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.