ระเบิดปิงปอง

[DavidHouston]

From Matichon Online today:

"เมื่อคืนที่ผ่านมาพบบุคคลต้องสงสัยพกระเบิดปิงปอง และพบบัตรสมาชิกนักการเมืองซึ่งเป็นนักการเมืองท้องถิ่น"

Last evening a suspicious individual was discovered carrying an ___________ ; he was also found to be carrying a card identifying him as a local politician."

Question: does the term "ระเบิดปิงปอง" mean a grenade designed to be launched from an M79 grenade launcher? It certainly has the shape, if not the size, of a ping pong ball.

Thanks.

[5tash]

I think the term "ระเบิดปิงปอง", refers to these improvised explosive devices that have been detonated around the capital recently. I think they have adopted this name because each side blames the other for the detonation. The blame bounces back and forth like a ping pong ball.

Edited November 30, 2008 by 5tash

[yoot]

ระเบิดปิงปอง is a kind of explosive which has similar shape as ping pong ball.

You can see the picture of this explosive from here and here

[5tash]

Wow!! I guess I was looking into that a little too deeply. Thanks for the clarification Khun Yoot.

[Groongthep]

ระเบิดปิงปอง is a kind of explosive which has similar shape as ping pong ball.

You can see the picture of this explosive from here and here

Khun Yoot,

Is ปิงปอง used as an adjective fairly common in everyday colloquial Thai? The reason I ask is that I remember Thai friends of mine referring to the traffic cops as หัวปิงปอง or ping-pong heads because of their round white helmets. Not that it has much to do with the little bombs you referred to but it makes me wonder if there are other slang terms for round objects using the pattern XXXXปิงปอง.

Edited November 30, 2008 by Groongthep

[Jay_Jay]

Since the Oct 7 incident, everyone was given a lesson in Ping Pong explosives. If someone heard it before that, they might have well thought that it was the climax to a show in Pat Pong

[yoot]

ระเบิดปิงปอง is a kind of explosive which has similar shape as ping pong ball.

You can see the picture of this explosive from here and here

Khun Yoot,

Is ปิงปอง used as an adjective fairly common in everyday colloquial Thai? The reason I ask is that I remember Thai friends of mine referring to the traffic cops as หัวปิงปอง or ping-pong heads because of their round white helmets. Not that it has much to do with the little bombs you referred to but it makes me wonder if there are other slang terms for round objects using the pattern XXXXปิงปอง.

หัวปิงปอง is used to refer to the traffic cops because of their round white helmets which has nothing to do with ping pong ball.

But ระเบิดปิงปอง is actually made by ping pong ball if you do it yourself, that's why it's called ระเบิดปิงปอง.

I never heard it's used as an adjective in other words.

[DavidHouston]

Since the Oct 7 incident, everyone was given a lesson in Ping Pong explosives. If someone heard it before that, they might have well thought that it was the climax to a show in Pat Pong

Jay-Jay,

Help enlighten the rest of us. Are these home-made blasters or are they military ordinance? Some on other sites are referring to the 40mm grenades launched by the M-79 grenade launcher but have not referred to the ping-pong balls. This is not a military geek question but rather an issue of how dangerous these are and how much damage they do to life and limb. We see lots of reports in the English language press regarding "bombs" being thrown and exploding.

Thanks for your input.

[Jay_Jay]

Since the Oct 7 incident, everyone was given a lesson in Ping Pong explosives. If someone heard it before that, they might have well thought that it was the climax to a show in Pat Pong

Jay-Jay,

Help enlighten the rest of us. Are these home-made blasters or are they military ordinance? Some on other sites are referring to the 40mm grenades launched by the M-79 grenade launcher but have not referred to the ping-pong balls. This is not a military geek question but rather an issue of how dangerous these are and how much damage they do to life and limb. We see lots of reports in the English language press regarding "bombs" being thrown and exploding.

Thanks for your input.

There were a slew of posts just after the October 7th incident that were trying to analyse what might have caused so much carnage. Here is one of those pages.

This link shows a stash found.

At first they saw the 'ping pong' looking device in the policeman's hands and thought it was a traditional ping pong bomb - normally explosives stuffed into a ping pong ball with some kind of fuse, then often bound.

From the posts that I read, it was concluded that it was actually type of tear gas delivery device made in China.

Edited November 30, 2008 by Jay_Jay

[Luukhin]

ระเบิดปิงปอง is a home-made explosive. It is easy to make, but I will not tell you how. If you would like to know the effects of the Ping Pong explosive, you can follow this link http://www.dek-d.com/board/view.php?id=1167013

WARNING: That site contains some disturbing images.

[DavidHouston]

Thanks, Jay-Jay; that was very helpful and confirmed what Khun Yoot told us. We should all understand that amid chaos, accuracy and specificity regarding ordinance and explosives from victims and by-standers cannot be expected. In the face of an explosive, I would not peer too closely at the technique of manufacture either.

Here is a sentence from today's posting on Matichon online:

ลูกระเบิดตกลงในกลุ่มผู้ชุมนุมห่างจากเวทีประมาณ 20 เมตร โดยมีผู้เห็นเหตุการณ์ระบุว่า เห็นลำแสงยิงมาจากทางด้านชุมขน [stet] ใกล้วัดเบญจมบพิตร

"The bombs fell into a group of people standing about 20 meters from the stage; persons who witnessed the incident stated that they saw muzzle flashes from the area close to Wat Benjamaphopit."

I am interpreting "ลำแสงยิง" as "muzzle flashes" with the specific usage of "ลำ" as the classifier for long things. Please correct my translation if this is incorrect.

My point is that if the source of the explosives was "muzzle flashes", then these are likely not lobbed ping-pong bombs. Alternatively, what the witnesses saw was lighted fuses from the ping-pong and similar explosives of the type shown in your pictures. I thought, rather, that the word for fuses would be "ชนวน".

Thanks again for the discussion and information.

[Luukhin]

ระเบิดปิงปอง is made of a Ping Pong ball and something else. If there is a fuse, it is not a Ping Pong explosive. If you happen to play table tennis and the ball is heavy, throw it away from you. If you don't look at it closely, you can't tell the difference. It is like a normal Ping Pong ball. The orange balls that you see in the link from Khun Yoot are Ping Pong explosives.

[meadish_sweetball]

Instead of ping pong diplomacy we now have ping pong bombs?