Excerpt that mentions the reinforced-concrete core of each WTC tower: "...the WTC towers WERE designed to handle a wayward 707 jet. Much of the structural strength of the towers is in a central concrete core, protected by a large mass of concrete flooring and structural steel." ************************************************************ From: cray74@hotmail.com Subject: Re: Grade A bang bangs Date: 1999/12/13 Message-ID: <833e6v$i6m$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1 References: <8333po$9re$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <945102456.827759@avian.microgaming.com> X-Http-Proxy: 1.1 x23.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 204.245.128.53 Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. X-Article-Creation-Date: Mon Dec 13 18:34:08 1999 GMT X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDmike_miller9646 Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.gurps X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.0; Windows 95) In article <945102456.827759@avian.microgaming.com>, "Frank" wrote: > I am more than willing to bet an equivalent of 100 ton TNT > explosion is going to demolish any human structure that is not > shielded by a small mountain. Think about it. 100 tons of > explosives is a lot of energy waiting to get out. I've seen what small (~1 ton) bombs can do and I know what big bombs can do (1000 tons+, conventional and nuclear). I know what 4000 tons of amfo (ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil) can do in an open-pit coal mine...a long string of charges can move an incredible amount of earth. I don't know what a single point detonation of 100 tons can do. > > The World Trade Center bombers used an estimated 500 kilograms > (or 0.5% of the equivalent TNT of this monster's yield.) I think it was more like 1000kg, but point taken. However (see below) > > The Olkohomo (sp) City bombing destroyed half the building with > (I think) 500 kilograms. Though apparently it used some kind > of 'shaped charge' to maximum damage in one direction. Not that I heard of: a generic amfo bomb in a truck. In one direction was a relatively large amount of open space before the next building. In the other direction was the federal building. The 500-1000kg the Oklahoma City bombers used had the advantage of being below most of the federal building. The effect of the bomb was to inflate the building like blowing into the side of a stack of papers...not instantly destructive, just enough to puff it up a bit. Then the hundreds of tons of concrete came back down and the law of inertia said all that concrete was going to keep moving until something changed its mind. Nothing did, so a huge chunk of the federal building collapsed. This bomb is going off in a different manner: it is compressionally loading the roof of the WTC. It has a large air gap to the next tower. The best guestimates we've come up with is that the neighboring tower is going to be missing a lot of windows and some exterior structural material, but the WTC towers WERE designed to handle a wayward 707 jet. Much of the structural strength of the towers is in a central concrete core, protected by a large mass of concrete flooring and structural steel. The tower actually in contact with the bomb is estimated to lose its top 10 floors and have the next 20 damaged by the top 10 evaporating/ peeling off. 10 floors is a lot of shielding mass for even 100 tons of TNT to move. Or that's the opinion of half the group The other half, talked down from claiming any nuclear weapon of any size will destroy the entire city "because its nuclear," think both towers will still evaporate. > 0.1 kilotons is going to evaporate the World Trade Center > (both towers) and possibly a good deal else. It'll probably > leave a crater where the basement parking used to be. Detonated 1100ft from the basement parking garage? No. At the most there will be an enormous rubble pile. > The only thing scarier than big nukes is PCs with nukes. Yes. > Convince the PC not do it. The rest of the gaming night was spent doing that, pretty much ruining the night. However, all the GM could do to stop the use was to shoot down the plane delivering the nuke, and the assets to do that were simply not in place. The enemies lacked them and the plane was moving with normal traffic right up until moments before the delivery, so mortal forces were clueless. -- Mike Miller, Materials Engineer "Damn straight! Today the mad scientists can't get a doomsday device, tomorrow it's the mad grad students. Where will it end?" - The Professor of Futurama on doomsday device control. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.