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"600mm equals about two feet, and I can assure you that the effect is NOT the same regardless of the material. The penetration of lighter metals is far greater, and denser metals far lower. Besides, who has even a foot of steel around their house?"
My reference material says 30 cm, and is from a dedicated reference book to comblock small arms capability. Plasma, existing out of some kind of containment vessel, quickly dissipates into the atmosphere as the intensity (pressure and heat of the plasma jet) cannot be maintained. This means that once the warhead is detonated, the plasma can go only a certain distance before the lack of containment causes it to revert back to a gaseous state. This is why you don't get "through and through" strikes from a turret strike with a RPG despite the fact that turrets are relatively small. It'll burn through one side, but that dissipates the plasma, and the interior spalling is what causes the casualties.
You'll note that your link makes extensive reference to chicken wire as a defense against RPGs. Chicken wire. "At the time, broadcast news would show photos of jeeps, trucks, and M113s laden with sandbags and encircled with chicken wire. Because the RPG-7 is a shape charge munition, the first encounter it has before meeting the hard skin of the vehicle will set it off. If the initial fuse strikes an object such as a railing or wire and the round goes off, it spares the vehicle’s surface from penetration." Hmmm... Chicken wire. Hardly sounds like some kind of "death ray" if it can be defeated with chicken wire...
"The fuse doesn't arm until the rocket has travelled ten metres in order to protect the firer from the effects of the blast. This would mean that if the rocket (travelling at up to 300 metres per second) were to hit a window or light wall, it would probably blast right on through. I have read accounts from Viet Nam where RPG rockets passed right through US soldiers without detonating, so this is not beyond the realms of possibility."
First, your 300 MPS figure is conditional on it being in the most efficient part of the boost phase. It's not going to be anywhere near the most efficient part of the boost phase if it's ignited in a room (completely ignoring the fact that RPG warheads tend to be stored separately from the motors for the sake of convenience and safety...they're kind of bulky with the rocket attached). Secondly, due to the size of the cross-section of the warhead, you're likely to end up with the warhead stuck in the wall if it doesn't detonate (remember the chicken wire bit?) since in a confined space there's no time/distance for it to get up to maximum boost. The reason the RPG warheads in your example didn't detonate can reasonably be considered to be due to a dud fuse. Also, if it passed completely through the person, how could they identify what it was, and that it wasn't something like a recoilless rifle round? During the Ranger operation in Mogadishu, there was a soldier hit by a dud RPG round. It penetrated his chest, killing the soldier, but didn't exit.
Remember, your article stated that clothes in duffle bags, et cetera, were enough to detonate the round, so entering a human body certainly should cause it to detonate. Also remember that your article cites a 4 meter blast/shrapnel radius. That's hardly a huge area, especially when considering that a standard burst radius for an average comblock fragmentation grenade is 25-30 meters (for the RG-42, RDG-5, and F-1).
"If propane was as explosive as you suggest, you'd never be able to use it for BBQs!"
When I was in the military, I've boiled water for coffee by lighting small bits of C-4 under the pot (Don't try this at home, kids!). It provides a nice, even flame as long as you don't stomp on it. Since I've cooked with it, I guess it's not a high explosive too? ;-) Unconfined propane burns once it reaches something like 1100ppm. In an enclosed space, if the gas reaches a higher concentration and is then suddenly ignited instead of being constantly burned off, it has explosive qualities. If you've ever seen a 20 pound propane tank shot with an APIT round, you'd know what I mean. The problem with propane is that it's heavier than air, so that in a leak situation it can seep into low-lying areas like basements and build up to greater than 1100ppm. Once it hits a spark at a density greater than 1100ppm, kiss the house goodbye. To get back to the thread, which do you think accidentally harms more people annually in the US, propane tank explosions or explosives stored in the house detonating? And before you say Americans don't store explosives in their houses often, remember that there are millions of reloaders who keep both black and gun powder around the place...
"A 155mm artillery shell containing 8.5kg of TNT has a lethal radius of nearly 30 metres. That means if you are within 30 metres of it you will most likely die."
Not true. The lethal radius means how far it can be expected to throw fragments. There are all kinds of variables that affect lethality, like fuzing options, ground conditions, cover, distance from the explosion, et cetera.
"Ask a firefighter whether he would rather deal with 20kg of propane or 2kg of Semtex, and I bet you'd find he didn't even need to think about it before he said "propane".
That would depend on the situation, wouldn't it? A propane explosion is much more dangerous than a propane fire, as a Semtex explosion is much more dangerous than a bit of burning Semtex. Semtex and C-4 are much less inherently dangerous to store than propane for the simple reason that Semtex and C-4 don't leak, they're not under pressure, they can't cause explosions if their storage vessel rusts through, and because they're actually much harder to detonate than propane, which can be set off by any heat source. Set fire to a 20 pound block of C-4 in an enclosed space like a room, and you'll have a merry little fire. Set fire to the contents of a 20 pound propane tank in an enclosed space like a room, and the house will be flattened. It's only with the addition of a proper detonating device (like a blasting cap) that they become more dangerous.
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