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until the warpath: urban Jungle comes out:

US GIs use Silly String to detect tripwires, seriously.

Makes sense to me.

Silly String (aka Wacky String) is an aerosol-can of foam, that when released, jets out a colored sticky strand of foam-material, intended for amusement. Usually found in party-supply stores or connected to the toy "Spiderman Web-Shooters".
Can be flammable.

In this case, because the "string" is brightly coloured and light weight, it will drape across tripwires without trigggering them reveling their pressence.

darkmax wrote:but wouldn't it still trip the wire if too much lands on the wire?

yes, but the silly string is too light to make this happen easily. It would have to be done intentionally

bar1scorpio wrote:until the warpath: urban Jungle comes out:

US GIs use Silly String to detect tripwires, seriously.

Murphy's Law of Combat: If it's stupid and it works, it isn't stupid.


Next question: Why am I reviving an old post?

On no! Thread necromancy! Watch out Josh Hilden shoot for the head in cases like this! He is a dead eye!

Try taking a gander at the lists of most-often requested things from our troops overseas...some of them will surprise you...others will apall you(becuase of the bad quality of their military-issue equivalents)....Necessity being the mother of invention, people in tight situations get real innovative...

That's why martial arts that allow you to use just about ANYTHING as a weapon are real handy...

So... how's that work exactly?

Yeah, I get that you spray the silly string, and it lands on the tripwire...
But do you just spray the stuff everywhere you go, hoping that it points out tripwires?
Or do you wait until you see a suspicious area, then spray it?
Or do you wait until you find a tripwire, then spray it to mark it for the people behind you?
Or what?

I believe it was mostly used indoors, to check rooms. You wouldn't spray it walking down the road, but you would shoot a string across a suspicious room.

Interesting.