Exactly how much destruction they would have wrought in the heart of London has been and remains today a topic of heated scholarly debate.
Researchers at the University of Wales reckoned two years ago that the blast would have devastated a 490m radius -- an area that would include today's Downing Street, Foreign Office and Ministry of Defense.
But an ambitious re-creation of the blast by ITV television, using sensors and crash-test dummies, suggested that the impact would have been relatively contained, though with debris raining over 200m.
"We concluded that he [Fawkes] could have killed everyone present with half the amount of explosive," added David Hadden, a blast consultant on The Gunpowder Plot: Exploding the Legend.
Historian Justin Pollard told the program: "The whole plot was massively ill-conceived."
"They seemed to think they could change the politics of the whole country by blowing up a few hundred people."
"In reality, the blast would have sent shockwaves through the Protestant community, bolstering their resolve against the hugely outnumbered Catholics and sparking ruthless revenge."
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