Sunday, September 7, 2014

Kicking' Down the Door




















If you've ever wanted to know how to kick down a door, check out this good advice from The Art of Manliness:
Check to see which way the door opens by checking the hinges. If the door opens towards you, kicking it down is going to be next to impossible. Kicking a door down is best employed on a door that swings away from you.

Kick to the side of where the lock is mounted (near the keyhole). This is typically the weakest part of the door.

Using a front kick, drive the heel of your foot into the door. Give the kick forward momentum and keep your balance by driving the heel of your standing foot into the ground. Don’t kick the lock itself; this could break your foot.

The wood should begin to splinter. Today most doors are made of soft wood and are hollow. They should give way fairly easily, especially since the lock’s deadlock bolt extends only an inch or less into the door frame. Older, completely solid doors will prove more resistant. Just keep on kicking until the door gives way and you can save the day.

That is all good advice, provided we're talking about ordinary doors. But what about the doors on Fortress Embassies? Will those cave in after one or two manly kicks?

No, they won't. In fact, they are tested to ensure they will stay up under prolonged attack. Take a look at these videos.



And not only the doors. The windows hold up just as well.


Referring back to The Art of Manliness, as it rightly notes ... If the door opens towards you, kicking it down is going to be next to impossible. All those Fortress Embassy doors open toward the outside, away from the protected side of the door. That's, like, Fortress Design 101.

Note also ... The wood should begin to splinter. Today most doors are made of soft wood and are hollow. Fortress Embassy doors are made of steel, not wood. Hundreds of pounds of steel.

Forced-entry tools, manly ones (photo from Oregon Ballistics Lab)













All of which brings me to this press release from the good people at the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations about new contract awards to companies that will install those doors and windows. 

Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations Announces Final Selections for Forced-Entry/Ballistic-Resistant Contract:

The Department of State has awarded three Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Worldwide Design-Build Forced-Entry/Ballistic-Resistant (FE/BR) contracts in support of the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO).

The solicitation was set aside to 8(a) Small Business Concerns to support the Small Business Administration (SBA) 8(a) Business Development Program and help the Department meet its small business goals.

Awards were made to the following 8(a) certified companies:

  • Edifice, LLC
  • Hardline–Nati Construction, LLC Joint Venture
  • Trison–Desbuild Joint Venture


  • The scope of these contracts includes installation, repair and replacement of FE/BR products, including doors, windows, opaque panels, glazing panels, and vault doors.

    The government anticipates additional Worldwide Design-Build FE/BR contract awards to be issued under a separate solicitation, set aside to Historically Underutilized Business Zones (HUB Zone) small business concerns.

    The duration of each contract is one base year, with four option years. The overall ceiling amount for each contract is $50 million.

    The bottom line is that these Forced-Entry/Ballistic Resistant products really work. All the designing, the testing, and the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on installing them have paid off in lives that were not lost during mob and terrorist attacks. In Jeddah, Damascus, Sanaa, Tunis, Khartoum, and elsewhere, attackers have spent hours trying but failing to get past those secure door and windows and inside our embassy office buildings.
     

    Failed forced-entry attack in Jeddah (photo from State.gov)


















    So those OBO contracts include the "repair and replacement" of FE/BR products? Given the steady pace at which mobs keep attacking our embassies, the repair and replacement business ought to be steady work.


















    These guys might not be the brightest of attackers, but they sure do try hard.


















    Go ahead, keep on hitting those windows until you wear yourself out. We'll just replace them.



















    24 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    Great Post TSB! Very informative. gwb

    James said...

    Yep,
    Heck, just an ordinary (if there is such a one) 4 hour fire door set in 12" cmu jambs with grouted vertical reinforcing can be a little tough to kick down.

    James said...

    Ahem, Mr. TSB, that one single door looks to swing in.

    TSB said...

    James: All FE/BR-rated doors swing out (reverse bevel), but I grant you it's hard to tell from that photo. That door is on an entry control booth, not an office building, and non-rated doors have been used on those booths in some situations.

    I believe it's a rated door, however, even if it isn't, it's still robust enough that the guy using the pipe couldn't get through it or the windows a foot away.

    James said...

    I bet you all the people in those photos have family members who are glaziers.
    I'm going to be contrary, it still looks like a swing in door.
    Jeez, people can get upset if you don't approve change orders in a timely fashion. Oh the RFI's and the RFP's!

    James said...

    Looks like a wall thickness of about 16", also. How do they anchor the jambs, surely not with standard door buck anchors. Is the door frame anchored upward in the header also?

    TSB said...

    James: In new construction - versus upgrades - the wall will usually be 8-inch reinforced concrete, but there are lots of options, ranging from greater thicknesses of brick or block to lesser thicknesses of steel plate. Doors are attached to a steel tube subframe that's anchored to the surrounding construction with Hilti apoxy anchors.

    You might look into FE/BR fabricators such as Norshield, Fabrication Designs, Ross, Saltzer, etc., for details. Hey, even for possible work. The demand for those products is growing, domestically and overseas.

    Anonymous said...

    TSB: Looks like Snowden managed to break down a door too! I think the Swiss are a little bit tired of all the spying.received gwb

    TSB said...

    James: I'm now sitting here having breakfast and kicking myself for not thinking of putting up The Doors, particularly Break On Through (To The Other Side)!

    James said...

    Damnit! Missed a trick on that one. Well try this one:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYEA9X9kKOc

    Anonymous said...

    TSB: Put it up tonite I think they should broadcast some great music while the crowd is working.

    I HEAR YOU KNOCKING by Fats Domino would be great! It would be fun to see all the attackers stop and start rockin! gwb

    Anonymous said...

    TSB: It Will Cost Taxpayers $5 Billion To Help Obama Create An ISIS Strategy
    Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/08/2014 - 16:27

    Here comes the $$ for those new doors and windows you ordered. gwb

    TSB said...

    "I Hear You Knocking But You Can't Come In" - I am kicking myself again for missing that one!!

    James said...

    Picking music is not something you should try at home by yourself TSB, leave it to the professionals.

    Anonymous said...

    TSB: I forgot the link on the Swiss offering Snowden amnesty cause I was having such a great time listening to Fats Domino! I love that one because it was an audience request and Fats wasn't sure if he could remember the words.. but he did! gwb

    Anonymous said...

    James: We'se created a musical
    'SKEPTACULAR'! gwb

    Anonymous said...

    TSB, James: Re: the Ray Rice video which caused such a stir. Nobody
    asks the most important questions.
    1.Who edited the video?
    2.Who ordered the video edited?
    We know the Atlantic City Police had the original and originally he was charged with a major felony assault which was dropped to a much lower charge. My guess is it was the P.A. who was confident he would never be held accountable. (and he seems to have been correct) gwb

    Anonymous said...

    TSB: The New 10th Anniversary edition of 'It Takes A Village' is out! And here is a report on the results of Hillary's campaign for children over the last 12 years in Iraq.

    http://rt.com/news/186180-children-killed-iraq-conflicts/

    So, as Hillary would say: There is still lots of work to do! No wonder she has no competition for 2016. gwb
    Wait..I'm just being told she hasn't mentioned "The Children" in quite a while.

    Anonymous said...

    NOW PLAYING
    Olbermann: Everyone Must Go

    TSB: Olbermann is the only one who got this right. gwb

    TSB said...

    GWB: I haven't watched the Rice video, what with my not being interested in pro sports. But what gets me is how the news media calls the incident "domestic violence" when it took place in a hotel elevator, and between people who weren't married. It was just plain aggravated assault and battery. Calling it anything else minimizes it.

    TSB said...

    GWB: I just looked at the video. It was reportedly shown to AP by a law enforcement source. Could be the source used a personal phone, or something, to record the video from a monitor, and didn't turn over an actual video file to AP. The original video no doubt was put together by the hotel's security office or contractor, and it shows the feed from at least two different cameras.

    When will footballers learn that no moment between two people that takes place inside a casino hotel goes unrecorded?

    Anonymous said...

    TSB: Evidence: 1. Mort, on people who've seen the full video: "You see her attack him in the elevator. Ray Rice strikes her twice, and her head hits the rail"
    May 2014
    Today the NFL'S Goodell said 'we reached out to the State Police for the elevator video' and couldn't get it. THAT'S BECAUSE THE LOCAL POLICE HAD IT! Everyone who wanted to got the story from NFL sources months ago. Total BS!
    gwb

    Anonymous said...

    C'EST FORTE... GREAT!! gwb

    Anonymous said...

    TSB: US government threatened Foley family ... I saw Admiral Allen (can't remember his title) asked whether the family could negotiate a ransom privately. He said that (paraphrase) we have no power over them. They are free to do what they want as private citizens.

    That is the trouble with a military run government. The top of the chain spends their whole career making sure that nobody lower down knows what's really going on. That's why you can't read Juan Cole's blog on a military computer. Little wonder
    nobody trusts the USG anymore.
    gwb