Hi Hawkmoon, unclewest; Regarding the safety of using C-4 to warm rations, and detonating C-4 by stomping on it. My guess is that it's almost impossible to set off C-4 that way, but not impossible. I'd heard the tale long ago, and it sounds like its main use is to prevent troops from burning C-4.
(1) It's probably a bad habit to let the troops get into because they might generalize the behavior to C-4 which isn't pure enough to be safe. The stuff turns sort of granular when it's weathered, and I'm not at all sure that it's as safe in that condition. The burning / deflagration / detonation transitions tend to be easiest in heterogenous explosive mixtures. Also in stuff with cracks.
(2) While stomping on burning (or unlit, for that matter) C-4 in the field under nominal conditions might be "safe", I would think that the worst cases would be kind of scary. I guess if you're regularly getting shot at, stomping on C-4 probably seems pretty safe.
(3) If the troops use their explosives for making coffee, what are they going to use to blow things up? And since C-4 gets stiffer as it gets colder, it's probably more dangerous to stomp on it exactly on the days you'd more likely want hot coffee.
What I'd worry about most would probably be static electricity. It seems like whenever they can't figure out what caused high explosives to go off they blame static electricity. (see link below) I knew a guy who had a book of matches go off in his pants pocket due to static electricity. I also worked at a place where a man was atomized by C-4 that apparently went off because of static electricity. (But like I say, whenever they don't have an explanation, that's what they blame it on.)
A guy who weighs 200 pounds can easily press with 500 pounds of force one one foot. (Typical would be well over that, assuming that he was "stomping" on a difficult to put out fire.) To get to 20,000 psi would require that weight to be concentrated over an area of .025 square inches. That's an area of about 5/32 x 5/32 inch. That seems small, compared to the size of a shoe, but if the C-4 is burning on a shart pointed rock that could be what you get. Boom! Not likely, but definitely not OSHA.
-- Carl
P.S. Re high explosives that require detonators: "Meanwhile, W.H. "Swede" Sandberg, the vice-president of the TCT called an engineer at nearby chemical plant asking about the danger of burning ammonium nitrate. The answer he got was not to worry because ammonium won't explode without a detonator. Obviously this information was false as S.S. Grandcamp exploded at 9:12 am. At first, the ammonium nitrate in hold No. 4 exploded which lifted the 7176-ton ship 20 feet into the air. Seconds later, the heat from this explosion detonated the fertilizer in hold No. 2. The two explosions were heard 150 miles away and killed all the firefighters on the scene and most of the spectators. ... The shockwave from the blast, on the other hand, completely destroyed several dockside warehouses and the homes within a mile from the dock. ... Within these horrifying 16 hours, 576 died and hundreds injured in this city with only 16,000 residents. ... The engineer and the so called experts who failed to give proper warning about the explosive nature of the ammonium nitrate fertilizer should know better because it was used in World War II as an explosive material as well.
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The explosion of the BLANC in Halifax harbor must rank as one of the largest which has ever occurred. It was also one of the most devastating. Approximately one half of the city was leveled. A number of nearby ships were completely demolished and the tidal wave which resulted carried other ships ashore leaving them stranded inland far above high water. The casualties amounted to 1226 people dead and thousands of others injured.
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The victim quickly jumped into the rear of the truck. The owner of the PU climbed into the truck's cab on the driver's side. What they did not know, was that the PU was going to stall before they could get away. This now exposed the people in the rear of the truck to the mailbox. The mailbox exploded, blowing the door off in the direction of the victim. Shrapnel from the door cut the victim's throat severing the carotid artery. Witnesses stated the victim lost massive amounts of blood from the injury. He was transported to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
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He decided to take a pipe and put a cap on just one end of it. He put an elbow on the pipe and left the other end open. He thought that if he lit the open end of the pipe, he could make a blow torch. He filled the pipe with powder and knelt down next to it to light it with a cigarette lighter. What he did not know, was that the pipe does not necessarily need to be closed at both ends to detonate.
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The victims were apparently using the explosives to protect their marijuana plots, and the devices exploded accidentally.
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The investigators learned that the driver of the vehicle accidentally discharged an M-2 grenade while driving the vehicle.
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The March 29 explosion at Independence Professional Fireworks Co. near Osseo could have been caused by something as simple as static electricity, said Sgt. Ken Hersha of the Michigan State Police fire division.
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According to police, sergeant Masatoshi Ishihara, 44, was killed when the shell exploded at about 11:20 a.m. at the home he shared with his father Yoshio, 70. The explosion destroyed most of the two-story wooden dwelling, police said.
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Upon arriving at the hospital, I discovered that the man, who we can further refer to as "Lefty," had minor fragmentation wounds to his right thigh and hip area, and 3 of his fingers were handed to me in a plastic bag, with the nurse telling me "he won't be needing these anymore."
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