Behold the Wall Breaker

Thanks, Ipo!

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

http://profiles.google.com/stephen.schenck Stephen Schenck

Why is no one riding that thing?!?

Did you find one of these in your alley, Rob?
lavardera

Unreinforced 4″ block walls in every shot shown. Not impressed.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  In California, if it reaches your knee, you need rebar and concrete fill. Not that I’m complaining after living through Loma Prieta.
- horn555
  
  I’d like to see it go against a compressed earth block structure. The army regularly tests their small cannons against walls of CEB down here in San Antonio. Such structures are not as fragile as the walls this thing is knocking over and are much more similar to the buildings the military faces in Afghanistan.
  - ldobe
    
    Yep, Most of the walls shown can be taken down my a single guy with nothing but a quartersledge, and a little determination. I’ve knocked down walls like that myself, it’s not very hard if you put everything you got into one of the joints at chest height with a sledgehammer.
    
    This is really a solution looking for a problem. You can do the same thing with a waterbag charge. Already in use in Afghanistan, and I’d assume safer, since you don’t have a bunch of reaction mass careening backward from the point of detonation.
    
    It’s like demonstrating that a condom is effective birthcontrol by showing a guy masturbating while wearing one. It’s a strawman advertizement.
    - http://codeflow.org/ Florian Bösch
      
      I think the market for this thing is the crowd required to break a door but too fat to handle a ram by hand and not licensed for explosives. It’s also more fun than either water charges or a handheld ram. I think the product category is “entertainment” and “suburban sheriffs deputy” as well as “wanton property damage”.
      
      I’m sure the target market will have much fun with it.
      - TWX
        
        I don’t think that I want any LEOs operating this thing who can’t qualify for explosives or can’t operate a ram. That’s just asking for trouble. Besides, tools that already exist like the previously mentioned water bag do less collateral damage than this thing does, and this demo doesn’t show the thing being used against full test structures, just little walls. I want to see what it does to a roofed structure, and I expect that structure to come crashing down.
        
        Sheriff Arpaio once tried to buy shoulder-fired rocket launchers. He was rebuffed. Thank god that someone realized that training and having a legitimate use were important before allowing a sale.
  - BarBarSeven
    
    I’d like to see it go against… YOUR FACE!
- http://twitter.com/jtnix jtnix
  
  Yeah, I’d like to see it go through 8″ solid form concrete reinforced with rebar… doubtful it would punch through at all.
  
  Looks like they have problems with the payload keeping angle within the first 6 feet!
bartoncasey

This is a nice counterpoint to that video of the pro mason laying a wall that did the rounds a couple weeks ago.

No matter how good you are, it’s always easier to destroy than create.
- Aric Guite
  
  I didn’t see that mason vid. Do you have a link?
  - http://switchb.org/kpreid/ Kevin Reid
    
    That video.
Boundegar

I like that the technician has a ninja suit. This is totally what a ninja would do.
- disillusion
  
  Common misconception, ninjas, for the most part, dressed to disguise themselves as they were mostly used as spies. There’s no hard evidence for ninjas wearing those black suits, although for assassination jobs they probably could have come in handy. The black suit thing mostly comes from the Kuroko (stage hands) in Kabuki, which is what this guy is supposed to be here.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuroko
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Yeah, a proper ninja would look like a plumber or an accountant.
    - http://redesigned.com redesigned
      
      not my plumber or accountant though, as both seem like they can barely get off the couch.
      - Brainspore
        
        Can you be sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that there aren’t ninjas hiding behind your plumber and accountant? (Remember: the average doubt can cast more than enough shadow to conceal a ninja.)
      - http://redesigned.com redesigned
        
        @Brainspore:disqus they could be behind them, there certainly could be ninjas hiding in the folds on my accountant and plumber. :-)
      - http://www.fatjerry.com Dimmer
        
        and no signs of cups of tea…
    - pjcamp
      
      You mean bald and confused by their iPhones?
  - Brainspore
    
    There’s no hard evidence for ninjas wearing those black suits…
    
    That’s because the ninjas destroyed all the evidence, and they’re too fast to be captured on film.
    - disillusion
      
      Surely they didn’t destroy all the evidence, otherwise how do we know about ninjas?
      
      Answer to that one is simple though. In every profession, there’s at least one person that really, really sucks at their job.
Bender

Sure, it blows up walls, but now no cargo van is safe either and I worry for my packages.
Chentzilla

But can it talk to the camera?
creesto

I liked the apparent sonic aura surrounding the shell in slomo…
Brainspore

Amateurs.
- Palomino
  
  OH YEAH!!!
http://plagmada.org Tim H

And this is how I was fouled out of the pro Crossbows and Catapults league.
Boundegar

Does anybody in your neighborhood have one of these, Rob? Because I think they used it last night.
- kiptw
  
  Yes!!
  
  The Only! Possible! Answer!
davide405

Now I have something to fear even more than moose bites.
http://scruss.com/blog/ scruss

I like the way it scoots backwards after every shot.
Doctor Device

ah, so this is the origin of the Demolisher Cannon from WH40K…
Lt. Col. w00t

That’s a carronade, that is. The genuine smasher.
BlackPanda

I’m assuming this will be standard police armament in the USA within a couple of months.
- davide405
  
  Those wrong-address, no-knock, middle-of-the-night raids will be so much cooler when every SWAT team has one of these.
- fuzzyfuzzyfungus
  
  I suspect that we’ll have to exhaust the supply of authentic DoD-surplus M113s, with authentic machine guns and/or grenade launchers, before any but the most down-at-heel mall cops are forced to stoop so low…
Richard Kirk

Okay, hands up all those who thought this was a US product: the sort of thing that any well-organized militia ought to have in times of emergency, such as a gay couple moving into the neighbourhood. I confess I did. Turns out its Welsh.
- Vnend
  
  The combination of the effective range given in meters and the charge pressure in PSI kind of pointed at a Commonwealth country, and it seemed a little over the top for Canada…
- enterthestory
  
  It’s the 600th anniversary of the Welsh Revolt (1400-1415). Somebody should tell these people the motte and bailey castles on the border aren’t used any more. (Those breeze block walls used for practice are not fooling anybody). Face facts, my Welsh friends. Owen Glendower is not coming back. It’s time to move on.
- Charles Céleste Hutchins
  
  And to think Mitt Romney claims nobody wants anything made in the UK
  - Richard Kirk
    
    Hah! Britain is still the Workshop of the World. We also make toasters…
    
    http://artnectar.com/2011/01/ted-talks-video-thomas-thwaites-built-toaster-scratch/
Vnend

The Jeremy, James, and Richard (guys on Top Gear) will love this. I wonder what the best load and pressure configuration is to demolish a caravan? Can it be set up to knock cars (other than Reliant Robins) over without doing excessive damage?

Now imagine a number of these doing a broadside from the side of a semi…
- ldobe
  
  What about using it as a mass reaction motor for a pickup truck.
  
  Punch the nitrogen cannon and get us over the jump.
http://www.eff.org/ deaduncledave

Needs Moar Yakety Sax: http://youtubedoubler.com/4H3k
sam1148

Have fun storming the castle!
Palomino

I see no purpose, since it’s being loaded at the wall, defeating any purpose of stealth.
millie fink

Gawd, that music, turn it OFFFFF!!
Eark_the_Bunny

Coming soon to a Mythbusters episode near you…
hymenopterid

Two can play at this little game. I’m installing these things on the *insides* of my house so I can explode the walls *outwards* at my attackers. Didn’t see that one coming did you, boys!
i_prefer_yeti

On the plus side, now I can talk about alternate uses for the water cooler whilst standing around the water cooler.
pjcamp

My dog can do that after dinner, while facing the other way. Especially if I feed him New Food.
lysdexia

Did anyone else notice that BCB is an anagram for BBC? I think it speaks for it’s self.
BarBarSeven

Feh. I liked this act better when it was a portly guy getting hit in the stomach with a cannonball… And what’s with all this operatic music nonsense. This needs no music… IT’S A CANNON! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpCD396Zkag
Larry Anderson

So it looks like its ammunition is derived from 5 gallon water bottles and soda machine CO2 canisters
info

“Fire at the sides of a van to see what’s inside” (from the scrolling text).

- Gee, officer… I was just curious to see what was inside…
switcha

Apply directly to the forehead.
http://germanwotd.com Amelia_G

What’s up with that “mortar”? Soviet-era sand + water? Or capitalist-abundance toothpaste?
Herr G

Looks like a good old-fashioned cannon to me. Ship ahoy!
http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

uhh, there are doors on those vehicles if you want to see what is inside.

And if a LEO or whatever had some reason not to use the doors, I would hope they would use something with a bit more finesse, or a lot more water.

Nifty device, but c’mon, it’s looking pretty instructables, bit of homemade fun, not really a product is it?