Yeah, those are the shit
eating grins of three juvenile delinquents all grown up and still playing with
firecrackers. M80s and bottle rockets seem trite when you get to
play with C4 and det cord by the truckload a couple times a
year. Engineers.
Yeah, those are the shit
eating grins of three juvenile delinquents all grown up and still playing with
firecrackers. M80s and bottle rockets seem trite when you get to
play with C4 and det cord by the truckload a couple times a
year.
Playing with pipe bombs
and not going to jail for it. here, a couple of guys experiment with
putting the explosive on the outside of the pipe. Not that it makes sense
or anything, but we had plenty of det cord left and had to do something with
it.
Four man wire/mine obstacle
breaching team.
Note, the WW2 era demo bags are not compatible with MDI components and we ended up using a custom made Kevlar lined soft briefcase I loaned them. After having used it to carry various explosives, I will be interested to see how it does as an airline carry-on bag in those newfangled bomb residue sniffing checkpoints.
In reality, there is a real need for a padded and ballistic protective bag for carrying MDI type blasting caps that do not fit in traditional cap carrier boxes.
Getting bad news on the
radio. The escort services will not give a twenty man discount and
the pizza delivery people need more than just a grid coordinate to make a
delivery. As this young PFC is learning, no beer, no bitches and no
barbeque tonight. This is the modern Army and not the good old
days that uncle buck told you about.
Yep, nailed Expert for about
the eigth year in a row. This time with a nifty new M4 Carbine.
Popping fuses on a test
blast. The ground in this quarry proved to be resistant to all of
the explosives we put into it. Even the big cratering charges made
lackluster dents in the rock.
Hiding out in the target shed
during one of the frequent Oregon rain storms, this one happening on rifle qual
day.
The LT and one of the troops
surveying the new digs. It is a boy scout camp with tents already in
place on wooden platforms and pre-arranged fire pits - two luxuries that are
almost unheard of on most military bases these days. Oh yeah,
looking forward to that toasty campfire to dry out our soggy butts before
hitting the rack. Something simple like a wood floored tent
can make a rainy night in a bivvy bag quite tolerable instead of
miserable.
When life can be
good. A warm fire, good company, and plenty of food. This
weekend had been hosted by the Boy Scouts, and they have maintained first class
facilities which we were happy to use free of some of the BS regulations seen at
most military installations. Much appreciated was the wood burning
fireplace in the chow hall for drying out soggy uniforms.
Tools
of the trade. The US military has largely phased out the use of TNT as a
general purpose explosive. We also almost never use the old style
electric demo systems. They have been replaced by MDI which usually
comes prepackaged with attached blasting caps. The M14 (lower left)
is a pre-cut section of time fuse with a high power cap, M11 (lower center) has
a high powered cap on a length of shock cord (I think 15 ft) and the M15 has a
lower powered cap on a spool of 500 feet of shock cord. Shock cord
is safer to use than electrical systems and immune to all forms of electronic
interference or countermeasures. It is also reliable under water
when prepped above water (you can't splice it underwater and maintain the
integrity of the system). One aim of the whole MDI system is to
reduce the number of blasting caps used in demolitions and virtually eliminate
the old safety sensitive practice of crimping blasting caps on fuse or det
cord. MDI based explosive systems also generally will use less
det cord to carry the explosive chain to different charges.
