Well, let's take a very rough estimate that you need an impact speed of one mile per second to trigger detonation. (This is probably an underestimate, since a bullet won't do the job.) And say a marine humps about three inches back and forth. That's about 21120 thrusts per mile, so as a lower bound, your marine would need to clap cheeks with his block of C4 at at least 20,000 Hz.
I have an old Vietnam book somewhere that has a story about American soldiers jumping out of trees landing on it to see if it would go off. I remember thinking "that doesn't sound like they want to be there."
6 to 7 kilometers per second. The detonation of a length of detcord that runs all the way over the horizon at sea level takes less than a second to go from visible on the horizon to at your feet. Which is why a detcord spiral detonates more or less simultaneously.
They did! C4 represents an advancement in the tech though, as it is a lot more resistant to temperature-related issues and is less toxic to handle than V3
Basically you need the energy, per molecule, sufficient to break the molecule itself to set it off. In terms of kinetic energy, that's more than any atom or molecule of a bullet has. Only another high explosive, with a velocity of detonation many times faster than the speed of sound, can send molecules at the C4's molecules fast enough to fracture them into gasseous products with less chemical energy than the original, releasing it as heat and ultra-fast-moving gas molecules.
From what i understand, that book is a good way to lose your fingers. I don’t know if there’s an updated version with more reliable methods to make the aforementioned materials, but if someone wanted to post it, I wouldn’t be upset.
Yea, it's quite dated, many of the recipes were from rumors and urban legends as well. Things like drugs from Banana peels for example. There's also an impact explosive from household cleaners that would likely just gas you instead today. But if you know some chemistry you could reverse engineer some things, and the RDX leeching method is likely still viable. The concentration camps are already being built though, those who will resist need to be cautious, not picky.
Not really. You don't want to fuck with this stuff if you don't know what you're doing. Stick with napalm and thermite. Otherwise pick up a chemistry book and read about nitrogen/fertilizer production as those are both more abundant and benign enough to weasel your way out of having small to moderate amounts of. From there learn about the principles of shaped charges, demolitions, and breaching. Also asymmetric warfare and vietcong tactics/traps, and how to operate in "cells".
Supposedly the CIA developed explosives that were so safe you could bake into a loaf of bread and eat, not sure how good for you it would be or what it would taste like though.
But to answer your question more seriously, no, you can't. Doing so leads to a bunch of central nervous system issues, with seizures and problems breathing. The RDX gets absorbed into the brain, which as you can guess is really Not Good™. Not quite outright 100% lethal in all cases, but still not something that you'd want to do.
i 100% believe you but i also want to know how we found this out, like poor jimmy the intern had to taste test this month's flavor of plastic explosive
Something like tannerite is what's known as a binary explosive though. It consists of two components that have to be combined in order to make it that sensitive, unlike RDX which is a single chemical compound. There are probably sensitizers that can be added to RDX to make it similarly shock sensitive, but it's much safer to use it in its unsensitized form and rely on a blasting cap for most applications.
So, would that be something along the lines of the explosives in Die Hard: With a Vengeance? Yes, I know it's a movie and movies make things up, but occasionally they do actually come close to real things. If you haven't seen it, they have what I think they call a binary liquid explosive. They say (and demo) that each compound isn't explosive by itself, but mixed it becomes a sensitive explosive.
I believe TNT can be triggered by gunshots though, and that is a single molecule. There are probably others. The point though is that the molecular energy needs to be high enough, and bullet impacts aren't actually all that high, and in the case of C4 and others, not high enough.
A true explosive detonation occurs when the reaction propagates faster than the speed of sound in the material. As more energy is released, it all kind of bunches up in the shock front, creating an expanding region of intense heat and pressure that's far beyond what a hammer or even a bullet could produce. Blasting caps have a sensitive, high velocity explosive inside that generates the initial shock front which is energetic enough to set off the bulk explosive.
Depending on the explosive, sure! You'd have to be very precise and also very lucky to hit it in juuuust the right way. There may be certain explosives that need a bit more "oomph" to get going, and the relatively small shockwave from the whip could be too short-lived to do the job, but there are absolutely some explosives that could be set off with a whip crack! Not sure if RDX/C4 is among them, though, and testing it seems... fraught, to say the least...
My dad was a combat engineer in the marines and trained newbs on basic explosives and the like for a short bit. One time he was instructing them on blasting caps and immediately after telling them how fragile the caps were and to not hit them on anything a guy went "oh, like this?" and rapped it on his helmet, blowing his hand apart. Fucking idiots are everywhere.
I remember finding an article in a medical journal about a marine at a party who stole a blasting cap and showed it off at the party and doing stupid shit with it. Someone got him to bite down on it and unsurprisingly it blew his mouth up. They had aftermath pictures and the guy looked like the predator. Somehow he survived and with enough plastic surgery he looked mostly normal.
Actually I found the article again and I got some stuff mixed up. Some other guys were trying to blow up an aquarium with the blasting cap and some other guy decided to be cool and pop it in his mouth. The article didn't really give a follow up besides saying he survived.
Along a similar line, I watched an instructor giving a demonstration on hand launched flares. He was explaining not to put the cap on the back during training because the slightest tough will fire it.
He proceeded to PUT THE CAP ON THE BACK to show what not to do. Immediately taps it, launching the flare directly at the students, 2 got 3rd degree burns on their hands when it hit the ground, bounced, and instantly burned them.
You attach the cap to the back and slap the back of the flare with your hand (or vice versa), the cap itself protects your hand from the initial flame from the flare launching. Fire resistant gloves are usually recommended, but not technically necessary. And of course, these are emergency flares, so a certain degree of risk in return for a small self-contained unit is considered acceptable.
The propellant (probably) isn't what caused the burns, but the fuel for the actual flare lights. It's usually a mix of chemicals designed for brightness
Love Stargate. It's been a minute since my last rewatch, but if I'm remembering correctly, this was the note sent back in time to try and stop them from meeting the Ashen. Correct?
I think thats the right name but forget. But yes there was a good episode of them finding out how bad their new, advanced, friends were and they sent a note back in time to stop it, which has some of their blood on it by the time it got thru making it quite believable. Another episode later built upon this when them finding those people and something about distance made it such that the blacklisted planet was like 1 of 4 possible planets these people came from so they did some digging.
The most obvious would be the Universe Gates. I've done a few Q&A's about it, googling my username will lead you to them easily enough. ...one day I'll have some spare time to make some posts on here to tell some of the fun stories.
They did that well, it's a great option for a gun when you don't want to be carrying much, but when they were expecting a fight they tended to take m4-based carbine rifles of some kind (except Teal'c, who'd use something alien, a machine gun or dual wield p90s, that guy never stooped to an intermediate calibre!)
RARusk
C4? Hmmm......I think you just sank my battleship.
bmg50barrett
C4 looks delicious
memebearer2
Forbidden Schinken
OnlyByMoonlight
Serious putty
LegosBearsAndSex
Adult putty. After 8 putty. Make you shit your pants putty.
Neiot
OnePostCloserToAHappierLIfe
Super Sirus.
CorporalFuckhead
Ain't-playing-dough
Ree81
Play-DON'T
cytherians
Poppin' Putty
okyouwin
Silly-less putty.
zqwzzle
MatrimBloodyCauthon
Clapclapclapclapclap.
HawkmanXLII
I wonder if you can use it to make an imprint of something from the funny pages and stretch it out so it looks weird.
Teaelf
You can stretch things out SO FAR. Blow 'em right up.
reverendbonobo
I hope so. I want to demolish a building with Marmaduke.
NightOwlRally
"I will not be responsible for bills incurred by my dog." :)
Arcanum3000
I have a vague recollection that you can, but I don't know where it's from, so it's very possible I'm wrong.
zaqx
Vietnam?
SomeUser2
It definitely can imprint something when you are close and goes serious mode.
Rayplays
GreaseMonkeyOfLove
He was shooting at a car with a trunk full of C4….that car should not have exploded
sehven
maybe there were blasting caps in the trunk too?
pdonettes
Don't touch it with bare hands. You get a hell of a headache.
Boatsntoes
My friends dad used it to cook in Vietnam.
PostalHeathen
You can burn C4 without setting it off. You have to make a real effort to make it go boom.
lightfoot2
So fucking it will not set it off?
PostalHeathen
It will not. Have fun, marine!
QuitLookinAtMineAim
Ok, so, follow up to the slapping the chicken to cook it...
How hard do you have to hump C4 to set it off?
TheDildoOfConsequences
Well, let's take a very rough estimate that you need an impact speed of one mile per second to trigger detonation. (This is probably an underestimate, since a bullet won't do the job.) And say a marine humps about three inches back and forth. That's about 21120 thrusts per mile, so as a lower bound, your marine would need to clap cheeks with his block of C4 at at least 20,000 Hz.
DeakVanNyke
Angry chewing gum.
FellaWithUmbrella
okyouwin
You know, I just realized, Jamie is the personification of a character straight out of a post apocalyptic wasteland.
Kitsunekain
Oh Mythbusters. You were gone too soon and yet, I'm glad they got out when they did.
Groovechild
Spicy nougat.
wetsquirrel
Forbidden Play-Doh.
itsokimaussie
Spicey Play-DoH.
reightb
Play don't
Ambipolar
Yea, the opposite of silly putty.. serious putty.
wetsquirrel
Polymathena
Play D'oh!
leshawk
Work-Doh
GreyKnightTemplar666
Forbidden Fondant
srsfaceI8C
Forbidden taffy
Grimmrog
*it's all cake meme here*
LordHosk
You may hear "You can even cook with C4 by burning it"
Yes, you CAN... but you SHOULDN'T... it puts out a ton of toxic chemicals when it burns. It wont explode, but it will kill you.
duktayp
So, you should be suspicious if your sex doll has wires coming out of it
Biolog4Viking
CrabbyBlueberry
Why did the neck bone explode? It was C4.
MusicPenguin
A small subsection of a tiny cohort of a little subset of the population would consider this to be a joke. I like it!
sehven
That took me a second. As a side note, it annoys me that cervical vertebrae are in your neck but cervical cancer is in your hooha
Knifesmith
When your dad is a neurologist...
oldpotatoes
Nah dude, that first stuff? That pink stuff? I'm taking a big ol' bite outta that, and you can't stop me.
AllMaktAtTengilVarBefriare
Same. Always wondered how soldiers figured out you could get high from eating C4, now it's obvious.
oldpotatoes
Eat the c4, hit the sea floor
Sypurist
Acc87
Sypurist
Beefkins
I have an old Vietnam book somewhere that has a story about American soldiers jumping out of trees landing on it to see if it would go off. I remember thinking "that doesn't sound like they want to be there."
pullingsixty
Det cord was the thing that made me sit up at attention. The speed is mind blowing.
godofhorizons
Your mind is not the only thing it’s blowing
Junkman9096
Isn't it something like 17k feet per second?
Remmon1
6 to 7 kilometers per second. The detonation of a length of detcord that runs all the way over the horizon at sea level takes less than a second to go from visible on the horizon to at your feet. Which is why a detcord spiral detonates more or less simultaneously.
duktayp
They used Plastic Explosive in "Bridge on the River Kwai" ... Did they have PE in WW2?
TheOnlyPtylerdactyl
They did! C4 represents an advancement in the tech though, as it is a lot more resistant to temperature-related issues and is less toxic to handle than V3
WhiskyBravo
was probably compound B back in those days
TheOnlyPtylerdactyl
*C3, excuse my phone keyboard
OliverOtter
Basically you need the energy, per molecule, sufficient to break the molecule itself to set it off. In terms of kinetic energy, that's more than any atom or molecule of a bullet has. Only another high explosive, with a velocity of detonation many times faster than the speed of sound, can send molecules at the C4's molecules fast enough to fracture them into gasseous products with less chemical energy than the original, releasing it as heat and ultra-fast-moving gas molecules.
RARusk
In summary: BOOM!
sundaymondayhippyday
I think the summary made me feel smarter then the explanation
JSinNOLA
Very good explanation!
FireBirdHawk
Exactly the question I hadn't yet asked. Thank you
minipancho94
Considering current affairs, an old "cookbook" has methods on salvaging and maybe even making RDX for the home cook....
godofhorizons
From what i understand, that book is a good way to lose your fingers. I don’t know if there’s an updated version with more reliable methods to make the aforementioned materials, but if someone wanted to post it, I wouldn’t be upset.
minipancho94
Yea, it's quite dated, many of the recipes were from rumors and urban legends as well. Things like drugs from Banana peels for example. There's also an impact explosive from household cleaners that would likely just gas you instead today. But if you know some chemistry you could reverse engineer some things, and the RDX leeching method is likely still viable. The concentration camps are already being built though, those who will resist need to be cautious, not picky.
[deleted]
[deleted]
minipancho94
Not really. You don't want to fuck with this stuff if you don't know what you're doing. Stick with napalm and thermite. Otherwise pick up a chemistry book and read about nitrogen/fertilizer production as those are both more abundant and benign enough to weasel your way out of having small to moderate amounts of. From there learn about the principles of shaped charges, demolitions, and breaching. Also asymmetric warfare and vietcong tactics/traps, and how to operate in "cells".
CaldariBob
For a sec, I thought it was the pink goo that McDonalds uses for chicken nuggets.
ThatHurts
bitch, that's tubby custard.
OookOookOookMotherFudger
Probably about as healthy to eat.
b4n5r1j9
has anyone tried attaching a blasting cap to a McNugget?
duktayp
Pub trivia: what does the C stand for?
cignul9
Nothing. It’s just Composition C, 4th iteration.
Beelsebooob
So… it stands for composition then…
Tarmaccian
No, it's "composition C, number 4", which is different from "composition B" or "composition H, number 6".
C, B, and H (and others not mentioned here) are just series letters. They don't stand for any particular word.
LoquaciousDude
fuck AI "content"
DoctorDerk
Can you eat it?
Rkfinecake
Something, something, explosive diarrhea, etc.
DOcelot1
Bangers and mash
Thickinthewarm
That's quite punny. Well done.
Johnsky
Well, sure, but then how would you detonate it?
Sigge1981
Go to Taco Bell
yuugian
Once
yuugian
Mom will take it away before you can try a second time
dirtyFrenchman
Are you a Marine by any chance? Pretty sure you’re thinking of crayons.
johnxbear
And then lick a 9v battery
JohnWickdidnothingwrong
You can burn it in a fire and cook over it, is that close enough?
Thickinthewarm
You can eat anything. The question is can you survive eating it.
GramGram
My high ass thought I was looking at a loaf made out of Laffy Taffy and I was on fucking board.
jinbee
Supposedly the CIA developed explosives that were so safe you could bake into a loaf of bread and eat, not sure how good for you it would be or what it would taste like though.
Superchief86
Yes, but it'll give you explosive diarrhoea.
NightOwlRally
Underrated comment. +1 :D
MrFancyPanzer
Soldiers in Vietnam used to eat it to get sick leave. i have seen pictures of M18 claymore mines that say "Warning: do not eat"
smallteam
tommiCookieHero
They must've had a blast
straha242
Sipulikeitto
Easier to get sick by eating some tobacco.
DrankTooMuchMead
Why didn't they just say they had a stomach ache?
mrpink83
Can you fuck it?
newsguycraigevans
NightOwlRally
Zeus? That you? 👀
beemarr
You can eat anything at least once.
But to answer your question more seriously, no, you can't. Doing so leads to a bunch of central nervous system issues, with seizures and problems breathing. The RDX gets absorbed into the brain, which as you can guess is really Not Good™. Not quite outright 100% lethal in all cases, but still not something that you'd want to do.
MeeseOnABeam
i 100% believe you but i also want to know how we found this out, like poor jimmy the intern had to taste test this month's flavor of plastic explosive
CardeasIV
If you eat big amounts of RDX, and then have really hardcore sex to send shockwaves, do you explode?
beemarr
Definitely gives a new meaning to "banging".
monkeyfly
Well, yeah there's that but it also tastes awful.
vmos
just needs a touch of garlic
DreadPirateJaceMangrove
Is... people eating C4 an issue? Why do we have so much info on the effects of eating C4. Although, there's the whole thing with tide pods so....
TooDoggoneFunny
If the RDX gets absorbed into the brain, does that brain then become explosive?
MrFancyPanzer
RDX isnt even that sensitive, you need a blasting cap to set it off. Blasting caps are sensitive though so dont hit them with a hammer.
GreaseMonkeyOfLove
“Don’t touch them!” https://youtu.be/skfZQ9fRpf4?si=TR7puerSsfqMzjci
okyouwin
In that sense, I too am a blasting cap.
TacoPoweredHelicopter
Yes.... That's what the gif says. Thanks.
DanOrtega
Oh you mean like this? https://youtu.be/xw84b5rKYbQ
HaberdasherInGold
"Safest thing in the world. You could drop it, throw it, hit it with a hammer--" 💥💥💥
Kiotetravels
My grandpa blew his hand off with a blasting cap as a child. Left just enough of a nub that he could wedge a pick in there and play banjo.
AShartInTheWind
Fun tip: Never use your teeth to crimp a blasting cap onto det cord.
ChickenHeartSA
Especially when several firm strikes with a .50 cal cartridge will do the job just fine
TychoTheMad
I'm not falling for that trick again! I can't afford another Phineas Cage express lobotomy.
ChocolateCookieAndFudge
How come the bullet or the hammer doesn't create a shockwave? What's the difference with the detonator?
whatsisname
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detonation even the bullet doesn't have enough energy at the molecular level to trigger the decomposition, but the detonators do.
whatsisname
But it does depend on the explosive, stuff like tannerite is a true explosive, and that you can trigger by shooting it, and others too.
Drenathar
Something like tannerite is what's known as a binary explosive though. It consists of two components that have to be combined in order to make it that sensitive, unlike RDX which is a single chemical compound. There are probably sensitizers that can be added to RDX to make it similarly shock sensitive, but it's much safer to use it in its unsensitized form and rely on a blasting cap for most applications.
nalmeth
So, would that be something along the lines of the explosives in Die Hard: With a Vengeance?
Yes, I know it's a movie and movies make things up, but occasionally they do actually come close to real things.
If you haven't seen it, they have what I think they call a binary liquid explosive. They say (and demo) that each compound isn't explosive by itself, but mixed it becomes a sensitive explosive.
whatsisname
I believe TNT can be triggered by gunshots though, and that is a single molecule. There are probably others. The point though is that the molecular energy needs to be high enough, and bullet impacts aren't actually all that high, and in the case of C4 and others, not high enough.
Drenathar
A true explosive detonation occurs when the reaction propagates faster than the speed of sound in the material. As more energy is released, it all kind of bunches up in the shock front, creating an expanding region of intense heat and pressure that's far beyond what a hammer or even a bullet could produce. Blasting caps have a sensitive, high velocity explosive inside that generates the initial shock front which is energetic enough to set off the bulk explosive.
astrangehop
So in theory I could set one off with a whip?
Drenathar
Depending on the explosive, sure! You'd have to be very precise and also very lucky to hit it in juuuust the right way. There may be certain explosives that need a bit more "oomph" to get going, and the relatively small shockwave from the whip could be too short-lived to do the job, but there are absolutely some explosives that could be set off with a whip crack! Not sure if RDX/C4 is among them, though, and testing it seems... fraught, to say the least...
KingXizor
My dad was a combat engineer in the marines and trained newbs on basic explosives and the like for a short bit. One time he was instructing them on blasting caps and immediately after telling them how fragile the caps were and to not hit them on anything a guy went "oh, like this?" and rapped it on his helmet, blowing his hand apart. Fucking idiots are everywhere.
Goldensands
Hmm, hmm. Hmmmm. I'm trying to think of my best guess for your nationality. What could it be
BoomyGordo
Goldensands
MrFancyPanzer
Oof, the explosives in blasting caps are deliberately sensitive, static electricity can set them off.
BeaverOnFire
emu314159127001
Fortunately it was the Marines, and giving newbs live munitions is part of its unofficially official FAFO policy
emu314159127001
Covered by saying on the first day, Pay attention , assume everything we give you is live
RARusk
Even the crayons.
Gruesslibaer
"Yeah, like that."
Gayforbae
MEDIC!
Affablesea9917
I remember finding an article in a medical journal about a marine at a party who stole a blasting cap and showed it off at the party and doing stupid shit with it. Someone got him to bite down on it and unsurprisingly it blew his mouth up. They had aftermath pictures and the guy looked like the predator. Somehow he survived and with enough plastic surgery he looked mostly normal.
Affablesea9917
Actually I found the article again and I got some stuff mixed up. Some other guys were trying to blow up an aquarium with the blasting cap and some other guy decided to be cool and pop it in his mouth. The article didn't really give a follow up besides saying he survived.
aThingWithAKeyboard
Along a similar line, I watched an instructor giving a demonstration on hand launched flares. He was explaining not to put the cap on the back during training because the slightest tough will fire it.
He proceeded to PUT THE CAP ON THE BACK to show what not to do. Immediately taps it, launching the flare directly at the students, 2 got 3rd degree burns on their hands when it hit the ground, bounced, and instantly burned them.
iCommunicateInGifs
Areliae
In fairness, they aren't likely to forget the lesson.
aThingWithAKeyboard
This type of flare.
Thenewdef
Arrrrm, can you explain? That looks like he's launched it of his palm, which I'm guessing isn't right if they can give ya 3rd degree burns.
Remmon1
You attach the cap to the back and slap the back of the flare with your hand (or vice versa), the cap itself protects your hand from the initial flame from the flare launching.
Fire resistant gloves are usually recommended, but not technically necessary. And of course, these are emergency flares, so a certain degree of risk in return for a small self-contained unit is considered acceptable.
MrSnuffleupagus172
https://youtube.com/shorts/PJA5V4bgcXM?si=dvAucHsr5rWl9UK8
pyroshen
The propellant (probably) isn't what caused the burns, but the fuel for the actual flare lights. It's usually a mix of chemicals designed for brightness
ahorseelbowdeepinme
Stargate will always be synonymous with c4 in my mind
nalmeth
Love Stargate. It's been a minute since my last rewatch, but if I'm remembering correctly, this was the note sent back in time to try and stop them from meeting the Ashen. Correct?
crusadurus
I think thats the right name but forget. But yes there was a good episode of them finding out how bad their new, advanced, friends were and they sent a note back in time to stop it, which has some of their blood on it by the time it got thru making it quite believable. Another episode later built upon this when them finding those people and something about distance made it such that the blacklisted planet was like 1 of 4 possible planets these people came from so they did some digging.
Kleckerz
I’m disappointed I had to scroll this far for a Stargate post
stryhf
Weapon of choice.
Sypurist
CheeseborgarSoop
What does it have to do with Stargate?
Sypurist
ahorseelbowdeepinme
Have you watched the show in a more than passing manner?
confracto
There was a lot of C4 used on that show. I know this because I made some of it for the show (it was mostly 2x4's with the wax-paper wrap).
Dalarielus
That's pretty cool! Did you make anything else that we might have seen on the show?
confracto
The most obvious would be the Universe Gates. I've done a few Q&A's about it, googling my username will lead you to them easily enough. ...one day I'll have some spare time to make some posts on here to tell some of the fun stories.
Cilvaa
A "blast door" that flexes with a slight touch and is obviously made of wood
KoRplussomeletters
Also, visually impressive but wasteful and inefficient flames.
ahorseelbowdeepinme
As a vet, wouldn't surprise me
thatwoodguy
When I worked on this show, a lot of really impressive set pieces could just be moved around by one or two people. It was hilarious sometimes.
nalyon1153
This show is why I think tbe P-90 is the coolest gun lol
agonarch
They did that well, it's a great option for a gun when you don't want to be carrying much, but when they were expecting a fight they tended to take m4-based carbine rifles of some kind (except Teal'c, who'd use something alien, a machine gun or dual wield p90s, that guy never stooped to an intermediate calibre!)
Cilvaa
nalyon1153
Awesome scene
vmos
Well it has to be lightweight, otherwise you couldn't blast it. That's why it's called a blast door. Duh.
ahorseelbowdeepinme
sundaymondayhippyday
What’s this from?
ahorseelbowdeepinme
The Pentagon Wars. I think it's still on Max