D is for Demolition Men

As the pond becomes hideously over-used I have found it necessary to look further afield for photographing wildlife and found myself on the Army land the other side of the Motorway this summer, where I encountered these . . .

. . . eleven sand pits, each a few feet across, and about 10/15-feet (five meters) apart. They are arranged on a well-mowed field, like the playing-pitch of some weird French ball-game no-one else has bothered to learn the rules to! The actual pit is only a foot or two but the 'spillage' makes them look bigger.

About a 150 feet away (60/70-odd meters?) is a similar structure or arrangement, this time of ten 'holes' arranged in a circle, as if someone from Central Planning has marked out the position of a Henge with sand, for builders, coming later with a load of Blue Granite!

The foreshortening of the photographs necessitated the rendering of this quick sketch to explain the above 'crop circle' and a sort of blunt arrow-head! However, scattered around the field and/or half-duried in the sand are the clues as to the sand's use;

Detonators . . . or their remains! These pits are for the young engineers to learn one of the tenets of their craft, namely; blowing stuff up! And further, to learn sequential detonations.

We often hear them at this end of town and in the past it was a case of thinking "Oh that's the engineers learning to blow stuff up", but now I count the explosions, and sure-enough; they often come in ten's or eleven's!

Presumably the ring is used for simple sequences or synchronised 'blows', while the arrowhead can be used for alternate detonations, or paired explosions running up to the point, or back from it.

And using just detonators or small charges, the whole can be observed safely by students and instructors from the hill on the other side of the road - you can see in the background of the first shot?

Some of the other paraphernalia associated with the exercises, which was lying around. To be fair - and given the frequency with which they can be heard - they do a good job of cleaning the site between visits, but once I was 'on the case', I quickly found these which had been blown about the field by wind or explosive-design!

I must stress that with the exception of the labels; which I posed for the camera, I didn't touch or move anything, it's just not worth the risk.

Possibly a piece of smoldering hessian from the sandbags they may place over the charges or maybe a piece of white phosphorous, if they also learn how to destroy munitions at the same location? It looks like something which came down from space . . . Thwaaak!

In high summer this is the sort of thing which starts 'range-fires' and leads to (or contributes to-) those dark, cloudy backgrounds on otherwise clearly sunny days, you see in old photographs of Barbarossa, or Kursk; two years later.