26

At the end of Suicide Squad:

Harley Quinn cuts out Enchantress' heart. Rick Flag asks Killer Croc to throw a military-grade explosive into Enchantress' weapon and Deadshot shoots it, forcing it to explode.

According to IMDB Goof's, it states,

Military-grade explosives do not explode when shot at; the (sic) require a blasting cap to be set off. This is a safety feature of such materials.

However, it is observed that shooting a grenade or fuel tank causes it to explode. Is this not possible with the explosive used in this scenario?

Napoleon Wilson
  • 58,981
  • 64
  • 338
  • 660
Mishra Shreyanshu
  • 1,179
  • 14
  • 19
  • Can you provide a link to the video/picture of the gun? High calibers are able to handle trick bullets, paired with his precision (also in switching bullets at the right pace) he might well be shooting holy electric sizzling radioactive silver bullets. – user3819867 Jan 05 '17 at 17:06
  • 25
    You added a spoiler tag for a scientific fact, but not when describing the end of the movie? – Lindsey D Jan 05 '17 at 17:08
  • @user3819867 https://youtu.be/Hdr0Q3mQ4fs – Mishra Shreyanshu Jan 05 '17 at 17:33
  • 8
    There is an excellent Mythbusters Episode (#175) where they do all sorts of fun stuff to C4, including setting it on fire, shooting it with various types of ammo (incendiary, tracer), dumping thermite on it, stomping on it... – Kevin L Jan 05 '17 at 20:18
  • 3
    Define "Military-grade explosives". If you're talking about Tannerite, then yes. The verbiage you're after is impact sensitivity. Primary explosives do, secondary explosives do not. – Mazura Jan 06 '17 at 00:03
  • 3
    "Military grade" is not that useful of a classification: primary and secondary does describe how explosives behave. – Nick T Jan 06 '17 at 00:03
  • 4
    "it is observed that shooting a grenade or fuel tank causes it to explode". No, that is wrong too. Mythbusters did an episode of that where they shot at grenades and found that they did not explode when shot at, even if you manage to break them apart violently. The only thing that happens is that the explosive is dispersed. Fuel tanks... same thing. You need to aerosolise, or boil, or in any other manner vapourise fuel in order to make it explode. – MichaelK Jan 06 '17 at 12:04
  • 1
    Also worth to note: Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams uses explosives to safely dispose of bombs. Unless it is a very old and/or degraded piece of ordnance, elongated shaped charges are applied along the the casing. When the charge is set off, it will cut open the casing, and then disperse the explosive without detonating it. That is how safe modern explosives are. – MichaelK Jan 06 '17 at 12:09
  • @MichaelKarnerfors .. came to say the same thing .. Mythbusters actually did an episode where they cooked with C4 .. turned out to be a great alternative fuel to heat up the MRE's in less than 5 minutes :) – txtechhelp Jan 06 '17 at 16:55
  • 1
    @MichaelKarnerfors I thought using explosives to dispose of bombs was just a sure-fire way to render them safe by reliably detonating them (HE explosions are a good way to detonate even the least-sensitive explosives). Some things like the BootBanger I guess try to scatter them, but I think those are specialty cases. – Nick T Jan 06 '17 at 18:55
  • 1
    It's worth mentioning that shooting things to make them blow up is a pervasive trope in television and films, similar to any character being able to knock out any other character with a single blow when it's convenient to the plot, or shooting locks, both traditional and electronic, to open doors, regardless of the caliber of the firearm and without any risk of ricochet or shrapnel. – DukeZhou Jan 06 '17 at 19:31
  • @NickT That is probably the case in many instances too. – MichaelK Jan 06 '17 at 19:45

4 Answers4

47

NO

Military Grade explosives are incredibly safe and are designed to only explode when required.

Take C4 (or Composition-4 to give it its correct name) - Wikipedia

C-4 is very stable and insensitive to most physical shocks. C-4 cannot be detonated by a gunshot or by dropping it onto a hard surface. It does not explode when set on fire or exposed to microwave radiation. Detonation can only be initiated by a combination of extreme heat and a shockwave, such as when a detonator inserted into it is fired.

Shooting Gas Tanks

This was covered at Skeptics Stack Exchange where the answer was a pretty resounding... NO.

Community
  • 1
Paulie_D
  • 135,667
  • 23
  • 488
  • 444
  • 25
    There's a great urban legend around the safety of C4 in the military. It goes like this: One day an EOD instructor is giving a presentation on C4. He says that, contrary to what you see in movies, it is very stable. You can squeeze it, stomp on it, hell, you could even chew on it, and it won't explode. He passes a small bit around the class to examine and continues on with his presentation. He's interrupted by a soldier in the back of the class that vomits, collapses, and begins to have seizures. Turns out the guy decided to test out the chewing part and didn't know that C4 is poisonous. – Kevin Jan 05 '17 at 19:20
  • 1
    @Kevin I'm sure I read somewhere that soldiers will occasionally eat very small bits of C4 to avoid unpleasant duties – Lexi Jan 05 '17 at 19:49
  • 3
    A gas tank CAN, erm, flare if given the right conditions: fuel/air mixture, ignition source via maybe an incendiary round. But the tank would have to be larger than a automotive tank, and as automotive tanks are specifically designed not to explode..............I do really wish the motion picture industry would get a little bit real on that point. – NZKshatriya Jan 05 '17 at 20:53
  • 1
    Also Fuel tank != gas tank. Liquid petroleum gas is highly difficult to ignite. Propane tanks are another story. – cde Jan 05 '17 at 22:56
  • I may have been hasty in my first comment. I believe they threw a hand grenade which is nothing like c4... – cde Jan 05 '17 at 22:59
  • @cde Even propane tanks are hard to ignite. FPS Russia did it a while back. He had to put flares on the tanks to ignite the escaping gas, or use incendiary rounds. – Cort Ammon Jan 06 '17 at 00:38
  • This is a great answer but it makes some assumptions. If it's already primed with an impact sensitive detonator it is a whole other story. – Tim Brigham Jan 06 '17 at 14:52
  • The general answer is correct I feel. The explosives don't detonate because they were shot. They explode because the detonator was detonated by the effects of the shot. As has been said, without the detonator...nothing happens. – Paulie_D Jan 06 '17 at 14:54
  • Lies! Auto fuel tanks are death bombs waiting to explode. Or are you telling me that CHiPs was not a science-based documentary? – PoloHoleSet Jan 06 '17 at 18:18
  • Mythbusters even cooked with C4! They set it on fire and heated water with it. – Ismael Miguel Jan 07 '17 at 10:34
11

'Military Grade' does not really define what the explosive is made of, and that is what determines how it detonates. Some explosives require fire, some impact, some a chemical reaction, etc. Many nitrogen based explosives can explode with physical force. I've seen nitrogen triiodide explode at the touch of a feather. TNT is also know to explode if not handled properly. Bullets themselves have a primer that is impact based which ignites the gunpowder.

If a bomb has an impact based detonator, or uses an impact based explosive, then yes, shooting it would detonate it. 'Military Grade' doesn't specify what it is.

rtaft
  • 1,282
  • 7
  • 17
  • 4
    +1. But I will add that a military grade bomb or munition will have a military grade fuze (also spelled fuse). These fuzes are intelligent enough to have safety features like achieving a set spin rate before arming itself (there are other features as well). The charge on this type of munition is pretty stable, and will only go high order (detonate) when its fuze fires off. – John Jan 05 '17 at 16:46
  • 1
    "how else?" - they use altimeters – OrangeDog Jan 05 '17 at 18:47
7

Yes

But only certain ones. In Mythbusters Episode 216, they detonate a hand grenade with a .308 rifle.

http://mythresults.com/fire-in-the-hole

Don Branson
  • 213
  • 1
  • 6
0

Explosives that detonate with combustion or shock can be set off with firearms......Thought difficult. Sensitive explosives like TNT are indeed possible. Modern military explosives use RDX or plastic explosives that are notoriously difficult to set off. This makes them safer. They can only detonate with a high speed detonation wave (primer caps)

LazyReader
  • 426
  • 2
  • 3