Lumpy wrote:Unlike in movies, where explosions instantly turn whatever exploded into a harmless cloud of dust and smoke.
I was a Combat Engineer. I've spent a lot of time on demo ranges.
I remember one time we were playing with cratering charges. We'd use a shaped charge to blow a hole in the ground, drop a 40-pound cratering charge in the hole, bury it, and set it off. It'd throw dirt hundreds of feet in the air, leaving a huge crater.
Another time we were doing steel cutting. We taped less than a pound of C4 along the web of an I-beam, stood back a couple of hundred yards, and set it off. Much smaller boom, but there was a whistling scream as a piece of shrapnel passed over our heads into the woods behind us.
The ammonium nitrate in cratering charges is a low velocity explosive, providing a strong slow push. C4 is a high velocity explosive, providing a sharp cut.
But the big difference is the steel. Even a low velocity explosive can cut or break steel, and if it does the inherent spring in steel can send shards off at high velocity in unpredictable directions.