they were pretty sure it had nothing to do with terrorists. I guess it's never late to make up a story.. :p

[MrSamosa]

There is a Pakistani Joke... "When the power goes out in Karachi, everyone goes outside and plays Cricket or 'Chopan-Chopai' (not sure what this is- some game obviously :); when the power goes out in New York City, shops are looted, women are raped, and buildings are burned."

Anyhow, what seems to have happened is that a power plant in Canada failed, so a plant in the US sent more power to it to back up that area, which in turn overwhelmed the plant and caused it to auto-shut down...the same pattern repeated itself over and over again (unless I misunderstood the Press Conference), and there you go- East Coast is blacked out.

Nevertheless, this puts ideas into my devious head. Powerplants have been a favorite target of Militaries and their Warplanes for a long time, and there have been a few different means of taking em down. In the Israel/Lebanon War, Israel simply dropped bombs on them. In the Gulf War, the US dropped "Chaff Bombs" onto them... I don't remember what Chaff is made of, but it's a real pain to clean out of all the powerlines and equipment. Then a wind picks it up again, and puts it back into the equipment :D .

Suppose one were to make several "Chaff Mortars" for the sole purpose of disabling power stations? Do you suppose this would be cheaper than simple HE Mortars? Speaking of Mortars... NBK- I finally got around to reading your PDF (Great job, btw! Very fun read); in your section about mortars, you stated that they don't whistle in real life? From all the various war footage taken by Journalists (Especially during the Taliban conquest of Afghanistan), all their mortars and shells seemed to make a "Whooosh" sound before impacting...maybe those were just their tank shells though.

[Anthony]

On the news this morning they had statements saying it's definitely not terrorism. Dunno why *one* power plant going down would cause such a huge outage though!

Comparitively that would put almost the whole of Britain without power!

I wonder if we're going to be down on posts here at theforum untill they fix it?

[Tended Tripod]

As I recall a chaff bomb is a bomb that disperses a huge number of little fibers, can't remember if it's fiberglass, or metallic filings of some sort. The point is to short out stuff, so I would assume its metallic filings. The filings would hit a magnetic field on the way down generated from power lines, and get stuck to it, eventually, they would be on every line so everything gets connected and short circuits.

[vulture]

The chaff consist of very fine graphite fiber. Therefore it's resistant and a pain in the ass to clean out.

[controlphreak]

I just recently attended a meeting, and one of the people to speak there was talking about Nuclear plant facilities and their security. Let me tell you, these guys are pretty thorough at physical security alone. Train with Delta force, and other Nulcear facility defense squadrons. Also, their silo's where the actual reaction takes place are very well fortified. I didn't get a copy of the slides, but there was a movie and it had a chunk of the wall taken out, and had an airplane (not a twin prop, but an actual, albeit old, airline that could fly from New York to Los Angles, smash into it. Barely chipped it man, it is SOLID! Just a statement.

[MrSamosa]

I have been scouring the US Patent database for much of a day searching for information related to Chaff... I have found quite a few patents related to false targeting and the dispersal of Chaff, but not much concerning its actual composition. So far, I hear Chaff is Graphite fibers, Aluminum Fibers, and Graphite Covered Fiberglass. I believe that it is the last one, however, because that is what I found in a patent (not in much detail, just a brief allusion).

[wrench352]

In AFROTC & CAP,we were always told chaff was al.That was better than 10 yrs ago though.
BTW can anybody recommend a good read on metal powders and their effect on VOD?

[Arkangel]

There's all sorts of chaff, depending on manufacturer and the role. Radar chaff tends to be glass fibres with an aluminium or other metallic coating. They vary the length of the fibres and the coating dependent on the perceived threat. (I don't know if any of you remember the Iran/Iraq war, where they were shooting exocets and silkworms at supertankers in the Straits of Hormuz, and Kharg Island. I and some pals set up a company to supply palletised chaff launchers and smoke generators to tanker owners to reduce insurance premiums - war ended before our first job :( but I did learn quite a bit about modular chaff launchers)

The stuff they use to take out power transmission equipment is either graphite fibre, or more likely graphite coated glass fibre because of cost. I have no doubt at all that you could make a mortar that did that job, or that you could make the "chaff" yourself - a cement mixer, bag of chopped glass fibre and some graphite dust - and the launcher itself should be a piece of cake for anyone on the forum:)

An alternative of course, would be to just use a rifle to shatter ceramic insulators, or even to punch a hole in the top AND bottom of a remote oil cooled transformer. You could do a hundred of those before the first one burnt out. Do it with a silenced weapon and you'd be laughing.

I never understood why the IRA and other terrorists attacked flesh and blood targets when there are so many other (transport, power, comms, sport) SOFT targets to go for, and these would arguably affect the public far more than shooting a policeman or politician in the head:rolleyes:

[nbk2000]

Because the IRA is dependant on the goodwill of the local populace, as well as foreign donors, for their support infratstructure and financing.

Blowing up bridges, derailing trains, and shutting off the power to towns would not endear them to the locals. By targeting ONLY the people of the enemy occupational forces, and their local lackeys, the IRA has managed to survive for more than 70 years and thus can be forgiven the occassional accidential killing of a civilian.

Now, if you were a terrorist operating in an enemy country, then it would make sense to go after the vulnerable infratstructure, because it's difficult to believe the governments story about how they're capable of stopping the terr's if you're sitting in the dark because the terr's have downed the power grid for the entire eastern seaboard. :p

[Arkangel]

Because the IRA is dependant on the goodwill of the local populace, as well as foreign donors, for their support infratstructure and financing.

I didn't mean acts in NI, I meant disabling the power supply on the UK mainland etc.....EXACTLY the same scenario as the people who dislike the US. By "the occasional accidental killing of civilians" I assume you mean stuff like putting gasoline and HE in crowded pubs on the mainland, or massacres like Omagh.

Things like that were stupid, unneccessary and HARDENED the public's attitude to the terrorist's cause. Making the public live by candlelight would have been an easy way to make their point, same as blowing up random railway lines and telephone exchanges, and it wouldn't have had the same galvanising effect of watching people sweeping up blood in a shopping centre.

(unfortunately, killing of civilians by both the provisionals AND loyalists was neither occasional NOR accidental - I get the impression NBK, that you know little about reality in NI, but that's not surprising considering where you were born)

[nbk2000]

I know about the slaughters caused by both sides, thank you very much.

But, just like the destruction of the WTC, it's not the people who die that are remembered, but the inconvenience caused by the destruction of the buildings, and the resulting security hassles that is memorable.

If 30 people get burned up in a nightclub fire caused by the IRA, it has no real effect except on the business that burned up and the families of those who died. Yes, it gets publicity for a few days, but then it fades away from peoples memories.

If 3 million people are sitting in the dark because the IRA blew up the transformers (but no one died), than bet your ass that those three million will be screaming bloody murder at the PM for the extermination of those filthy IRA dogs who made them miss the latest episode of (whatevers' insanely popular on the telly right now). :p

I seen and heard about any number of massacres and atrocities during my life, from all over the world, but only a handful of any kind of event sticks out in my memory. And the only massacre/atrocity that I clearly recall is Waco, everything else is background noise with no lasting impression.

Ask anyone on the street here to name ONE person who died during the WTC attack...maybe 1 in 100,000 could name ONE person. Ask anyone on the street to name ONE inconvenience caused by the WTC attack and you'll get your ears chewed out about the wait at the airport. :)

Remember, the masses are only concerned about convenience and what causes inconvenience.

The constant dying off of provost police and soldiers has a big effect on the morale of the forces who have to occupy the country. They're none too happy to be posted to NI, stay holed up in their stations as much as possible, and shoot innocents in panic when sniped at. :)

As long as it stays that way, the majority of people have no interest in getting involved in a dangerous and risky venture, like cracking down on guerrillas. :D

But get the populace involved by getting the price of gas raised (by blowing up pipelines/refineries), turning off the power, disconnecting their phones or 'net, etc...and you're REALLY making it personal.

[Arkangel]

I never understood why the IRA and other terrorists attacked flesh and blood targets when there are so many other (transport, power, comms, sport) SOFT targets to go for, and these would arguably affect the public far more than shooting a policeman or politician in the head

Erm.......isn't that what I said???????????????

(Although I did qualify it by saying that the killings actually damaged the cause of whoever it was that was doing it)

My point - terrorism doesn't HAVE to take life to be effective.

The constant dying off of provost police and soldiers has a big effect on the morale of the forces who have to occupy the country

The killings of security forces didn't demoralise them even remotely as much as frustrations with the political bullshit that went on. Most of the units who had people killed were even more determined to find and capture (or ideally kill) terrorists.

By targeting ONLY the people of the enemy occupational forces

The above is fantasy NBK, the IRA targeted anybody that didn't fit in with their socialist republican ideal. They (and of course the loyalists as well) killed almost as many civilians on simple sectarian grounds - never mind them being lackeys of the government.

But, getting too involved in a debate here about NI is special Olympics material. I've lived and served there, so let's just say I have practical experience where most people - yourself included have secondhand partisan reporting. There's a very good book called "Pig In The Middle" about the British Army role in NI - Gerry Adams is quoted as saying "should be read at least twice by every subversive". I'd recommend you read it too - not to educate you about NI, but to guide you in your nefarious plans;)

[nbk2000]

The above is fantasy NBK, the IRA targeted anybody that didn't fit in with their socialist republican ideal. They (and of course the loyalists as well) killed almost as many civilians on simple sectarian grounds - never mind them being lackeys of the government.


That's what happens when you let religion and "tribal" thinking interfere with logic. IF they had restricted themselves as I described, they'd very likely have been much more successful in getting world opinion on there side. If the loyalists where killing civvies, and the IRA was restricting themselves to only killing uniformed soldiers/police/pols, who's the "terrorist" in the eyes of the world then? ;)

BTW, I like that book title "Pig in the Middle"! :D There wouldn't be an e-book version on the net, would there?