Pinyaev guarded a storehouse with weapons and ammunition near the city of Ryazan. Together with a friend, he entered the storehouse to see the weapons. The friends were surprised to see that the storehouse contained sacks with the word “sugar” on them. Pinyaev and his friend were discouraged, but didn’t want to leave the storehouse empty-handed. The two paratroopers cut a hole in one of the bags and put some sugar in a plastic bag. They made tea with the sugar, but the taste of the tea was terrible. They became frightened because the substance might turn out to be saltpeter, and brought the plastic bag to a platoon commander. He consulted a sapper, who identified the substance as hexogen
I’m almost certain I’ve heard stories about soldiers eating or even burning c4^1 for shits and giggles. Not surprised they have to put a warning label on it, though I doubt it does any good.
^1 : iirc c4 by itself is very safe because it has to be exposed to a sudden increase in pressure and heat to detonate (e.g. a shock wave, or supposedly, stomping on it while it’s on fire). Just burning it or throwing it at a wall won’t make it explode.
I have heard that, if just lit on fire with a match or whatever, C4 simply burns rather than exploding, and I have heard this has been used to heat at least one meal.
Yes you can burn it. C4 needs a fairly deliberate effort to explode. There have been issues where improperly set large shots of C4 end up on fire all over the area rather than exploding. Which is a suboptimal situation.
For eating, the way I heard is that people would stick a piece inside their lip ala a tobacco dip. Supposedly the contact with the inner lip causes some kind of heightened feeling. I can’t prove that one though.
I don’t think your math is right. That’s 5x length and 4x width, not 20x length and width. If I was suddenly 20x bigger without changing my proportions, I doubt that would even be a facecloth to me.
Which is precisely why it’s such an amazing explosive, imagine how happy people must have been to go from explosives that might detonate if you cough near them, to something you can set aflame without worry.
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