# Are suicide bombs carried internally a possibility? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 15, 2008, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-suicide-bombs-carried-internally-a-possibility/468031 "2008-10-15T14:00:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2008, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-suicide-bombs-carried-internally-a-possibility/468031/41 "2008-10-17T03:21:22Z")
Remember the shoe bomber? His seat was over the wing, so that when the bomb went off, it’d take out the fuel tanks and thus the entire plane. ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2008, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-suicide-bombs-carried-internally-a-possibility/468031/42 "2008-10-17T04:47:42Z")
> [@FRDE](#): > > He dug up his cache and put a golf ball sized lump of Semtex on the lock of the garage door. The entire garage was demolished, and most windows down the street were broken. Damn, how do you explain that one to your insurance adjuster?! ---
**Author:** ![Santo\_Rugger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Santo\_Rugger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santo_Rugger)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2008, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-suicide-bombs-carried-internally-a-possibility/468031/43 "2008-10-17T04:47:44Z")
> [@Tripler](#): > > Yep! We had an M112 (1.25 lb) stick ‘o’ C-4, and on occasion, a stick of M1 Dynamite. Sometimes we doubled the M112s up. But our standoff? Google Maps tells me it’s about 750 feet–probably for the frag standoff. The crater in the sand was about 10’ across, and maybe five down, give or take. I could figure out the blast pressures, but I have to leave my books at the school. > > The best, though? Was on our final Demo day, when we set off at least 750 lbs NEW TNT in a hole and got two miles away. _That_ was a literal kick in the pants! 😃 > > Tripler > Fun stuff! Isn’t it, though?! When you say Demo, do you mean demonstration or demolition? Because all the demo shots I’ve been to have been demonstrations for Senators (and even Prince Andrew). However, in your line of duty, I’d imagine you guys are doing demolition? I don’t have my books either, but I’d imagine the incident response to terrorist bombing classes we built “houses” for twice a week had a similar overpressure. They were car bombs with 500 pounds of ANFO, and we took about a 1/2 mile standoff. We were in bunkers that had periscope type mirrors, and you could still feel the shock front underground. The best part, and you had to have noticed it at two miles, was how it took about 10 seconds from the time you saw the flash to the time you heard and felt the wave. Even funnier is watching people who’d never seen a blast before cover their ears for the countdown, and then unplug them when they didn’t hear anything! 😃 About the time they unplugged was the time I plugged. 🆒 > [@FRDE](#): > > I am not sure that this is true, but the person who told me the tale was fairly reliable. > > A photographer was out in Bosnia and got his hands on some Semtex and detonators. He brought them back to my old home town and buried them in the garden. One day he returned from abroad after a marital tiff, to find all the locks changed. > > He dug up his cache and put a golf ball sized lump of Semtex on the lock of the garage door. The entire garage was demolished, and most windows down the street were broken. > > The guy who told me the tale certainly knew war photographers, and was pretty reliable. No. Both Semtex A and Semtex H have TNT equivalents of around 1.6 (RDX is 1.6 and PETN is 1.66, IIRC. A and H are 50/50 and 90/10 mixtures). That’s just slightly higher than nitroglycerin, the main ingredient in dynamite. So, that golf ball sized lump would have been, at most, 1/4 of a stick of dynamite. Enough to blow quite the whole in the garage door, but probably not enough to blow out the windows in -that- house, let alone the whole street. Heck, depending on what type of detonator he had, this fictional photographer probably could have used the detonator alone to pop a master lock. ---
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2008, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-suicide-bombs-carried-internally-a-possibility/468031/44 "2008-10-18T15:54:33Z")
> [@Santo\_Rugger](#): > > Isn’t it, though?! When you say Demo, do you mean demonstration or demolition? Because all the demo shots I’ve been to have been demonstrations for Senators (and even Prince Andrew). However, in your line of duty, I’d imagine you guys are doing demolition? Yeah, it’s demolition–both construction/industrial, and UXO demoliton. Still, it’s fun stuff either way. It’s kinda cool to see how brisant certain materials are, versus the slower burning stuff. Man, I’m glad I’m an engineer. 😃 Tripler Oh, and BTW, thanks for those book recommendations! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-suicide-bombs-carried-internally-a-possibility/468031.md?page=2)