Sunday, February 13, 2005
Things that go boom
Engineering may be the coolest job in the Corps that doesn't involve flying. It's perfectly suited for the kid who never grew up. You build things and then blow them up, what could be better than that?
Instead of our normal boring classes, we went out to Murphy Demo(litions) range and watched the engineers blow some stuff up. "This is C4...... BOOM!. This is military dynamite...... BOOM!, this is Det Cord...... BOOM!" One of the demonstrations was the fact that C4 will detonate even under water. I'm not sure how much C4 was in that charge, but it blew water and chunks of ice 100 feet into the air. We could still hear stuff falling fifteen seconds after the blast.
After this, we had a chance to play. We each got our own block of C4, two 1/4lb sticks of TNT, and a bunch of Det cord (explosive in a 1/4" rope form; devastating stuff). Broken up into groups of 20, we tied them into rings of det cord about 12' in diameter. One ring of C4, totaling 10lbs of C4, one ring of TNT, totaling 5lbs of TNT, and one pile of TNT also totaling 5lbs which we set off ourselves via fuse detonaors. Remove the saftey, push in, rotate 1/4 turn right, pull out, look for smoke, and run. We had over seven minutes of fuse, but some of the lieutenants were in no mood to stick around. "Can we start walking now?" was asked no more than five seconds after we pulled the detonators. Jeez, relax man, this stuff was made by the lowest bidder, have you no faith?
We walked back about 200 yards from our C4 rings and 100 yards from our TNT piles and watched them all blow up. I don't think I can put into words how impressive these explosions were. Any explosion which moves clothing at 200 yards is impressive. These are explosions which you feel more than hear. Eighteen times (six groups, three set-ups) we watched dirt fly and smoke rise. Good shit.
Then we set up six claymore mines. Nasty, nasty little thing. Seven hundred steel balls a little bigger than a BB backed by 1.5 lbs of C4 explosive. Due to the massive number of people maimed by discarded mines from past wars, this is the only mine we use anymore because it is command detonated, meaning nobody leaves it behind for some innocent to hit. Everyone who's watched a Vietnam movie has seen this thing. It is directional, so you stand it up facing the bad guys, push the button on your remote (up to 33 meters away) and hasta lasagna, don't get any on ya. I really didn't think they were as nasty as they are. It's only a pound and a half of C4, but the explosion from that thing will rock your world, even behind it.
In the next two weeks we get to see close air support and live artillery. A 155mm howitzer shell contains about 25lbs of explosive in a 75lb steel case. For the close air support demonstration, apparently a jet is going to drop a 500 pound bomb for us out in one of the impact areas. This means about 200 pounds of C4. Now that should be one hell of an explosion.
Instead of our normal boring classes, we went out to Murphy Demo(litions) range and watched the engineers blow some stuff up. "This is C4...... BOOM!. This is military dynamite...... BOOM!, this is Det Cord...... BOOM!" One of the demonstrations was the fact that C4 will detonate even under water. I'm not sure how much C4 was in that charge, but it blew water and chunks of ice 100 feet into the air. We could still hear stuff falling fifteen seconds after the blast.
After this, we had a chance to play. We each got our own block of C4, two 1/4lb sticks of TNT, and a bunch of Det cord (explosive in a 1/4" rope form; devastating stuff). Broken up into groups of 20, we tied them into rings of det cord about 12' in diameter. One ring of C4, totaling 10lbs of C4, one ring of TNT, totaling 5lbs of TNT, and one pile of TNT also totaling 5lbs which we set off ourselves via fuse detonaors. Remove the saftey, push in, rotate 1/4 turn right, pull out, look for smoke, and run. We had over seven minutes of fuse, but some of the lieutenants were in no mood to stick around. "Can we start walking now?" was asked no more than five seconds after we pulled the detonators. Jeez, relax man, this stuff was made by the lowest bidder, have you no faith?
We walked back about 200 yards from our C4 rings and 100 yards from our TNT piles and watched them all blow up. I don't think I can put into words how impressive these explosions were. Any explosion which moves clothing at 200 yards is impressive. These are explosions which you feel more than hear. Eighteen times (six groups, three set-ups) we watched dirt fly and smoke rise. Good shit.
Then we set up six claymore mines. Nasty, nasty little thing. Seven hundred steel balls a little bigger than a BB backed by 1.5 lbs of C4 explosive. Due to the massive number of people maimed by discarded mines from past wars, this is the only mine we use anymore because it is command detonated, meaning nobody leaves it behind for some innocent to hit. Everyone who's watched a Vietnam movie has seen this thing. It is directional, so you stand it up facing the bad guys, push the button on your remote (up to 33 meters away) and hasta lasagna, don't get any on ya. I really didn't think they were as nasty as they are. It's only a pound and a half of C4, but the explosion from that thing will rock your world, even behind it.
In the next two weeks we get to see close air support and live artillery. A 155mm howitzer shell contains about 25lbs of explosive in a 75lb steel case. For the close air support demonstration, apparently a jet is going to drop a 500 pound bomb for us out in one of the impact areas. This means about 200 pounds of C4. Now that should be one hell of an explosion.
// posted by Josh @ 2/13/2005 09:56:00 PM 
