Disaster Test of steel prototype for border wall showed it could be sawed through - lol

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/im...-border-wall-showed-it-could-be-sawed-n956856

President Donald Trump has repeatedly advocated for a steel slat design for his border wall, which he described as "absolutely critical to border security" in his Oval Office address to the nation Tuesday. But Department of Homeland Security testing of a steel slat prototype proved it could be cut through with a saw, according to a report by DHS.

A photo exclusively obtained by NBC News shows the results of the test after military and Border Patrol personnel were instructed to attempt to destroy the barriers with common tools.

The Trump administration directed the construction of eight steel and concrete prototype walls that were built in Otay Mesa, California, just across the border from Tijuana, Mexico. Trump inspected the prototypes in March 2018. He has now settled on a steel slat, or steel bollard, design for the proposed border barrier additions. Steel bollard fencing has been used under previous administrations.



Test of border prototype showed its weaknesses
Jan. 10, 201904:06
However, testing by DHS in late 2017 showed all eight prototypes, including the steel slats, were vulnerable to breaching, according to an internal February 2018 U.S. Customs and Border Protection report.

Photos of the breaches were not included in a redacted version of the CBP report, which was first obtained in a Freedom of Information Act Request by San Diego public broadcaster KPBS.

The photo of testing results obtained by NBC News was taken at the testing location along the California-Mexico border, known as "Pogo Row."

Responding to the picture from the South Lawn of the White House on Thursday morning, Trump claimed "that’s a wall designed by previous administrations."

While it is true that previous administrations used this design, the prototype was built during his administration.

"It's very, very hard — the wall that we are doing is very, very hard to penetrate," Trump said.

NBC News toured the eight wall prototypes twice before President Trump's March 2018 inspection. According to San Diego Sector Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, the versions seen by NBC News and the president, however, were larger than the actual prototypes tested at "Pogo Row."



Mulvaney says WH offer to Democrats: Steel, not concrete
Jan. 5, 201901:13
In a statement, DHS Spokeswoman Katie Waldman said, "The steel bollard construction is based on the operational requirements of the United States Border Patrol and is a design that has been honed over more than a decade of use. It is an important part of Border Patrol's impedance and denial capability."

 

[FierceBrosnan]

concrete is brittle, you dont even need a saw. just hit it with a sledgehammer and the wall will crumble sooner or later.

Depending on thickness and how it is reinforced concrete is damn near impenetrable. The real factor here is the cost. Reinforced steel bollards are cheaper and easier to deploy while being sturdy as fuck, whereas trying to put up our own Berlin style wall would take tens of thousands of extra man hours and require enough concrete to pave half of Texas.

 

[Hux]

The point of a wall such as this (which is basically just a picket fence on steroids instead of a stone medieval Great Wall of America as people have been hyped up to believe) isn't to be 100% impossible to penetrate, but to deter and slows down would be illegals due to how difficult and time consuming it would be to do so (also curious how they didn't give an exact amount of time it took for them to make a hole like that in the beams). Not to mention how the wall will be manned with cameras, drones and patrols that would make the act of cutting through, scaling and tunneling all the more harder to do undetected long enough to succeed

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Just cause I could spent a few millenia to whittle down Mount Everest by rubbing it with Marshmallows doesn't make it any less sturdy.

Or, in different terms:
I would love to see the tools required and how much time it takes to actually damage the wall sufficiently for someone to get through.
And it would be just such a shame if they'd put sensors on the wall that will recognize someone trying to break through and call a couple patrol cars over.

 

[Red Hood]

How about instead of a wall we just put up loudspeakers playing audio of an angered abuelita shouting about how lazy they are and why weren't you in church and visit more but don't interrupt my telenovelas!

 

[MasterDisaster]

Onka so the wall needs to be twelve feet tall and ten feet wide. Outer walls is straight up bricks. Bricks look nice. Inside is a combination of concrete, a foot thick iron wall and a steel rebar mesh sandwiching the inner. Top it off with razor wire, spikes and pressure sensitive flamethrowers.

 

[FierceBrosnan]

How about instead of a wall we just put up loudspeakers playing audio of an angered abuelita shouting about how lazy they are and why weren't you in church and visit more but don't interrupt my telenovelas!

That would probably cause half of New Mexico, Southern California, and Nevada to empty out.

Fund it.

 

[lowkey]

Fuck this fakeass wall.

Go back to the original wall

 

[Plunkie]

Onka so the wall needs to be twelve feet tall and ten feet wide. Outer walls is straight up bricks. Bricks look nice. Inside is a combination of concrete, a foot thick iron wall and a steel rebar mesh sandwiching the inner. Top it off with razor wire, spikes and pressure sensitive flamethrowers.

“Test of Uberwall showed it could be destroyed by nuclear bombs”

Bungmhpf btfo

 

[Buggins]

Said it already in the TDS thread, no way a "common saw" cut through that.

They probably went through a bunch of sawblades to get through as well...steel can be pretty damn tough.
Could also be reinforced with something like fused silica.
If everything else fails, install geophones to detect tampering, problem solved.

None of this is really relevant, because anyone who's not deluded should already know that walls actually work...

 

[1Tonka_Truck]

I'm all but positive that's exactly why the type of saw wasn't even mentioned. If they could make a hole in the bars like that with sandpaper and a rubber mallet, we'd be hearing no end of it. The fact that they've chosen to be particular defensive about what sort of tool was being used really tells me all that I need to know.

I posted in the TDS about this, but it should probably go here too. There is slag on the metal. Abrasive saws don't make slag. If that's concrete inside the steel tubing it had to be a thermal lance. I wouldn't call a $1000 tool common. It takes a high pressure oxygen cylinder to function and is normally ignited by an engine driven welder. As long as the border patrol doesn't let a fucking mechanic's truck drive up to the wall it won't be a problem. The thing about thermal lances is they fucking burn concrete. A concrete wall would only take slightly longer.

 

[OhGoy]

this is just proof that we should go ahead and carpet bomb mexico instead

 

[Stoneheart]

there are completly fine plans for a modern wall from eastern germany.

 

[zionlion1488]

"Walls are not effective. Believe me, goy! The wall in Jerusalem is different!"

 

[Nobunaga]

this is just more proof that we should just go ahead and carpet bomb mexico instead

But then how are we gonna get tortillas and shitty stomatch destroying burritos?
The cost is too high for a final solution to the mexicant problem

 

[DragoonSierra]

Or the duration of time that it took to saw through it, or the power source(s) that the saw required, or the availability of the tool to the public market. There's a lot of questions left unanswered here. I mean if you give me a run-of-the-mill hammer and 1,000 years, I can tear down Fort Knox. The point still remains that yeah, they can cut through it, and that's cool, but they still have to cut through it rather than just walk right through.

The reason that deterrents are called deterrents is because they deter people, not because they completely, 100% prevent them from doing something. If a 10-foot wall can be defeated by an 11-foot ladder, that still means that suddenly everyone who wants to cross the border needs to bring a ladder.

You guys act like its easy to walk through a desert.

 

[Voltman2.0]

I posted in the TDS about this, but it should probably go here too. There is slag on the metal. Abrasive saws don't make slag. If that's concrete inside the steel tubing it had to be a thermal lance. I wouldn't call a $1000 tool common. It takes a high pressure oxygen cylinder to function and is normally ignited by an engine driven welder. As long as the border patrol doesn't let a fucking mechanic's truck drive up to the wall it won't be a problem. The thing about thermal lances is they fucking burn concrete. A concrete wall would only take slightly longer.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=aN9KSyZvCQ4

Even a bog standard Oxy-Acetylene set would do the job, they are easy enough to get a hold of and depending on the cylinder size fairly portable. The only real unknown would be how structural the filler is but I'd be inclined to believe a sledgehammer would take care of that part.

 

[ForTheHoard]

Just run it of a truck's battery and keep the engine running.

That gives you 12-15 volts, depending if your foot is on the gas or not. Every demo saw I've ever used needed 120 volts. You'd need an external electrical source.

 

[not william stenchever]

Even a bog standard Oxy-Acetylene set would do the job, they are easy enough to get a hold of and depending on the cylinder size fairly portable. The only real unknown would be how structural the filler is but I'd be inclined to believe a sledgehammer would take care of that part.

There is concrete in those square tubes. Oxy-Acetylene can burn steel but the concrete isn't going to go anywhere. I suppose you could try to blast away (because with the concrete in the way the torch won't really be cutting) bands of steel most of the way around on either end of a section and then try to smash it out with a sledgehammer. However, the steel rod in the middle of the cement column will keep the section in place and would be very hard to reach with a oxy-acetylene torch through the concrete. While all this heavy effort is going on to partially breach a section of the wall they will be making a lot of noise sledgehammering steel encased concrete and the torch will be making a lot of heat for IR optics to pick up on.

 

[Voltman2.0]

There is concrete in those square tubes. Oxy-Acetylene can burn steel but the concrete isn't going to go anywhere. I suppose you could try to blast away (because with the concrete in the way the torch won't really be cutting) bands of steel most of the way around on either end of a section and then try to smash it out with a sledgehammer. However, the steel rod in the middle of the cement column will keep the section in place and would be very hard to reach with a oxy-acetylene torch through the concrete. While all this heavy effort is going on to partially breach a section of the wall they will be making a lot of noise sledgehammering steel encased concrete and the torch will be making a lot of heat for IR optics to pick up on.

Didn't see the steel rod but I wouldn't think that they be able to reinforce the internal concrete particularly well before a straight up concrete wall becomes cheaper but, then again I've never had to sit down and try to make a people-resistant border wall.

As to the ease of detection there aren't going to be a lot of things that can do this sort of job quietly or without generating a lot of heat. I mean if you had the time basic hand tools would suffice but then you've got he whole taking forever and being caught.

 

[Unpure]

Even a bog standard Oxy-Acetylene set would do the job, they are easy enough to get a hold of and depending on the cylinder size fairly portable. The only real unknown would be how structural the filler is but I'd be inclined to believe a sledgehammer would take care of that part.

This was exactly my though after looking at the photos. Quick pass around the outer steel with a torch, snaking your arm between the bollards to get to the other side. Then a few raps with the sledge and open sesame.

However..... The inner concrete doesn't seem to have any kind of reinforcement. Just a few rebars ran through the middle would. Make this job take a lot longer. Especially if the reinforcement was an expanded steel tube running lengthwise down the center of the square pipe bollard.