Improvised Munitions, Sand, Ice, Water Guns

I'm a big fan of Novelist Dan Brown and more specifically his book "Deception Point". Before he tells his story, he mentions that every single technology he describes throughout his tale exists. No weapon is a fabrication, although the story itself is fiction. One of the most interesting weapons he described was the Improvised Munitions Rifle which was used by the Delta Force against some rogue scientists. What Improvised Munitions means, is that wherever you are, whether it be in the arctic, desert, or ocean, there is an infinite amount of ammo available to you that you can make from your surroundings.

In the desert for example, sand is used to create bullets, which I assume would work by high heat and pressure to mold the sand into a glass bullet. In the snow, you can take snowballs and load them into the rifle to be compacted into ice bullets. In 'water mode', water is just shot out at lethal speeds in supercharged bursts if I remember correctly. There is also mention of tiny misquito-looking robots that deliver an injection of air into the enemy, and charge themselves by just being near an energy field by drawing energy like a misquito would blood, but I won't go into that now.

Question is, do any of you have information about these IM guns, or have ever heard of them? I just think it's a really cool idea and would like to learn more about them.

[edit on 22-7-2005 by zhangmaster]

I doubt that such a weapon that you describe exists, at least not in the form you explain it. It might be true that the echnologies are there, everyone knows that you can cut metal with high pressurized water, how glass is made or how one can destroy the crystalline strucure of Snow into ice. But I dont see any of these technologies in weapon-size format, let alone all three of them.

And I doubt that Ice or glass would be elastic enough to be a good bullet. This is just an example of possible science fiction, but still its complete fiction.

Normally I would agree with you, but the fact that Dan Brown is a respected author and says himself that these technologies exist makes me think otherwise. But yeah, I know, its still the word of one man, and I don't know him personally so that argument isn't that valid. The sand gun does seem a little far fetched though. You'd certainly need a lot of heat and pressure to make glass, and any major shock should shatter it. I would think that the bullets would fire from air pressure, not gunpowder so maybe the shock wouldn't be that bad. It wouldn't make sense, nor would it be possible to rapidly fire these bullets from powder or shells. I'm going out for a bit, but I'll try to do a little more research on it when I get back. Haven't found anything in the past though, so it's unlikely I'll find much.

Dan Brown didn't realise the Priory of Sion was a hoax, so his credibility is not high There are websites devoted to all the things he gets wrong.

Ice or rock bullets I can just about believe, but the ballistics involved in firing water beyond a few metres are just not feasible. If I was charitable I'd say he'd mistunderstood something.

Killing someone by injecting air into their veins is an old murder-story idea, but in practice it takes a hell of a lot of air - something like 200 cc as I recall.

If you're talking about real Improvised Munitions Dan brown is far off point. Supercharged water bullets are hardly improvised. I own a copy of the Special Forces Improvised Munitions Handbook. A good example of improvised munitions would be a molotov coktail, hence the term "improvised". Improvised Munitions could also be a nail, painted black, and shoved in communication lines. Or a zip gun made with some pipes, rubber bands, a nail and a 12 gauge shell

Actually, for all you Dan Brown skeptics, ice bullets do exist - and have done for at least 20 odd years. They are coated with glycerine to protect the projectile from heat during flight to target. Largest calibre I've heard of is 7.62mm. Max range is about 150 metres.

As to the storyline of 'Deception Point' (c), Delta using ice buckshot (I think), it is not too far fetched. After all, if we can have bullets made from ice, why not other munitions of a larger calibre?

The Priory of Scion and Corpus Dei - both exist, as does the Illuminati. I respectfully suggest you research St John Ambulance [surprise!], the Knights of the Templars, Maltese Knights, Knights of the Round Table [King Arthur], Spanish Inquisition etc, etc.

Everything can be traced back to the Holy Grail - be it a brother and sister or the cup which Christ allegedly drank from at the Last Supper or even Mary Magdelane as Dan Brown suggested.

Well, thanks for the information about Dan Brown. I don't know much about him except from what I've read, so I assumed he would be pretty accurate in all his descriptions. Do you have a link to some of the websites disproving him Wembley?

Fritz, the ice bullets I'm talking about (and this is just from memory, I can't locate the passage in the book itself, nor do I have the time ) are formed inside the gun in the butt of the rifle, not made beforehand. I guess the water rifle seems like bunk, but with the glass and ice guns, I could see them working although it'd probably be a real feat of engineering.

About air causing a heart attack Wembley, all it takes is a single air bubble injected into the bloodstream. It travels to the heart and acts as an embolus. Check out the links below:

www.angiogenesis-center.org...

www.chfpatients.com... (under 'embolism)

the ideas of improvised munition as stated in 'Deception Point' by Mr. Brown are not at all far-fetched. It's simply a matter of high pressure gas and in the case of the ice bullets a lubricant to protect the munition from deterioration by friction with the air. Whether or not the bullet can penetrate concrete is irrelevant. The idea is that when you're out of bullets or are looking for a more discrete mode of kill you could uses whatever is lying around. The range is dictated by the munition itself and the amount of gas or whatever pressurized material you're using to fire the missile with. The least likely being full glass as the heat required to generate would be high. this would likely be a chemically induced melting and supercooling but would require in turn more gear than would be sensible. actually, it would only require a thin glass shell, using the sand inside as mass to add to the velocity. the point of improvised munitions, again, is for being out of rounds. accuracy isn't important when you're backed into a corner. sometimes a battle's outcome is determined simply by who has the most rounds to throw.

As far as the 'fly on the wall.' easily possible. as a matter of fact, the popular consumer electronics industry is releasing cell phones, cameras and other devices that can be left near outlets or special pads to charge or power themselves without requiring any special cords (other than the pad for certain technologies). Miniature bots are old tech, seriously old, and if a standard junk webcam for five dollars can take decent photos why can't the CIA have a slightly nicer or similar version that's much smaller. The CCD that captures the image could be very tiny. The only restriction on such a small machine with limited power would be the range it could broadcast and the length of time it could operate without being near a power source. Also, it would use an analog frequency that might be detectable, requiring a level of encryption. all in all, easily doable using current known technologies, so should be more than simple using shadow techs not yet known to consumer markets. hope this helps enlighten some bits.

any other ?'s