#52 - Directed Explosions
I’ve visited these before in Miranda Chase #3, Condor.
The detonator had been rammed into the heart of a shaped charge of C-4 explosive. The device—called a Krakatoa and originally designed for the British SAS, which she’d picked up from a UK munitions plant to avoid it being traced back to her—was no bigger than a fat beer can. That had made it easy to hide in her security officer’s parka coat.
The two kilos of C-4 plastique exploded. The copper bullet formed by the device could punch a double-fist-sized hole through a warship’s armor plate at twenty-five meters. At two meters, it punched a half-meter-wide hole through the crew cabin’s thin rear pressure wall and the central wing fuel tank close behind it.
Watch YouTube demo of Krakatoa (ignore the first minute)
It doesn’t look like much, but it is incredibly powerful.
In my latest Kate Stark thriller, Knife’s Edge, Willem tells a story about the directability of shaped charges:
“I remember this once we were setting up a very narrow test but missed the range target. Fifty meters on, we killed a farmer’s cow on’ta far side of the fence. Probably shouldn’t have carved our unit’s number into the face of the C-4 charge. It scorched half meter-tall numbers into that cow’s hide afore it killed him. No chance of saying twasn’t us. Damned expensive cow, good beef though.”
This is actually a true story told to me years ago by a friend.
In Knife’s Edge, I tell a fanciful tale (mild spoiler) of an exploding wedding cake.
Bret, the groom, forced to stand around the rear of the cake by the large skirt-bell of Savannah’s dress—so artfully mimicked in the plastic figurine before it launch aloft—only half-caught the force of the cake’s explosion. It struck with a body blow to his left side—the one not blocked by Savannah or her massive dress—spinning him like a top as it sent him hurtling down the aft stairway to the deck below.
Savannah remained standing, unharmed, unblemished by flying ganache or whipped brandy-cream frosting.
Entirely possible? Oh yeah, for both directability of the damage path and force of the explosion. I’d love to watch someone play with C-4 someday; someone very skilled, that is.