I have just got home from a 2 day (4 days including the traveling time) Ordnance, Munitions and Explosives (OME) (Awareness) course at the Defence Accademy at Cranfield University at Shrivenham. The last thing we did was an Explosives demo. It was the usual Firepower Demo sort of thing which will have been a first for most of the course attendees. Detonator in a 5 litre paint tin, .5 kg PE4 on a pole, 20m det cord stretched between two poles etc. The last thing we did was conducted inside a building for safety reasons so we didn't see the actual bang. The instructor had set up the 3 bangs before hand using a diamond of sheet explosive to cut a steel rod, imprint the shape of a leaf on a sheet of metal (using the Monroe Effect) and a copper cone shaped charge to demonstrate how a HEAT round uses the Monroe effect to penetrate armour. He left us alone while he finalised the charges and when he came back he asked if anyone would like to volunteer to set the charges off. My hand went up before he stopped speaking. I got to blow sh*t up!! Great fun.
