Have a story where 4 soldiers have to cut through simple rope where 8 children are bound by their feet and hands. they then have to escape a room with a bomb in it that's about to detonate. I was thinking thirty seconds would be enough time but is it?
How much time would a well practiced team cut through the rope of two children each, then carry one in each arm. Assume children between 4 to 8 years old).
The bomb will only destroy the large hall they're in (Assume a hall of around 10 by 10 metres wide), and maybe a little bit past that, though the walls will absorb much of the explosion.
So I guess the question is, is thirty seconds too long (not tense enough) or too short (they're dead before they can even exit the hall)?
Thanks.
Edit: Terrorists are dead, that there is a bomb and hostages was not in the intel. The bomb was a last ditch attempt to inflict maximum damage and is incased in concrete, except for a visible timer. It cannot be disarmed in time.
The children are unconscious but are bound by thin rope to chairs chained to the floor.
Equipment for cutting the rope, I'm thinking combat knives but unsure if a special forces unit would be carrying rope cutters on their persons for an impromptu hostage situation.
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3$\begingroup$ Surely this depends on a lot of factors. How cooperative/alert/healthy are the children? Is there light to see by, what is the shape of the room, quality of the rope, training and drilling of the soldiers etc.. This ultimately seems like a writing problem as the accidents/good-fortune that slow or quicken the escape are within your control. I.e. 30 seconds seems reasonable, but it's up to you. $\endgroup$– Escaped dental patient.Commented Jul 7 at 23:07
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1$\begingroup$ What equipment do the soldiers have? Taking 30 seconds to cut a rope makes me think of really thick rope and cutting it with a pocket knife. Don't soldiers carry combat knives which would cut to any kind of reasonable hostage-binding rope in a few seconds? $\endgroup$– AlexPCommented Jul 7 at 23:10
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2$\begingroup$ @Escapeddentalpatient. What might help: hostage extraction, bodyguards and similar guys typically do not expect and do not count with the cooperativity of their protegee. Look at the recent Fico assassination attempt, everything happened so quickly, as he understood what has happened, he was already in the car running to the hospital. View the attempt in real time! The "interesting part" of the events was lesser as maybe 5 seconds. $\endgroup$– Gray SheepCommented Jul 7 at 23:12
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3$\begingroup$ Why cut the rope? The terrorists have conveniently packaged the children for transport, unless I misunderstand the phrasing. $\endgroup$– g sCommented Jul 7 at 23:26
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2$\begingroup$ A combination of bolt cutters (to deal with handcuffs) and serrated combat knives will go through mere rope in seconds. $\endgroup$– Monty Wild ♦Commented Jul 8 at 0:58
4 Answers
The world record for the 100-meter dash is 9.89 seconds. That means our best-case, unencumbered distance is...
303.3 meters.
No sprinter can run 303.3 meters in 30 seconds. It's exhausting to run 100 in 9.89 seconds. This is our world-class best-possible-case metric. Nothing more.
Into the room and out again, you have 150ish meters to work with. Unburdened. Pure sprinter. We're not talking about special ops people here. We're talking about people who kinda eat, sleep, and breathe running the 100-meter in the shortest time.
You explain nothing about the hall, so I'm forced to answer your question by estimating how big the hall can be to meet your time expectation.
I can cut a thin rope in a second. I need to cut two ropes. Two seconds.
Wait, I need to get my knife out. Theoretically that could be done while I'm running, but the distance of the run is (IMO) more critical than the time with the kids, so I spend a second bringing my knife to bear.
I need to hoist two unconscious children into my arms with enough balance to run. We're in a rush and bruising the children isn't a concern (right?). 2-4 seconds. Let's be reasonable and say 4 seconds. Wait... gotta put my knife away. Stuff that! It's the climax of the movie. Drop the knife.
So we're up to seven seconds to grab the kids. That's a bit optimistic because the kids aren't exactly in alignment for easy pick-up, but let's roll with it.
30 seconds - 7 seconds = 23 seconds divided by two (entrance and exit) gives me 11.5 seconds.
Unlike sprinters, special ops folks wear gear. Sometimes a lot of gear. You don't explain any of that, either. Boots (not running sneakers), waist utility belt including holster, flak jacket, who knows what else is bound to their chest and backs. Personally I think Issamade Asinga could run the 100-meter before an equipped spec-op person could get 20 meters, but I'm just guessing. And who knows what condition the soldiers were in before they entered the room? Fresh out of bed? Exhausted from running fifteen klicks under heavy gunfire? (I'm beginning to think this question should be closed for lack of detail....)
All told I think...
- 10 meters from door to children is very believable in 30 seconds.
- 20 meters is stretching reality, but I'm sure I can find a Rambo scene that's worse.
- 30 meters (that's 30 meters in and 30 meters out) feels unrealistic to me.
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$\begingroup$ I should mention, they're already in room. It's 30 seconds to cut rope, lift children and out of the hall. A 10 metre hall then a little bit more to avoid the blast radius which will only encompass the hall, plus maybe a little more. $\endgroup$– GMHLeeCommented Jul 9 at 15:44
I think it is a not realistic story. Not that is what hostage rescuers are doing.
Instead, what they do: explode into the building as surprise and kill everyone in seconds.
Before that, there is a complex teamwork, to map the building, how do they enter, how the terrorists move, and so on.
They do not think, they do not firefight, they jump into the building (like through an exploded wall), and they kill everyone. They don't talk too much about it because the public reaction, but reality is that they don't care if a terrorist wants to surrender.
Most anti-terrorist team guy is an elite soldier, with the mentality of an elite soldier, preparing for this in his entire life - and only a few of them has a real mission. We could say, that is the crown of their career.
Their nightmare is any "surprise", any trivial obstacle. Like a closed door with what they did not count while preparing for the mission. They want to kill everyone in seconds, they might need a half minute to break through a closed door, that is unacceptable.
The rope is a similar unknown factor. They do not want to lose seconds to work on it. I do not think that they would try to cut the rope, I think they would try to handle the bomb, while they kill the terrorists (even those wanting to surrender). Children will be cared only after the bomb exploded in some protective box and they have killed everything.
After edit: the difference between the story and the real hostage events is like the difference between an Agatha Christie story and a real police investigation.
It is relative easy to read about similar, real missions. I do not know a single one where terrorists have left such complex machinery back.
They prefer trivial, primitive, simple solutions, namely that they just shot dead all the hostages in the first moment of the attack. Then they die, but that does not revive the dead hostages.
Possibly they might explode the whole building or aircraft with themselves.
I think the guys would focus to disarm the bomb, or let it explode in some protective box. Surely the bomb experts would have the top prio in the action.
It is not very easy to bind a human with ropes, it is possible but not preferred. Terrorists and police prefer to use handcuffs.
If the used ropes, probably they can not cut the ropes in 30 seconds with knives. They might try to do that with large scissors. I think they would try to find similar ropes and they would try to replicate the situation in a safe envirnment.
If they have time, psychologists would try to talk with the children until the team prepares. But again, in life-and-death matters, the untrained civilians are mostly not expected to cooperate and they are not trusted. Simply because no one knows, what will they do.
Real hostage crysises do not work on this way.
Obvious Caveat, I am an Internet Poster, and not an Elite Spec-Ops Door-Kicking Badass
Also - I am British, therefore this is going to have liberal references to the SAS.
The Gold Standard (yes, I am biased - but it really is...) in terms of public facing Hostage rescue. Total Operation time from the word Go to completion - 17 minutes.
However, that involves
- Breaching
- Winning the Gunfight
- Extracting the Hostages
- Declaring the operation over
- handing control back to the Met Police.
You have already indicated that they have breached and won the gunfight. For reference in the Iranian siege there were 18 hostages and 1 terrorist extracted. This was from multiple groups.
To extract those people from the Embassy took 3 minutes. Those were all adults (I believe) who were Zip-Tied and removed by the Troopers - although the details are sparse, from reading other information, I believe that the hostages were manhandled out of the Embassy.
So, 30 seconds - probably at a pinch could be done - but 1-2 minutes - within the realm of possibility - as above, 19 people in 3 minutes was done, in real life, by the SAS.
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$\begingroup$ Helps to puts things in perspective, thanks $\endgroup$– GMHLeeCommented Jul 9 at 15:37
Not even remotely realistic.
No unit on earth would be willing to attempt that mission given the restraints, just getting into the building would probably use up your time, let alone cutting ropes and getting a bunch of kids out.
Try it yourself, make a mockup and see how fast you can do it, use pillows for kids if you have to.
10 mins is probably doable with training for that specific scenario.
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$\begingroup$ The mission was not hostage rescue, the bomb will be local to the hall only. Soldiers find out only once they reach into the hall. Whether intel can fuck up that badly not so sure. A mockup is a good idea to try things :) $\endgroup$– GMHLeeCommented Jul 9 at 15:28
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1$\begingroup$ @GMHLee I think that would make the situation borderline impossible Have you seen footage of the Iranian embassy siege? That's what it looks like when some of the best trained soldiers on earth perform a mission that they've practiced for extensively, including full size mockups. Situations like your describing are something SF have to prepare for if they need it done fast, and even so, they aren't just running in, they have to check corners, clear rooms etc. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 9 at 16:09
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$\begingroup$ Though I'm having it that everything has been cleared, enemies wise. Unless we're saying we can never be sure? Still in a scenario like this I'd imagine they'd have to wing it and hope everything is cleared. I should also point out the hall is a small part of an entire complex that was under assault. Someone else mentioned the Iranian siege, I remember seeing clips. Guess it'll be good to properly watch it in it's entirety though. $\endgroup$– GMHLeeCommented Jul 9 at 16:57