Talk:Sponge bomb

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Not so "low-importance" anymore?[edit]

Can we get a more developed article on the sponge bomb technology? The Israeli use of sponge bombs to close Hamas terrorist tunnels in Gaza is in the news daily, and public comments in response to journalistic reports are filled with questions. Generally i would direct querents to Wikipedia, but this article is simply a stub.

Questions:

(1) Is this sponge like packing foam?

(2) What are its chemical components?

(3) After hardening can the sponge be dug through by a person with metal hand tools or must mechanical tools such as drills or power saws be used?

(4) Are there chemical means to "melt" the sponge?

Catherineyronwode (talk) 05:29, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have not been able to find much about this beyond a few details in news reports. Here is an article that goes into a bit of speculation and reference to similar technology: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/does-israel-really-have-sponge-bombs-for-sealing-tunnels It is sourced from The Telegraph, but they did not provide any sources: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/25/sponge-bomb-new-weapon-israel-gaza-tunnels-war-hamas/

I'll speculate a bit though, just since we don't seem to have anything else so far.

(1) This sounds like it is more like urethane construction foam, that's basically a glue that foams up and then hardens over a couple of minutes (used to fill holes). The phase before it hardens could be weak enough to clear with a stick or strong enough to trap a person (likely inbetween), and the hardening time could be from seconds to minutes (probably becoming solid in seconds but being somewhat weak for minutes).

(2) Commercial products like this are usually a urethane foam, that could fit with the description of it's operation, although the description of a divider simply being removed seems like it is missing some details since it would be very inefficient to not have some form of mixing to ensure all the contents react. Maybe it is shaken but the explosion is delayed? Judging from the reports of blindings during training it may be challenging to place before it explodes, and urethane monomers are isocyanates which are certainly toxic enough to blind from a short exposure (Bhopal was due to an isocyanate).

(3) It would require a very high density foam to stop all hand tools, which would require a huge volume of chemicals, likely too much to be carried by one person if it is to fill a reasonably sized tunnel. For typical construction foams it would certainly be possible to dig through with hand tools, a shovel would be reasonably effective although it would take at least multiple minutes to dig through a metre, for tougher foams it would require sharpened tools and take longer. This would still be quite an effective deterrent since rifle shots could easily be fired straight through the foam if digging is seen.

(4) There are chemicals to melt just about anything, practicality is another matter. If this is urethane it should be resistant to most solvents that would cause rapid degradation, and any other chemical that would rapidly attack it would likely be volatile and quite harmful to those in the tunnel (e.g. strong nitric acid). Fire should be fairly effective unless a large volume of fireproofing additives have been included, but either way that would make some nasty smoke and the tunnel would also quickly run out of oxygen. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 08:05, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]