White House Bollards Test
While the Capitol Building bollards apparently can’t stop a SUV, the bollards around the White House should be able to keep even delivery trucks at bay.
How do I know? This amazing delivery truck vs. bollard You Tube video submitted by alert reader Web Jedi when he read about yesterday’s Capitol Building SUV attack.
While the bollards in the video aren’t exactly the same as the ones around the White House, they look the same and I would assume that would work the same.
Still, I could see one simple way around the bollards: a vehicle slingshot over the bollards.
Note how the delivery truck’s cargo flies out over the cab in the video. Now put a bomb delivery vehicle, or just the bomb itself, on rails in the cargo hold and with enough truck speed and cargo mass, you have a great airborne launch for your bomb SUV.
Wayan, why do you hate America?
I hate the bollardization of America.
One of the other things to note, if you’re one of those freaky people like me who like to watch crash videos on occassion. Think about what happened in that video and simple physics….
Say you have a truck, with it’s bed slightly above the height of the bollard. You have your cargo, something mounted, missile like, no propulsion, just pointy and loaded to go. Simple physics states through intertia, that that thing will go FLYING through the front. Your “slingshot” effect in otherwards, thus launching a missile/projectile the old fashion way (“Lord of the Rings style”).
In short, bollards to close to a building (as much of them are in DC and elsewhere) may stop the cargo carrying device, but with enough speed, they aren’t stopping the cargo. Once again, security devices are seen as a deterrent to the un-informed, but not to folks who know that, well, they’re just a deterrent (and that the TSA is a waste of money).
(sorry for the rant, I work in computer security and I just get “down” every so often on the futileness of it all)
One other item… the best way to keep the “missile effect” from occurring to bollards are to create slow down areas such as chicanes and s-curves/slalom… neither of which can really be implemented in the narrow streets around The Capitol without seriously impeding traffic.
This is one of those areas where my expectations are just so low that these sidewalk nipples no longer bug me. After years of so many hideous jersey barriers, these things look positively stylish.
WebJedi, we are so on the same wavelength (and pretty much said the same thing above).
How this for a “what if” (kids, do NOT attempt this):
In the cargo hold you have your rails aimed just over the cab, and on the rails are two sleds, one on the bottom, is shapped like a “L” on its side, short end in the back. That short end all mass (lead, steel, etc) and on it sits a projectile, untethered to the L sled.
As the truck stops, the projectile keeps going at nearly the same speed at impact with all that L sled mass behind it. One through the cargo hold, the L sled drops away, and the projectile flies along w/o mass, but with velocity, if wheels or wings, goes pretty damn far.
And with this thread, the FBI will be saying “hi” to both of us in three.. two…