Israel carried out its operation against Hezbollah on Tuesday by hiding explosive material within a new batch of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon, according to American and other officials briefed on the operation.
The pagers, which Hezbollah had ordered from Gold Apollo in Taiwan, had been tampered with before they reached Lebanon, according to some of the officials. Most were the company’s AP924 model, though three other Gold Apollo models were also included in the shipment.
The explosive material, as little as one to two ounces, was implanted next to the battery in each pager, two of the officials said. A switch was also embedded that could be triggered remotely to detonate the explosives.
This makes more sense than them being able to remotely overload a battery to make it explode.
Overloaded Li-Ion batteries don’t reliably explode. I would have expected them to place the explosive inside an oversized battery pouch along with a heating element in series with the battery. A microcontroller on the board could go short-circuit upon receiving a certain message, making a large current flow through the heating element and triggering the explosive.
Yup, catch fire, definitely. But one exothermic reaction is not like another. :)
https://www.kgw.com/article/life/lithium-ion-batteries-spark-two-separate-fires-portland/283-dd7e2ee3-9e04-4587-9cbd-6afc7c32a378
The violence of a Li-ion explosion is loosely correlated to the battery’s state of charge, so near flat batteries would just pop and fizzle. That would be a very unpredictable and inefficient strategy.
Yeah, that part really confused me, especially since I found it hard to believe that a battery that small could do any real damage. Maybe blow a hole in the guy’s leg, but that wouldn’t be enough to take out the guy.
Testicles are an impactful target.
Good point, but I would still think you would want to be more sure of killing the target.