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BigBen · 03-08-2005, 08:37 AM

We were teaching soldiers the finer points in creating obstacles to hinder the enemies movement. An Abatee is created by blowing up trees on each side of the road and having them fall onto each other, creating a pick-up-stick mess with 30 foot logs. It is lots of fun when you do it, but a lot of work, too.

A crater is more simple. You drill a hole in the ground, put some C-4 in. Blow up the C-4. You have created a small air poacket under the ground, since c-4 is a high explosive and the concussion is so great that it creates a pocket instead of a crater. You then fill that pocket with a medium explosive, Trigran (or rabbit shit, what we called it because of its pellet appearance) and then set that off. You get a big monster crater that looks like a 10,000 pound bomb went off. The medium explosive pushes and lifts the soil, instead of shocking and compacting like C-4. You do this about 3 or 4 times along 200m stratch of road, and you have denied that road to your enemy. Tanks can’t even navigate those holes (yeah, but they just drive around them…).

We were blowing up a road, and doing a damned fine job of it too, when the dump truck came with a load of backfill to fill the holes we were about to create. It was going to take the guy 50 trips to fill these holes, and he showed up early to get a good start. Unfortunately, the craters were not made yet. The explosives were set, the fuses placed, and the burn cord lit… we were waiting for the BOOM to happen, in about 3 minutes.

The dump truck operator asked where the craters were, and a Sergeant told him where they were GOING TO BE, and a mis-communication occurred. That driver then proceeded to DRIVE DOWN THAT ROAD. I was watching the charges, waiting for them to go off. You can imagine my surprise when a dump truck goes barrelling past me and into the impact area. We had set up wooden barriers (those road construction ones) across the road, but they were not long enough, so we got orange surveyors tape and strung that between the two barriers. The dump truck hit that tape at about 50 k/hr, like he was crossing a finish line or something. I was in shock.

In less than 2 minutes, that road was going to disappear, along with any dump truck that was on top of it. The sergeant screamed “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!” and chased after the truck, but as it sped away, the sergeant stopped at my truck. “Go after that truck!”
“Fucking pardon me?” was my reply.
“He’s going to die, we have to stop him!” The sergeant had lost all sense of self-preservation. “Give me the keys, I’LL GO AFTER HIM…” he was foaming at the mouth.
“I am not going to let you kill yourself, no way.” I was not going to let him do this.

When I woke up, I was on the ground and my truck was screaming down the road that was soon to be not-a-road. My jaw hurt. I was dizzy.

1 minute and 20 seconds later (I counted) both my truck and the dump truck came barrelling back towards the safety area, at about 130 k/hr. Like some kind of John Woo movie, I saw the road explode behind them, with a shower of dirt spraying over the vehicles. The two trucks were locked in some kind of death race, both drivers eyes were wide, and I think the driver of the dump truck was screaming. Either that or his open mouth was just in shock. I couldn’t hear, because everything was blowing up.

It looked fucking cool though.

”They should put THAT in a recruiting video” I thought.

Note to self: When blowing up a road, use something more substantial than surveyors tape as a safety barrier.

03-08-2005, 08:37 AM	#23 (permalink)
BigBen Comedian Location: Use the search button	Exploding roads and safety barriers: We were teaching soldiers the finer points in creating obstacles to hinder the enemies movement. An Abatee is created by blowing up trees on each side of the road and having them fall onto each other, creating a pick-up-stick mess with 30 foot logs. It is lots of fun when you do it, but a lot of work, too. A crater is more simple. You drill a hole in the ground, put some C-4 in. Blow up the C-4. You have created a small air poacket under the ground, since c-4 is a high explosive and the concussion is so great that it creates a pocket instead of a crater. You then fill that pocket with a medium explosive, Trigran (or rabbit shit, what we called it because of its pellet appearance) and then set that off. You get a big monster crater that looks like a 10,000 pound bomb went off. The medium explosive pushes and lifts the soil, instead of shocking and compacting like C-4. You do this about 3 or 4 times along 200m stratch of road, and you have denied that road to your enemy. Tanks can’t even navigate those holes (yeah, but they just drive around them…). We were blowing up a road, and doing a damned fine job of it too, when the dump truck came with a load of backfill to fill the holes we were about to create. It was going to take the guy 50 trips to fill these holes, and he showed up early to get a good start. Unfortunately, the craters were not made yet. The explosives were set, the fuses placed, and the burn cord lit… we were waiting for the BOOM to happen, in about 3 minutes. The dump truck operator asked where the craters were, and a Sergeant told him where they were GOING TO BE, and a mis-communication occurred. That driver then proceeded to DRIVE DOWN THAT ROAD. I was watching the charges, waiting for them to go off. You can imagine my surprise when a dump truck goes barrelling past me and into the impact area. We had set up wooden barriers (those road construction ones) across the road, but they were not long enough, so we got orange surveyors tape and strung that between the two barriers. The dump truck hit that tape at about 50 k/hr, like he was crossing a finish line or something. I was in shock. In less than 2 minutes, that road was going to disappear, along with any dump truck that was on top of it. The sergeant screamed “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!” and chased after the truck, but as it sped away, the sergeant stopped at my truck. “Go after that truck!” “Fucking pardon me?” was my reply. “He’s going to die, we have to stop him!” The sergeant had lost all sense of self-preservation. “Give me the keys, I’LL GO AFTER HIM…” he was foaming at the mouth. “I am not going to let you kill yourself, no way.” I was not going to let him do this. When I woke up, I was on the ground and my truck was screaming down the road that was soon to be not-a-road. My jaw hurt. I was dizzy. 1 minute and 20 seconds later (I counted) both my truck and the dump truck came barrelling back towards the safety area, at about 130 k/hr. Like some kind of John Woo movie, I saw the road explode behind them, with a shower of dirt spraying over the vehicles. The two trucks were locked in some kind of death race, both drivers eyes were wide, and I think the driver of the dump truck was screaming. Either that or his open mouth was just in shock. I couldn’t hear, because everything was blowing up. It looked fucking cool though. ”They should put THAT in a recruiting video” I thought. Note to self: When blowing up a road, use something more substantial than surveyors tape as a safety barrier. __________________ 3.141592654 Hey, if you are impressed with my memorizing pi to 10 digits, you should see the size of my penis.