naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
Somebody elsewhere in this thread linked to a youtuber who seems to be an expert on tunnel warefare. He just posted another video talking about tunnels and countermeasures and countercountermeasures: https://youtube.com/watch?v=mMaQn6eBroY
Really good stuff. Here are some highlights:
The tunnels are huge
It costs about $1/meter to dig the tunnels, and takes about a month to do 1km. Labor is cheap, they've been working on this forever, and there are probably a shitload of tunnels.
The tunnels are huge, and elaborate (at least where he is), there is plumbing, electricity, etc.
Tunnels are insanely easy to defend. You can just sit at one end 100 yards away from the entrance ,and shoot anybody who comes through the door.
Anyway, this video seems very high information density, and if you go through the guys history, he does legit seem to be an expert on this topic. Gives some insight into what this war will probably look like in Gaza.
Pour liquid propane inside could help I think. It displaces all the oxygen. And without electricity passive ventilation probably won't work well and eventually they will run out of oxygen.
Perhaps thermobaric weapons as a more definitive solution? Pressure wave kills everyone in the tunnel complex.
Thermobaric weapons work by dispersing an aerosal cloud, and then igniting it to create both an explosion and the more important pressure wave that can do internal damage to the victims. This is good against 'shallow' fortifications (bunkers), because the aerosal can be all around the position and create the vacuume, but it's typically bad against 'deep' fortification, where the aerosal doesn't disperse particularly far into the complex/cave/etc.
It can be done, but at the entrance it's not particularly better than collapsing a known entrance, and deeper down it's not better than just pumping in something like non-lethal tear gas.
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Notes -
Somebody elsewhere in this thread linked to a youtuber who seems to be an expert on tunnel warefare. He just posted another video talking about tunnels and countermeasures and countercountermeasures: https://youtube.com/watch?v=mMaQn6eBroY
Really good stuff. Here are some highlights:
The tunnels are huge
It costs about $1/meter to dig the tunnels, and takes about a month to do 1km. Labor is cheap, they've been working on this forever, and there are probably a shitload of tunnels.
The tunnels are huge, and elaborate (at least where he is), there is plumbing, electricity, etc.
Tunnels are insanely easy to defend. You can just sit at one end 100 yards away from the entrance ,and shoot anybody who comes through the door.
Anyway, this video seems very high information density, and if you go through the guys history, he does legit seem to be an expert on this topic. Gives some insight into what this war will probably look like in Gaza.
Pour liquid propane inside could help I think. It displaces all the oxygen. And without electricity passive ventilation probably won't work well and eventually they will run out of oxygen.
Perhaps thermobaric weapons as a more definitive solution? Pressure wave kills everyone in the tunnel complex.
But outside it would also be a major explosion. Presumably killing many in the ultra-dense Gaza strip.
Thermobaric weapons work by dispersing an aerosal cloud, and then igniting it to create both an explosion and the more important pressure wave that can do internal damage to the victims. This is good against 'shallow' fortifications (bunkers), because the aerosal can be all around the position and create the vacuume, but it's typically bad against 'deep' fortification, where the aerosal doesn't disperse particularly far into the complex/cave/etc.
It can be done, but at the entrance it's not particularly better than collapsing a known entrance, and deeper down it's not better than just pumping in something like non-lethal tear gas.
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