7 ms·

I was on duty as security for a.. semi secret substation designated as critical infrastructure that night. In the Bay Area, we just had to divert power a little

I was on duty as security for a.. semi secret substation designated as critical infrastructure that night. In the Bay Area, we just had to divert power a little bit. It basically didn’t affect the grid at all. Everyone was all a little more worried as to if this was isolated, if we were next, etc etc. Transformers that are small are often on hand and easy to swap out. But some of the bigger ones have months long lead times. The facility we were at had transformers that had a 6 month lead time from Germany to replace them and they had to be sent via boat as they wouldn’t fit in planes. The average person isn’t going to know that about transformers. Which leads more credence to the fact it’s an inside job.

crehn 6y ago
Out of curiosity, how does one “divert power”?
- MadVikingGod 6y ago
  What that practically means is power that would have normally come through those substation would be delivered by some other source, and thus go through a different set of substations. What most people don't understand is that it's important that the demand + the transmission losses = the production, not just as a whole, but also for each link. To help with that most places don't produce 100%, and a lot of higher power links are redundant. But that can only cover so much. If it's not a high demand day you can probably source power from other providers, but sometimes that's not enough.
  - digi59404 6y ago
    EIL5 Answer. Power (mostly) follows the path of least resistance. Like water does. To divert power certain stations or links in the grid can offer resistance via either terminating, or other means. Another thing is, It’s a common understanding that power facilities can produce and modulate power. But they can also spin in reverse, thus using power.
- reincarnate0x14 6y ago
  What makes it a power grid is that the stations and substations are connected in a mesh topology. Every major load center is going to have multiple possible paths for power flows from multiple generators. In most cities, even residential distribution will have multiple feeder paths. In most cases these are controlled by switches at the substations that put circuits in and out of service, thus moving the path current must take. More modern options include phase shifting transformers and other reactive device, and even impedance reactors that will adjust flow across multiple live circuits. Aside from that, changing where generation is happening also moves current to different circuit paths, so for example a "peaker" gas turbine plant that can ramp up quickly might be brought online in one location electrically closer to the load to balance flow away from an overloaded or to-be-disconnect circuit.
greedo 6y ago
"The average person isn’t going to know that about transformers. Which leads more credence to the fact it’s an inside job." Or that the perpetrators were well informed about infrastructure vulnerabilities.
- digi59404 6y ago
  If someone wanted to cause real harm to the infrastructure and they knew about the infrastructure. They wouldn’t have taken out a few transformers that could be easily rectified. They would have used a boat and dragged an anchor across the bay.
  - spondyl 6y ago
    As someone who doesn't live in the Bay Area, I'm assuming there are cables of some sort that cross the bay?
    - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
      The [Trans Bay Cable](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_Bay_Cable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_Bay_Cable) is a 53mi-long cable carrying 400MW at 200kV DC (so that's 2000A). It's capable of supplying 40% of San Francisco's electricity needs. According to [this web-page](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overview-of-the-Trans-Bay-Cable-route-and-survey-area-The-Trans-Bay-Cable-dark-blue_fig1_317320999 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overview-of-the-Trans-Ba...), the cable is 10 inches in diameter, and [according to this briefing](http://www.caiso.com/Documents/070418_BriefingonTransBayCableProject_Presentation_Originalpresentation_.pdf http://www.caiso.com/Documents/070418_BriefingonTransBayCabl...) there's an inch-thick armour layer over another 2 inches of lead (wat?!) and PE. According to that same briefing, the cable seems to not be buried and is instead just layed directly onto the sea-bed. So dragging an anchor probably would do more damage to your boat and the anchor than the cable itself - but I imagine a diamond-tipped cutting blade could probably make its way through the armor layer eventually - perhaps some carefully placed underwater explosives would help weaken it too. Just hope you have protection against the extreme current going through the cable travelling up your anchor... So yes, it's within the realm of possibility for an individual to sabotage the SF Bay Area's electrical power system. ...that's scary. But the thing about disrupting public utility infrastructure is that it doesn't fill people with fear - it just inconveniences them. If there was a news headline about some incel/qanon idiot dropping underwater explosives into the bay around this cable from a rowboat to shut-down SF's power supply it just seems... underwhelming and non-threatening: quite the opposite of a macho-masculine power-fantasy - and they'd probably get laughed out of the communities they claim to represent.
temp0826 6y ago
>> 6 month lead time from Germany to replace them and they had to be sent via boat as they wouldn’t fit in planes. This is a fun detail to think about if we have a Carrington-scale solar event.
- disillusioned 6y ago
  The idea of a strategic reserve of large power transformers has been discussed at length to help ameliorate the impact of something like this from an order of literally 6-24 months, compounded into multiple years, down to... perhaps a couple of weeks/lower order of months. It seems completely insane that we're not prioritizing this sort of reserve. We could basically order 50 or so LPTs for < $2B which is a goddamn steal for the peace of mind and short-ish turnaround time we'd have for replacing critical infrastructure. There are some issues in that many are bespoke for their specific implementation, but the report discusses that as well. https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/04/f34/Strategic%20Transformer%20Reserve%20Report%20-%20FINAL.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/04/f34/Strategi...
  - HenryBemis 6y ago
    I believe that those who make the choices think with their wallets, not their mind (and it's thereof peace). Imagine you got a $2bn worth of stock, that you need to maintain (even if it's just removing the dust from the box). Then an upgrade comes up on component ABZXYZ1B so now you need to fly someone from Germany, fly in the component, replace the thing, test the think, repack the thing. That extra cost and effort is considered. Do all stations use the same make/type/version of the thing? Or we need to stockpile 20 categories of them $500m-$2bn of each type? A good and expensive side-gain would be repairing and/or upgrading some infrastructure (roads/bridges for the transportation, which is extra cost). I had a quick read on the Report (thank you)
    - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      > A good and expensive side-gain would be repairing and/or upgrading some infrastructure (roads/bridges for the transportation, which is extra cost). Without electricity I find it difficult to see how anything gets done + No mobile phones (handsets rapidly run out, base stations (is this the right term?) are fried, and if they weren't they'd be without power + No landline phones + No internet - how are you going to co-ordinate anything including crop gathering, packing, distribution, and sales? How are people going to buy anything without money, or a job to earn money if that money hadn't disappeared in a puff of no-bank-account-because the banks... see below. + Pumps for fuel are electric aren't they. Cash registers are electric. Banks are effectively electric these days - no electricity no action so no movement of money. Plus if we keep using fossil fuels and don't transfer to electrical power throughout, what w ill climate change throw at us.
Torkel 6y ago
To me this whole thread reads like an ad for solar + local storage. There should be tremendous resilience advantages compared to grid power. I’m surprised security/defence authorities aren’t pushing for that?
- pyuser583 6y ago
  Substations would still be necessary. Substations are responsible, among other things, for controlling voltage level. Integrating power grids usually involves more substations, not fewer.
  - neckardt 6y ago
    Wouldn't having more substations make the grid more resilient? I would imagine that allows for more flexibility routing power.
    - creato 6y ago
      It really seems like it would depend on the topology and capacity of the various routes. Just having more of them isn't necessarily the same as having more flexibility in routing.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Galanwe 6y ago
  I don't understand your point. If it's the "instant delivery" you propose to replace by local storage, what is the link with solar? You could as well store energy received from the grid. Solar is particularly inefficient, both because of the volume it requires per unit of energy produced, and because storing energy incurs a huge loss (also, since this post discusses security risks, I guess storing large amounts of energy at home is definitely not the safest of options)
  - Torkel 6y ago
    The risk here is that a terror attack on grid infra knocks out so much of society. No electricity => so much trouble. My point is that with solar+storage you get a more resilient system that can continue to provide power even if central grid infra i knocked out. You can have wind instead of solar, but you need some way of generating. Storage alone gets you through a night, not more. What risk do you see with commercial battery storage? You do know there is gasoline in cars and many houses are heated using natural gas, right? Compare and evaluate risks between those please. You say that solar is ”particularly inefficient. I do not agree
dmurray 6y ago
> The average person isn’t going to know that about transformers. Which leads more credence to the fact it’s an inside job. The long replacement time for transformers would be known to anyone spending 15 minutes googling what parts of the electrical infrastructure are vulnerable to a sniper attack. It's been discussed on HN before [0] so you better believe it shows up on forums for linemen or preppers or wannabe terrorists. Maybe it diminishes the chance it was a random act of vandalism, but it doesn't speak in favour of the attack being an inside job. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18998596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18998596
- CrazyStat 6y ago
  Sure, six years after the Metcalf attack it was discussed on HN. Was it discussed on HN before the Metcalf attack?
- digi59404 6y ago
  If it's terrorism, they're going to want to have an effect that is large. That is the nature of terrorism. Small events that are insignificant are not the goal of terrorism. If a person wanted to cause harm and damage the electrical infrastructure. They would have spent time planning and figuring out how to cause the most damage, with the least detection, with having the most PR and effect. Shooting a bunch of neighborhood transformers isn't the way. In their research they would have found so many other high-reward low-risk targets.
  - HenryBemis 6y ago
    OR this was a "vulnerability scanning", and not the actual attack. Perhaps they were a group of friends that wanted to shoot and see if sparks will fly (literally), like we see in the movies. OR assuming it is a group of sleepers/terrorists doing a pen-test (not the actual penetration/assault). They now (back then) answered the following critical questions: How long does it take to incapacitate such an installation? Will readily available guns do to work? How many people/guns/bullets do we need to pull this through? What monetary value damage can we do? Who/where is the back of this place? What do we need to shoot in there to make more damage (time, money, both)? So know "they" know that smaller boxes were replaced in a few minutes and larger boxes cost more and take 6 months (so large boxes it is!!!) Exactly like a vulnerability scanning/penetration test. "They" now so much more on the target, it's vulnerability, it's protection, how to disable. This said, they know that taking down one of these things is but a scratch. How about 3? 5? 10? Can a group of 50, broken down in teams.of 4, with 1 rifle and 20 bullets each, take down a station like that and be our of there in 5 minutes? These are questions that anyone with security, military, project background will be asking (and I am not CIA, KGB, etc)(so imagine how these 'departments'(?)) must have thought of it further... Unless.. this post was all about trying to identify criminal minds.. in which case.. guys.. I am in the good side on this!! The good hat!! (no more white-black hats)
repiret 6y ago
The average person might not know about transformers, but the set of people who know about transformers isn’t exactly small. It’s plenty large enough for there to be miscreants who know about transformers but aren’t power company insiders.
jojobas 6y ago
Isn't transmission lines and substation information public by necessity? My takeaway from this story is that a saboteur cell of as little as 10 people could take down multiple substations in sync, causing way more serious consequences. Attacking substations is a hard way too, one could just mix up some thermite and bring down some 500kW transmission towers.
- digi59404 6y ago
  Not all of it. Some designated as critical infrastructure is protected, private business can also be protected information. The trick here is, most of the grid can compensate for outages and entire sections being lost. It's build to handle that. You can't just run out and bring down substations and transmission lines and knock out a city. There's only some that are absolutely critical. Take Diablo Valley for example. Because they're nuclear and critical, they have an entire SWAT Team on hand and folks with .50 Cal Rifles on the roofs. I wont speak to the security of this facility. I'll just say this, If someone got within 10 feet of the facility. It would be immediately known and responded in kind. There is no way, even digging a tunnel, someone would not be noticed.
  - Teever 6y ago
    I don't think that the grid is as robust as you think it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003
    - jojobas 6y ago
      Presumably everything is more robust now that lessons have been learned and single-point failures shouldn't have that sort of effect. Coordinated multiple failures most certainly will take down huge swaths.
JKCalhoun 6y ago
Since it is near a gun range, I had simply assumed it was some yahoos driving around with their AR's firing at it as though it were nothing more than another road sign on a remote rural stretch.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  I can see (drunk and/or irresponsible) persons wanting to shoot at the insulators to make them spark and blow up - you get some pretty nice fireworks that way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCzdPFJ4tog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCzdPFJ4tog
- Lammy 6y ago
  What? The kind of people who go to ranges are not the kind of people who would fire randomly at infrastructure. What would be the point of going to the range if you’re fine shooting in the open? Please don’t defame responsible gun owners like this.
hkai 6y ago
Yeah it's pretty well known. For some larger transformers they used the world's largest plane, An 225, to transport them half way across the globe because otherwise it would be a months long delay.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sukilot 6y ago
You don't need specialist knowledge to figure out that the bigger stuff is harder to replace than the smaller stuff.

crehn 6y ago

Out of curiosity, how does one “divert power”?

MadVikingGod 6y ago
What that practically means is power that would have normally come through those substation would be delivered by some other source, and thus go through a different set of substations. What most people don't understand is that it's important that the demand + the transmission losses = the production, not just as a whole, but also for each link. To help with that most places don't produce 100%, and a lot of higher power links are redundant. But that can only cover so much. If it's not a high demand day you can probably source power from other providers, but sometimes that's not enough.
- digi59404 6y ago
  EIL5 Answer. Power (mostly) follows the path of least resistance. Like water does. To divert power certain stations or links in the grid can offer resistance via either terminating, or other means. Another thing is, It’s a common understanding that power facilities can produce and modulate power. But they can also spin in reverse, thus using power.
reincarnate0x14 6y ago
What makes it a power grid is that the stations and substations are connected in a mesh topology. Every major load center is going to have multiple possible paths for power flows from multiple generators. In most cities, even residential distribution will have multiple feeder paths. In most cases these are controlled by switches at the substations that put circuits in and out of service, thus moving the path current must take. More modern options include phase shifting transformers and other reactive device, and even impedance reactors that will adjust flow across multiple live circuits. Aside from that, changing where generation is happening also moves current to different circuit paths, so for example a "peaker" gas turbine plant that can ramp up quickly might be brought online in one location electrically closer to the load to balance flow away from an overloaded or to-be-disconnect circuit.

greedo 6y ago

"The average person isn’t going to know that about transformers. Which leads more credence to the fact it’s an inside job." Or that the perpetrators were well informed about infrastructure vulnerabilities.

digi59404 6y ago
If someone wanted to cause real harm to the infrastructure and they knew about the infrastructure. They wouldn’t have taken out a few transformers that could be easily rectified. They would have used a boat and dragged an anchor across the bay.
- spondyl 6y ago
  As someone who doesn't live in the Bay Area, I'm assuming there are cables of some sort that cross the bay?
  - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    The [Trans Bay Cable](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_Bay_Cable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_Bay_Cable) is a 53mi-long cable carrying 400MW at 200kV DC (so that's 2000A). It's capable of supplying 40% of San Francisco's electricity needs. According to [this web-page](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overview-of-the-Trans-Bay-Cable-route-and-survey-area-The-Trans-Bay-Cable-dark-blue_fig1_317320999 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Overview-of-the-Trans-Ba...), the cable is 10 inches in diameter, and [according to this briefing](http://www.caiso.com/Documents/070418_BriefingonTransBayCableProject_Presentation_Originalpresentation_.pdf http://www.caiso.com/Documents/070418_BriefingonTransBayCabl...) there's an inch-thick armour layer over another 2 inches of lead (wat?!) and PE. According to that same briefing, the cable seems to not be buried and is instead just layed directly onto the sea-bed. So dragging an anchor probably would do more damage to your boat and the anchor than the cable itself - but I imagine a diamond-tipped cutting blade could probably make its way through the armor layer eventually - perhaps some carefully placed underwater explosives would help weaken it too. Just hope you have protection against the extreme current going through the cable travelling up your anchor... So yes, it's within the realm of possibility for an individual to sabotage the SF Bay Area's electrical power system. ...that's scary. But the thing about disrupting public utility infrastructure is that it doesn't fill people with fear - it just inconveniences them. If there was a news headline about some incel/qanon idiot dropping underwater explosives into the bay around this cable from a rowboat to shut-down SF's power supply it just seems... underwhelming and non-threatening: quite the opposite of a macho-masculine power-fantasy - and they'd probably get laughed out of the communities they claim to represent.

temp0826 6y ago

>> 6 month lead time from Germany to replace them and they had to be sent via boat as they wouldn’t fit in planes. This is a fun detail to think about if we have a Carrington-scale solar event.

disillusioned 6y ago
The idea of a strategic reserve of large power transformers has been discussed at length to help ameliorate the impact of something like this from an order of literally 6-24 months, compounded into multiple years, down to... perhaps a couple of weeks/lower order of months. It seems completely insane that we're not prioritizing this sort of reserve. We could basically order 50 or so LPTs for < $2B which is a goddamn steal for the peace of mind and short-ish turnaround time we'd have for replacing critical infrastructure. There are some issues in that many are bespoke for their specific implementation, but the report discusses that as well. https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/04/f34/Strategic%20Transformer%20Reserve%20Report%20-%20FINAL.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/04/f34/Strategi...
- HenryBemis 6y ago
  I believe that those who make the choices think with their wallets, not their mind (and it's thereof peace). Imagine you got a $2bn worth of stock, that you need to maintain (even if it's just removing the dust from the box). Then an upgrade comes up on component ABZXYZ1B so now you need to fly someone from Germany, fly in the component, replace the thing, test the think, repack the thing. That extra cost and effort is considered. Do all stations use the same make/type/version of the thing? Or we need to stockpile 20 categories of them $500m-$2bn of each type? A good and expensive side-gain would be repairing and/or upgrading some infrastructure (roads/bridges for the transportation, which is extra cost). I had a quick read on the Report (thank you)
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    > A good and expensive side-gain would be repairing and/or upgrading some infrastructure (roads/bridges for the transportation, which is extra cost). Without electricity I find it difficult to see how anything gets done + No mobile phones (handsets rapidly run out, base stations (is this the right term?) are fried, and if they weren't they'd be without power + No landline phones + No internet - how are you going to co-ordinate anything including crop gathering, packing, distribution, and sales? How are people going to buy anything without money, or a job to earn money if that money hadn't disappeared in a puff of no-bank-account-because the banks... see below. + Pumps for fuel are electric aren't they. Cash registers are electric. Banks are effectively electric these days - no electricity no action so no movement of money. Plus if we keep using fossil fuels and don't transfer to electrical power throughout, what w ill climate change throw at us.

Torkel 6y ago

To me this whole thread reads like an ad for solar + local storage. There should be tremendous resilience advantages compared to grid power. I’m surprised security/defence authorities aren’t pushing for that?

pyuser583 6y ago
Substations would still be necessary. Substations are responsible, among other things, for controlling voltage level. Integrating power grids usually involves more substations, not fewer.
- neckardt 6y ago
  Wouldn't having more substations make the grid more resilient? I would imagine that allows for more flexibility routing power.
  - creato 6y ago
    It really seems like it would depend on the topology and capacity of the various routes. Just having more of them isn't necessarily the same as having more flexibility in routing.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Galanwe 6y ago
I don't understand your point. If it's the "instant delivery" you propose to replace by local storage, what is the link with solar? You could as well store energy received from the grid. Solar is particularly inefficient, both because of the volume it requires per unit of energy produced, and because storing energy incurs a huge loss (also, since this post discusses security risks, I guess storing large amounts of energy at home is definitely not the safest of options)
- Torkel 6y ago
  The risk here is that a terror attack on grid infra knocks out so much of society. No electricity => so much trouble. My point is that with solar+storage you get a more resilient system that can continue to provide power even if central grid infra i knocked out. You can have wind instead of solar, but you need some way of generating. Storage alone gets you through a night, not more. What risk do you see with commercial battery storage? You do know there is gasoline in cars and many houses are heated using natural gas, right? Compare and evaluate risks between those please. You say that solar is ”particularly inefficient. I do not agree

dmurray 6y ago

> The average person isn’t going to know that about transformers. Which leads more credence to the fact it’s an inside job. The long replacement time for transformers would be known to anyone spending 15 minutes googling what parts of the electrical infrastructure are vulnerable to a sniper attack. It's been discussed on HN before [0] so you better believe it shows up on forums for linemen or preppers or wannabe terrorists. Maybe it diminishes the chance it was a random act of vandalism, but it doesn't speak in favour of the attack being an inside job. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18998596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18998596

CrazyStat 6y ago
Sure, six years after the Metcalf attack it was discussed on HN. Was it discussed on HN before the Metcalf attack?
digi59404 6y ago
If it's terrorism, they're going to want to have an effect that is large. That is the nature of terrorism. Small events that are insignificant are not the goal of terrorism. If a person wanted to cause harm and damage the electrical infrastructure. They would have spent time planning and figuring out how to cause the most damage, with the least detection, with having the most PR and effect. Shooting a bunch of neighborhood transformers isn't the way. In their research they would have found so many other high-reward low-risk targets.
- HenryBemis 6y ago
  OR this was a "vulnerability scanning", and not the actual attack. Perhaps they were a group of friends that wanted to shoot and see if sparks will fly (literally), like we see in the movies. OR assuming it is a group of sleepers/terrorists doing a pen-test (not the actual penetration/assault). They now (back then) answered the following critical questions: How long does it take to incapacitate such an installation? Will readily available guns do to work? How many people/guns/bullets do we need to pull this through? What monetary value damage can we do? Who/where is the back of this place? What do we need to shoot in there to make more damage (time, money, both)? So know "they" know that smaller boxes were replaced in a few minutes and larger boxes cost more and take 6 months (so large boxes it is!!!) Exactly like a vulnerability scanning/penetration test. "They" now so much more on the target, it's vulnerability, it's protection, how to disable. This said, they know that taking down one of these things is but a scratch. How about 3? 5? 10? Can a group of 50, broken down in teams.of 4, with 1 rifle and 20 bullets each, take down a station like that and be our of there in 5 minutes? These are questions that anyone with security, military, project background will be asking (and I am not CIA, KGB, etc)(so imagine how these 'departments'(?)) must have thought of it further... Unless.. this post was all about trying to identify criminal minds.. in which case.. guys.. I am in the good side on this!! The good hat!! (no more white-black hats)

repiret 6y ago

The average person might not know about transformers, but the set of people who know about transformers isn’t exactly small. It’s plenty large enough for there to be miscreants who know about transformers but aren’t power company insiders.

jojobas 6y ago

Isn't transmission lines and substation information public by necessity? My takeaway from this story is that a saboteur cell of as little as 10 people could take down multiple substations in sync, causing way more serious consequences. Attacking substations is a hard way too, one could just mix up some thermite and bring down some 500kW transmission towers.

digi59404 6y ago
Not all of it. Some designated as critical infrastructure is protected, private business can also be protected information. The trick here is, most of the grid can compensate for outages and entire sections being lost. It's build to handle that. You can't just run out and bring down substations and transmission lines and knock out a city. There's only some that are absolutely critical. Take Diablo Valley for example. Because they're nuclear and critical, they have an entire SWAT Team on hand and folks with .50 Cal Rifles on the roofs. I wont speak to the security of this facility. I'll just say this, If someone got within 10 feet of the facility. It would be immediately known and responded in kind. There is no way, even digging a tunnel, someone would not be noticed.
- Teever 6y ago
  I don't think that the grid is as robust as you think it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003
  - jojobas 6y ago
    Presumably everything is more robust now that lessons have been learned and single-point failures shouldn't have that sort of effect. Coordinated multiple failures most certainly will take down huge swaths.

JKCalhoun 6y ago

Since it is near a gun range, I had simply assumed it was some yahoos driving around with their AR's firing at it as though it were nothing more than another road sign on a remote rural stretch.

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
I can see (drunk and/or irresponsible) persons wanting to shoot at the insulators to make them spark and blow up - you get some pretty nice fireworks that way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCzdPFJ4tog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCzdPFJ4tog
Lammy 6y ago
What? The kind of people who go to ranges are not the kind of people who would fire randomly at infrastructure. What would be the point of going to the range if you’re fine shooting in the open? Please don’t defame responsible gun owners like this.

hkai 6y ago

Yeah it's pretty well known. For some larger transformers they used the world's largest plane, An 225, to transport them half way across the globe because otherwise it would be a months long delay.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sukilot 6y ago

You don't need specialist knowledge to figure out that the bigger stuff is harder to replace than the smaller stuff.