About Those Hezbollah Pager Bombs. RDX esplosive?

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods. This column is a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from JWR. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats, and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. In today’s column, we look at a recent nation-state bombing incident.

About Those Hezbollah Pager Bombs

A well-publicized news story: What we know so far about the deadly pager explosions in Lebanon. Some more details can be found here: Exploding Pagers: What We Know About BAC’s AR-924 Model Used by Hezbollah. And here is a follow-up article, from Wednesday: Hezbollah Walkie-Talkies Blow Up Across Lebanon in Second Wave of Attacks.

JWR’s Comments: To me, this incident has the ring of “life imitates art”. Many of you may recall in my 2013 novel Expatriates how a nation-state constructed and covertly distributed a large number of sophisticated compact explosive devices to another country and how they were all set off simultaneously. I wrote this fictitiously, to describe a plausible method of destroying an entire fleet of navy ships. In Expatriates, the fictitious electronic time-delay bombs were built into air quality monitors, and they contained a crystalline RDX explosive. That is a very compact and powerful high explosive. As I explained in the novel, Research Department Explosive (RDX) is more powerful than TNT, but much more compact. The following quote comes from the Infogalatic wiki:

“RDX is also known as Research Department Formula X, cyclonite, hexogen, and T4… …In its pure, synthesized state RDX is a white, crystalline solid. It is often used in mixtures with other explosives and plasticizers, phlegmatizers, or desensitizers… …RDX is quite stable in storage and it is considered one of the most powerful and brisant of the military high explosives.”

I’ll be curious to see what explosive composition the Mossad used inside their pager bombs, when that fact is eventually revealed. Because pagers are so small, I suspect that a pure crystalline explosive or one with just a bit of plasticizer added was what was used.

Drone Strike Triggers Huge Arsenal Detonation

H.L. sent this: Drone Strike On Arsenal Triggers Biggest Explosion On Russian Soil Of The War. A brief quote:

“The site corresponds with the location of the Russian Defense Ministry’s main missile and artillery directorate arsenal, situated 488 kilometers northeast of Ukraine’s border…”

Tanks are Getting Humbled on the Battlefield

SurvivalBlog’s own Tom Christianson sent this: The Once-Dominant Tank Is Getting Humbled on the Battlefield.

Big Tech Pushing a Digital ID Agenda

Reader D.S.V. sent us this: Big Tech’s Latest “Fix” for AI Panic Is To Push a Digital ID Agenda.

FBI Agents Visit Man for Making a Spicy Kamala Post

The latest video essay from Matt Christiansen: FBI Agents Visit Man for Spicy Kamala Post | He Mocks Them Mercilessly Until They Leave. JWR’s Comment: The agency’s clear intent was to intimidate and silence dissenters who exercise their constitutional right to freedom of speech. Shame on the FBI. I recommend that you bookmark Matt Christiansen’s page on Rumble, just in case he gets completely banned on YouTube. Given Merrick Garland’s posturing and the all too apparent “anti-disinformation” partnership between the DOJ and YouTube, bans of commentators like Matt Christiansen are looking more likely, especially during this election season.