A man’s home may well be his castle, but just as the walls of Jericho came tumbling down, so too will the stoutest of strongholds crumble before a well-equipped and properly trained breacher. Every tactical team has at least a rudimentary capability to enter a locked or barricaded structure, but for a student of the art of breaking things, breaching is a study unto itself.
Door breaching is a process used by military, law enforcement, or emergency services to force open closed and/or locked doors. A wide range of methods are available, one or more of which may be used in any given situation. Regarding the use of specified tools for forcible entry, there are several other methods of door breaching. These methods may be divided up into mechanical breaching, ballistic breaching, hydraulic breaching, explosive breaching, and thermal breaching.
Common Methods
Where no tools are available, it is usually possible to force open most inward-opening doors with a strong kick that breaks through the door frame. This can be a common method of entry for many trained law enforcement officers who are conducting searches, most interior doors can be forced by kicking. Converse to most movies, the safest method to kick a door is cow kicking, with your back to the door. This method reduces the chance of injury to the breacher. Kicking in a locked door is also sometimes attempted or performed by neighbors and ordinary passers-by who witness an emergency situation such as a house that is on fire (though the first step should always be to call emergency services) in order to ensure that everyone is out of the house or to notify/assist anyone who is not. Kicking in doors is less commonly used in burglary attempts since the process requires a great deal of energy and makes a lot of noise.
Mechanical
Mechanical breaching can be minimally destructive, through the use of lock picks. This method is relatively slow and requires a trained operator, but does not damage the lock or door. Using specialized tools (i.e.: A-tool, K-tool), a lock cylinder can also be quickly dismantled and unlocked without removing it from the door; this method also allows the door to be closed and re-locked. Mechanical breaching also includes hydraulic breaching, which uses a special hydraulic ram to overcome the lock. The hydraulic ram may be powered manually, pneumatically, or electrically. More dynamic methods (kinetic breaching) use force to break the lock or door. The common methods are to use a lever, such as a Halligan bar or crowbar, or to use a tool to concentrate a large amount of force on the door, such as a sledgehammer, hydraulic jack, or battering ram.
Ballistic
Ballistic breaching uses a projectile weapon to breach an opening. Weapons used can range from small arms to the 120 mm cannon of a main battle tank with a HEAT round, which will breach most obstacles easily, though the force involved may violate the rules of engagement. A less damaging ballistic breach needs to destroy either the latch and lock, or the hinges of the door, and the ideal choice for this is the shotgun. While in theory other firearms can be used, handguns are usually underpowered and rifles are less effective than the shotgun and pose a far higher risk of ricochet and collateral injury. Most shotgun ammunition can be used for breaching, though the risk of injury varies with type. Of the available shotgun ammunition, shotgun slugs pose the highest risk, as they will retain significant energy to cause lethal wounds well after they have penetrated the door. Buckshot is far safer and birdshot even more so, as the multiple small projectiles disperse quickly after penetration, reducing the chances of causing a lethal wound. The safest option is a frangible round such as the TESAR or Hatton round, which turns to dust upon penetrating the door, and disperses completely upon exit.
Suggested target locations for breaching a door at the latch (left) and the hinges (right)
Breaching a door with the fewest shots possible both is faster and reduces the chance of collateral damage. Attacking the latch and lock is easiest, as it requires fewer shots and is easiest to target, whereas attacking the hinges requires more shots, and the hinges may be hidden from the outside. Careful aim is required; shots to the lock side are fired at a point halfway between the lock or handle and the door frame in order to hit the bolt holding the door shut. According to U.S. urban warfare doctrine, the breaching operation is performed with the muzzle in contact with the door, or as close as possible, and angled downwards at a 45 degree angle. This process provides the best chance of hitting the desired point, while minimizing risk to occupants of the room being breached. Muzzle attachments are available on some specialized breaching shotguns to facilitate this operation, by holding the barrel securely in place while providing a slight standoff to allow powder gases to escape.
Magazine capacity and operating mechanism are also important considerations in a breaching shotgun, because to quickly breach a door requires the ability to quickly fire multiple shots. For a breach on the latch side, U.S. doctrine calls for two shots to be fired, and then an attempt made to open the door. If the door cannot be opened, the process would need to be quickly repeated. If the hinges must be breached, then doctrine calls for a total of three shots, one per hinge followed by an attempt to open the door.
Hydraulic
Hydraulic breaching has many added values comparing to the other methods of breaching, Hydraulic tools enable a use of large force with a high work rate, relatively high level of controlling the breaching results. However, the hydraulic tools today are very big in size and weight, with limited maneuvering capabilities and are normally used by fire fighters and rescue teams. Military and law enforcement special operations forces in dense areas will normally use tactical breaching systems which are electro-hydraulic gear as SAN Ltd, this solution enables the operator to have a low footprint system in weight and design which keeps the end user fatigue while the breaching operation is conducted by one operator behind a secured location, it will also allowing to obtain powerful set of tools that can break into any structure in top speed while utilizing the "surprise element".
Explosive
Explosive breaching ratchets up the stakes considerably. Not only does this method require a tremendous amount of training, but assumes greatly increased liability. The explosive breacher must know how much is just enough: Too little doesn’t solve the problem and too much may remove the problem entirely, trading it for new problems of a different nature. Explosive breaching can be the fastest method, though it is also the most dangerous, to both the breachers and the room occupants. Depending on the situation, explosive breaching is potentially slower than a ballistic breach due to the large standoff required when using explosives, if there is no cover available. Breaching can be performed with a specially formed breaching charge placed in contact with the door, or with various standoff breaching devices, such as specialized rifle grenades like the SIMON breach grenade.
Breaching using explosives is primarily an operation performed by highly trained explosives experts. Explosive breaching charges can range from highly focused methods, such as detcord, plastic explosives, or strip shaped charges that explosively cut through doors or latches, to large satchel charges, containing 20 pounds (9 kg) of C-4, that can breach even reinforced concrete bunkers.
Most explosive breachers use det cord, set off with a blasting cap or triggered by a nonel (non-electric) fuse ignited by a device firing a shotgun primer. Soft, malleable explosive compounds like C4—literally, Compound Four—are used less frequently, and almost exclusively by military entry teams. I don’t know of a single LE agency that uses C4, although some of the three-letter agencies no doubt have the capability at their disposal. Explosive breaches are usually set up away from the target site. Det cord is taped to a piece of wooden lath using strips of 100 mph tape, with more strips of tape ready to stick the lath to the entry point, usually a door. When the breacher is called up, he tapes the lath to the door. Explosive breachers can cut a door in half or create a specifically sized entry hole. They can be true artists with TNT.
While an explosive breach is fast when it happens, the set-up time can be lengthy. Two parallel breaches have to be rigged—Murphy knows det cord—and for safety reasons, this has to be done in close proximity to the breach point, right before the green light. No trained operator is going to walk around with “hot” det cord set with a blasting cap for any length of time: In a tragic incident in Iraq, a young Marine was poised at the breach point with a roll of primed det cord under his arm when it suddenly went off. His injury was horrific. This stuff is extremely dangerous, even in experienced hands.
Any breacher worth his salt treats his tools with extreme respect and while the young Marine no doubt followed all the rules, shit happens. When it happens with explosives, the results are usually catastrophic.
Thermal
The fifth and final method, thermal breaching, involves the use of a torch to produce extremely high heat to melt, burn or vaporize a barrier made of steel or other metal. Thermal breaching is one of the least common techniques and also one of the slowest. It involves the use of a cutting torch to cut through metal doors. Thermal breaching is agonizingly slow, making it potentially the most dangerous method for an entry team, as their time on target will be measured in minutes, not seconds. For instance, it can take five, six, even 10 minutes or longer to cut through a ship’s hatch.
Exothermic torches have largely replaced oxy-acetylene torches for breaching purposes. An exothermic torch is fast to get into action and does not emit a secondary gas, like acetylene, that can be dangerous to teammates. Thick steel structures, like I-beams, can be cut in about a minute with an exothermic torch. There is always a danger of fire with a thermal breach. Training is an obvious issue—steel doors to practice on aren’t cheap—but if someone wants to get inside a steel structure, thermal is the best way to go.
Tactical Considerations
Breaching is a tactic as old as the Bible, continuing through medieval times, right up to Hitler’s “Fortress Europe.” There is certainly a lot of breaching going on in many places around the world— remember the “bunker buster” bombs that were dropped? Granted, a 500-pound bomb is none too subtle, but it’s a form of breaching nonetheless.
The whole idea of building a bigger barrier to keep unwanted invaders at bay is as inherent to the art of warfare as the siege engine is for defeating it. In today’s urban applications for law enforcement, breaching should be considered a drastic option to be utilized only when negotiation or other means of affecting an arrest are not feasible.
In perhaps the most infamous case of an inappropriate use of breaching, the Branch Davidian compound was stormed by dozens of BATF agents using various breaching tools.
Deception and subterfuge are often preferable to storming through a door. If you want to go inside, try a ruse to get the occupant to open the door. In a recent entry in New York City, a kindly grandmother’s apartment was breached, a flash bang was thrown and the little old lady died of a heart attack, literally. Tragically, it was the wrong apartment.
This is not to suggest that breaching isn’t a vital tactical tool, but only to note that once a breach goes down, events unfold quickly and unpredictably, even with the most carefully planned and professionally executed entries. Certainly, some circumstances are time-critical, requiring a fast, violent entry to save an innocent party’s life or to prevent further unspeakable horror to victims inside, or preserve known evidence. On the other hand, some situations are better waited out. When a breach is made, the entry team must flow into the structure with better timing, precision and movement than the most elaborately choreographed marching band. But those sorts of building-clearing tactics are, however, an entirely different subject.