MANPAD Systems Stationed On Apartment Roofs For Olympics

[JointStrikeFighter]

Read the thread again.

Vejut posted a link to an article which suggested all the missiles defending the Olympics were crippled by bad weather.

[Lonestar]

Whoops, as I was.

[Sky Captain]

How likely an attack by hijacked jetliner is these days? September 11 attacks were succesful mainly because passengers thought it will be just another hijacking and then demanding some sort of ransom. No one thought the planes will be used as cruise missiles. When news about attacks spread passengers aboard fourth plane still flying stormed the cocpit hoping to regain control and as a result plane crashed in empty field.
Later years when shoebomber and underpants bomber tried to set off their explosives they were quickly overpowered by nearby passengers. Nowadays I think unless hijackers can smuggle aboard machine guns or have dozen or more people well trained in unarmed combat they are unlikely to hold back hundreds of passengers from overpowering them long enough to steer a plane into something important.

[Sea Skimmer]

The biggest threat in hijacking terms would be from commuter aircraft which can be rather large, and yet small enough that hijackers might seriously reduce the passenger load by booking extra seats they don't fill. Security also tends to be inferior at smaller regional airports. That takes significant amounts of money though. A seventy seat forty tone airliner still makes a big bomb. Threats from rented planes or giant RC planes are overall much more likely at this point. A Cessna dropping jugs of napalm onto a crowd would not be a good day.

[Force Lord]

Napalm? How the heck do you make napalm without stealing it?

[Zaune]

Napalm? How the heck do you make napalm without stealing it?

Petrol mixed with laundry soap is the simplest do-it-yourself recipe that springs to mind, but I'm sure there are others. Or there's pipe bombs, nail bombs and even just having someone hang out the door and let rip with an AK47.

I think I might be putting more thought into this than is altogether healthy...

[Sea Skimmer]

Yeah making napalm B is easy, mix Polystyrene, Benzene and gasoline. Polystyrene and gasoline alone will work, and many soaps have a strong Polystyrene base, while foam cups and plates are usually near pure Polystyrene so you can just drop them in a bucket of gasoline and have it turn into a bucket of napalm in minutes. Making the original Napalm takes a little more work but can still be done with household products easily. That's all over the internet. The hard part is making a good igniter, for which I suggest nobody start offering suggestions.

[Skgoa]

It should be dead obvious to anyone who remotely knows what they are doing, anyways. No need to give anyone halve-baked ideas that will lead them to kill themselves in their backyard.

Deterrent for actually trying in the first place?

Otherwise it would be silly to be so open about deploying them. If they were actually installing them just so they can shoot someone down making their attack run on the Olympic exhaust port then it would have been better to simply not tell anyone about them.

This. Like almost all other forms of "security" that is visible, it's mostly for show. Keep calm and carry on.

[Beowulf]

Meanwhile, missiles are found unguarded in London.