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Blowed Up Real Good: A Digression |
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Dr. Samuel Says -
Weirdness
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Friday, 10 August 2007 |
My interest in deflagrating explosives dates back to grade school, when I was but a young lad living on a U.S. air base in an unnamed Eastern European country. There were other American kids on the base, including Tommy Milchner -- a dim, beefy, relentless bully who terrorized all us kids in the chess club.
 Having finally endured enough abuse, we rigged a series of time-delayed
roman candle fireworks to assault Tommy on his way home from school one
afternoon. They were harmless, of course -- nothing but low-temperature
aerial sparks by the time they arced down on him. But it did the trick
-- Tommy wet himself thoroughly, and never bothered us again.
Unfortunately, U.S. defense forces registered the prank as an air raid,
and the incident sparked a series of events which led, more or less, to
the Cold War. I feel badly about that now.
At any rate, I came across this interesting item recently, which
reminded me of my carefree youth. It concerns, essentially, a metal
amalgam that detonates on impact. Developed by predictably unnamed
defense contractors, the metal is being used to create bombs that
generate a marvelous chain reaction of explosions. The initial
explosion creates shrapnel which, in turn, explodes itself upon impact.
Kind of like a cluster bomb, but better for several reasons.
As a defensive weapon, Reactive Material (RM) bombs can be detonated in
the general area of an incoming missile, and create a lethal cloud of
explosive material to destroy anything trying to pass through. Good for
protecting troops against mortar fire, or metropolitan areas from
incoming ICBMs. (I'm being hopelessly optimistic here.)
Also, RM bombs are constructed of separated powdered metals with a
third, also separated, oxidizing agent, in such a way that mere contact
does not cause them to detonate. Rather, a powerful impact is required.
This means detritus from an explosion is practically inert, unlikely to
injure civilians who come across the materials later on. In fact, you
can usually throw RM fragments on a fire to safely dispose of them.
Getting into more detail would require several dozen pages and graphs,
and this is one of those instances where my passion for explosives must
be tempered with my utterly pacifist convictions about mass conflict.
Still, in our mad modern of age of détente, high-tech death-from-above,
and mutually-assured-destruction strategic policies -- this actually
is a smart, or at least smarter, bomb.
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