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from the if-you-build-it-they-will-come...and-cut-through-it dept.
Smugglers have found an easy way to get through the vertical steel tube Mexican border wall. From https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/smugglers-are-sawing-through-new-sections-of-trumps-border-wall/2019/11/01/25bf8ce0-fa72-11e9-ac8c-8eced29ca6ef_story.html
The breaches have been made using a popular cordless household tool known as a reciprocating saw that retails at hardware stores for as little as $100. When fitted with specialized blades, the saws can slice through one of the barrier's steel-and-concrete bollards in minutes, according to the agents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the barrier-defeating techniques.
After cutting through the base of a single bollard, smugglers can push the steel out of the way, creating an adult-size gap. Because the bollards are so tall — and are attached only to a panel at the top — their length makes them easier to push aside once they have been cut and are left dangling, according to engineers consulted by The Washington Post.
The taxpayer-funded barrier — so far coming with a $10 billion price tag — was a central theme of Trump's 2016 campaign, and he has made the project a physical symbol of his presidency, touting its construction progress in speeches, ads and tweets. Trump has increasingly boasted to crowds in recent weeks about the superlative properties of the barrier, calling it "virtually impenetrable" and likening the structure to a "Rolls-Royce" that border crossers cannot get over, under or through.
In other words, no one did any serious pen testing on the wall design, or it would have been obvious that with all that leverage, the top tie-in was easy to flex.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 04 2019, @09:46PM (3 children)
The Israelis seem to be doing a good job of keeping their border wall intact. So it must be possible to maintain the integrity of a wall.
Also, I recall the Berlin Wall, made of super-hardened concrete, was pretty formidable when I pounded on it with a sledge hammer. Using the masonry blade on my angle grinder I still have to swap out the blade a couple times cutting through normal concrete, and the stuff in the Berlin Wall was much harder than that. It was several weeks after the famous scene with people climbing over the wall that I was there, but there were still only holes about 4 inches wide that had been achieved between the hardened sections.
Already in WWII the Nazis were building some formidable concrete structures that defied the means to destroy them. The History Channel had that series on underground cities around the world where an episode featured a Nazi bunker that Allied sappers tried and failed to demolish after the German surrender. They couldn't touch it at all, with all the TNT, thermite, and other means at their disposal, so they buried it in rubble, called it a hill, and turned it into a park where people jog and walk their strollers today.
In other words, there exist structures built 70 years ago that steadfastly resist sawzalls or even thermite, so a wall could surely be built the same way now. But even if we don't like the price tag of such a thing, then why couldn't the United States task some drones to watch the wall's length and alert ground units when smugglers are attacking the wall? Are we to understand that the military can keep drones watching the ground minutely in Afghanistan 24/7, but can't accomplish the same thing on the Mexican border?
There is, of course, the question of whether we should, but I don't honestly believe that we can't.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday November 05 2019, @04:02AM (1 child)
The flak towers had walls up to 3.5m thick, used something like quarter of a million tons of concrete for the larger ones, and 10,000 tons of steel. For one tower. And that was relatively crappy late-war construction.
They also couldn't be blown up because they were built in the middle of cities, and the amount of explosive required would have flattened half the city, or at least the bits the RAF/USAF hadn't already flattened. So it's not that they're indestructible, it's that the collateral damage would have been too great.
You can't really build a wall on that basis...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 06 2019, @12:21PM
Why not? If a person posits that a wall is necessary (I'm not necessarily one, but some sort of interdiction seems in order when the Cartels are murdering American families with impunity and essentially bringing down the Mexican government), then why couldn't it be built to the same standards as those structures in WWII?
The smugglers are not going to blow up such a wall by strapping a stick of dynamite to it, and I'm pretty sure CBP would notice an army of trained sappers crawling all over the thing with millions of tons of explosives. Neither would the smugglers be able to pierce such a wall with a sawzall.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @05:14PM
YOU can pay for it then, seems like a colossal waste of money better spent on healthcare, education, and useful infrastructure maintenance.
Something is deepy wrong with you old folks.