Grenades
40mm GrenadesThermobaric Explosive The Grenade uses the CS Gas 40mm M651 as a base. The round fires a 57 gram munition, with 38 grams of aluminum nano particles varying between 98 nanometers and 358 nanometers in diameter mixed with
Ethylene oxide in a 35% to 65% ratio in weight. The center charge is 19 grams of
HMX charge in a 1/16 inch thick aluminum cylinder.
Because the Thermobaric explosives use the oxygen in the air to provide their energy and rapid burning, they are, on average, 75% less in weight and 55% less in size than an explosive that puts out a comparable level of energy. Oxygen molecules are roughly 8 protons and 8 neutrons in size, and nitrogen is 7 protons and 7 neutrons, while hydrogen is 1 proton and 1 neutron and carbon 6 protons and 6 neutrons. One oxygen atom added to the molecular structure or mixture is larger than a single hydrocarbon chain of 1 carbon and 1 hydrogen atom. Because the only known 'explosive' that only incorporates oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon is alcohol, in typical explosives that carry their own oxygen source, they must include at least 1 more nitrogen and oxygen atom.
C-4's chain, or RDX, is roughly C6-O6-H12-N6- or six of each previously mentioned atoms plus another 6 atoms of hydrogen. Nitroglycerin is C3-H5-N3-O9, and TNT is C7-H5-N3-O6. Becuase one Nitrogen atom equals one hydrocarbon, and oxygen is more, oxygen and nitrogen take up a large amount of the chemical weight. In RDX, Oxygen and Nitrogen account for 90 out of 138 protons, or 65.2% of the entire chain. In Nitroglycerin, the oxygen and nitrogen count for 93 out 116 protons, or 80.1% of the protons in the mixture. Becuase protons are all the same the size and amount in atoms, they are easy to measure, and if the non-radioactive isotopes are used, you can consider the mole-relative weight ratio to be roughly double what the protons are.
Obviously, if you took something like Nitroglycerin, with 80% of it's weight being oxygen and nitrogen, and instead stole the oxygen and nitrogen from the air (80% nitrogen, and 20% oxygen on a rough basis) then you could potentially have an explosive that's 1/5 the size of nitroglycerin that produces the same amount of energy- obviously, an explosive at the same size would produce 5 times the amount of energy, or 5 times bigger explosion. Of course, this is impossible, however the concept still remain. If enough particles are released into the air that burn with the air's oxygen and nitrogen due to having such a high surface area being exposed, then the same energy can be produced from something 1/5 to 1/3 of the size of an ordinary explosive, or something at the same size producing 3 to 5 times the explosive energy. In these explosives, they use the concept that the explosive will not deflagrate (not technically detonating, as it burns rather than simply explodes) unless it has the right air to fuel ratio, so they use an explosion to disperse the primary explosive into the air at the right air to fuel ratio and ignite it with enough force and heat, as well as provide a begging shock wave. The entire process lasts roughly 50 milliseconds, much longer than an ordinary explosive of 5 miliseconds, producing many more shock waves, and rebounding shock waves.
Becuase of the fact that these explosives use the oxygen in the air and have several rebounding shock waves, they are particularly useful in confined environments, such as a bunker or a room, becuase they deplete the oxygen supply and have several 'rebounding' shock waves which reverberate throughout the structure, this producing an extra level of lethality by creating a series of destructive shockwaves, rather than just one. Depending on the situation, this can be roughly 3 to 25 extra waves.
In addition to this, the explosion causes an implosion after it's explosion. Becuase the oxygen is depleted in the air, so quickly, the resulting vacuum in the air works to replenish the area just as quickly, causing the surrounding air to collapse into the center of where the explosion burned most of the oxygen and air, this creating a less powerful but still implosion, who's shockwave then reverberates causing both an implosion and slightly less powerful explosion.
In particular, this grenade produces a roughly 30 yard kill radius, and 50 yard causality radius. Although in confined areas, it can produce a much higher kill radius, as it depletes the oxygen in a given area. In a room of roughly 500 cubic yards, it will often kill everyone inside. In a tunnel, it'll kill almost everyone inside a 1000 cubic yard area.
The round is obviously an extraordinarily powerful round, and therefore must be fired far away from the user in order to avoid catastrophic death on his own end.
