You're skipping the whole damn point: physical access was required. At that point, there ain't shit you can do to stop an attacker with software based security

You're skipping the whole damn point: physical access was required. At that point, there ain't shit you can do to stop an attacker with software based security. A human being, sitting in front of the hardware, is going to win. Also, it's not that easy to damage these things. There certainly are cases where you can add wear and tear, decrease life span, and if the weather is cooperating, cause catastrophic failure. But it's certainly not a sure thing, and in most of the failure modes they outlined, you'd have plenty of time to shut them down and get a tech on site. A little bit of dynamite (or any sort of improvised explosive) is cheap, readily available, and requires the same physical access, only it happens to be a far more reliable way to cause failure...