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Speaking of explosives..... . I'm still amazed that the Army paid me good money to blow stuff up, jump out of airplanes & shoot guns. I really loved the Demo Range & C-4 plastic explosive. The Instructor calculated his demo need at 24 1/4lb blocks of C-4. That's 6 lbs of C-4. The class was primarily on cutting & ribbon charges, i.e., using small amounts of shaped & carefully placed charges to cut RR rails, drop poles, etc. Instead of 24 1/4 lb blocks (6 lbs) we ended up w/ 24 lbs of C-4. We did the class. Twice. We had over 12 lbs of C-4 left at the end of the day. One of the first things you learn in the Army is never try to return unused munitions. Ever. The people that run the ammo dumps are civilians & they will make your life miserable when you show up at 4pm w/ a can of ammo to return. So, you shoot, blow it up or bury it. Now, the responsible, common sense side of the brain said just burn the C-4 (it burns at a nice, white heat when lit w/ a match. I've heated many a canteen cup of water w/ a little ball of C-4). Think about this for a minute. 12 guys, in the Army, average age about 22 w/ fuses, caps & 12 lbs of C-4. Responsible? Common sense? The range had a 40mm gun mount at one of the demo stations. Looked like it came off of a ship. We carefully placed all of the C-4 around the base of the mount, tamped it & set the fuse. Recall how a punted football will go end over end down field? That's what a 40mm gun mount w/ 12lbs of C-4 under it does.....and leaves a crater about 5 feet deep & 15 feet across. And moves the gun mount about 50 feet from it's former position. And, results in a frantic call from Range Control wanting to know "WTF was that?" "Must have been those guys from the 82nd at the next range. Call them."
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