Explosions during the forties

Dynamite was invented in the nineteenth century - the railways couldn't have been built without its blasting power, so yes, explosives would exist in your period!

Gelignite was a popular explosive in the first half of the 20th century, owing to its being more stable than dynamite:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelignite

TNT was even more stable, but had nasty side-effects:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitrotoluene

Either of those should suit your purposes. Just avoid plastic explosives, as they hadn't been invented yet :)

2006 Winner - alternate history fantasy
2007 Winner - sequel to the 2006 story
2008 - unofficial participant, revising the 2006 story and running the UK Regional Word War scoreboard

Thanks!

I was just wondering about this myself. I was just trying to figure out what kind of improvised explosives the Resistance might make in basements. Or bits/ingredients that might give someone away if they were arrested with it in their pockets.

There's always the molotov cocktail to fall back on: fill a wine bottle with gasoline, secure a gas-soaked rag in the neck with the cork, light, and throw. Popular resistance tactic (see the liberation of Paris).

~Wendy~

Redfox, marvelous! My MC wants to put some explosives in a building and leave it to explode a little later, so there would be a timer involved, do you know anything about this, was this possible at the time?

You know, there were nukes by '45. :)

><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><>
2004: Unday: WON -- 2005: Fortune's Fool: WON -- 2007: Hench: WON -- 2008: The Wey of Dolor: WON

Of course I know there were nukes, but I'm not interested in nukes. I just hoped somebody would be able to give me some details.

Although it's an old plot device, it certainly was in vogue. Explosives would normally be some form of dynamite or it's step-children. The military was beginning to experiment with plastics, but it was not something a common person would be able to get. The normal cheap timed explosion would be an appropriate quantity of dynamite, a blasting cap, and a mechanical alarm clock. When the alarm goes off, the little arm strikes the bells on top and completes an electrical circuit that fires the blasting cap. The alarm clock would be the 99 cent special from Woolworths or the local "five and dime."

There would also be some batteries....remember the old "D" cell was about the only thing around then...the little guys hadn't been invented yet.. So, a few D cells, an alarm clock, a blasting cap, and some sticks of dynamite. It would have been wrapped with electrical tape since Duct tape wasn't common at all in those days.

GP, at your service

GP
--------------
2006 NaNo winner - Berlin, Witnesses at the Crossroads of History, Book I
2007 NaNo winner - Berlin, Witnesses at the Crossroads of History, Book II

GP, thank you very much, this is exactly what I was looking for. I described the scene, but until now it's too vague, because I didn't have a clue about the technical stuff. This will be a great help!

Definately spoilt for choice - not only can you choose from a huge range of explosives but you've got a huge range of choice of explosive setters - bombers.

Deal with the bombers first. As well as all the ordinary, run of the mill, soldiers, sailors and airmen who've been blowing things up for the past few years, you've got all the specialist and highly trained agents and operatives as well - the ex SAS, SBS, OSS, Maquis, resistance fighters, Skorzenzy Commandos, Spetznatz and Partizans.....no shortage of boom and bang expertise!

As far as explosives you can take your pick from everything from extemporised - diesel and ffertilizer explosives - through all the explosive devices left lying around after the war - unexploded or dumped everything from hand grenades and land mines to aerial bombs - or traditional TNT, gelignite, dynamite and nitro-glycerine and the early forms of plastic explosives as well as the tricky bombs, the exploding rats and lumps of coal that the spooky types came up with.

You've also got a few examples to choose from - like the attack on the King David Hotel in Jerusalem and a whole bunch of others in Greece, Ukraine and the collapsing colonial empires.

Makes me wish I'd thought of doing this myself, i could have had a Boom! Bang! and Crash! field day!

In the war there were something called pencil detonators.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil_detonator

So you could add that to your explosive.