Munroe effect

The Munroe or Neumann effect is the focusing of blast energy by a hollow or void cut
on a surface of an explosive.
The earliest mention of hollow charges occurred in 1792. Franz Xaver von Baader
(17651841) was a German mining engineer at that time; in a mining journal, he
advocated a conical space at the forward end of a blasting charge to increase the
explosive's effect and thereby save powder.[2] The idea was adopted, for a time, in
Norway and in the mines of the Harz mountains of Germany, although the only
available explosive at the time was gunpowder, which is not a high explosive and
hence incapable of producing the shock wave that the shaped-charge effect requires.[3]
The first true hollow charge effect was achieved in 1883 by Max von Foerster (1845
1905),[4] chief of the nitrocellulose factory of Wolff & Co. in Walsrode, Germany.[5][6]
By 1886, Gustav Bloem of Dsseldorf, Germany had obtained U.S. Patent 342,423
for hemispherical cavity metal detonators to concentrate the effect of the explosion in
an axial direction.[7]
The Munroe effect is named after Charles E. Munroe, who discovered it in 1888. A
civilian chemist working at the U.S. Naval Torpedo Station at Newport, Rhode Island,
he noticed that when a block of explosive guncotton with the manufacturer's name
stamped into it was detonated next to a metal plate, the lettering was cut into the plate.
Conversely, if letters were raised in relief above the surface of the explosive, then the
letters on the plate would also be raised above its surface.[8] In 1894, Munroe
constructed the first crude shaped charge:[9][10]
Among the experiments made ... was one upon a safe twenty-nine inches cube, with
walls four inches and three quarters thick, made up of plates of iron and steel ...
[W]hen a hollow charge of dynamite nine pounds and a half in weight and untamped
was detonated on it, a hole three inches in diameter was blown clear through the
wall ... The hollow cartridge was made by tying the sticks of dynamite around a tin
can, the open mouth of the latter being placed downward.[11]
Although Munroe's discovery of the shaped charge was widely publicized in 1900 in
Popular Science Monthly, the importance of the tin can "liner" of the hollow charge
remained unrecognized for another 44 years.[12] Part of that 1900 article was reprinted
in the February 1945 issue of Popular Science,[13] describing how shaped-charge
warheads worked. It was this article that at last revealed to the general public how the
fabled Bazooka actually worked against armored vehicles during WWII.
In 1910, Egon Neumann of Germany discovered that a block of TNT, which would
normally dent a steel plate, cut a hole through it if the explosive had a conical
indentation.[14][15]
The military usefulness of Munroe's and Neumann's work was unappreciated for a
long time. Between the world wars, academics in several countries Myron

Yakovlevich Sukharevskii ( ) in the Soviet Union,[16]

William H. Payman and Donald Whitley Woodhead in Britain,[17] and Robert Williams
Wood in the U.S.[18] recognized that projectiles could form during explosions.
However, it was not until 1932 that Franz Rudolf Thomanek, a student of physics at
Vienna's Technische Hochschule, conceived an anti-tank round that was based on the
hollow charge effect. When the Austrian government showed no interest in pursuing
the idea, Thomanek moved to Berlin's Technische Hochschule, where he continued his
studies under the ballistics expert Carl Julius Cranz.[19] There in 1935, he and
Hellmuth von Huttern developed a prototype anti-tank round. Although the weapon's
performance proved disappointing, Thomanek continued his developmental work,
collaborating with Hubert Schardin at the Waffeninstitut der Luftwaffe (Air Force
Weapons Institute) in Braunschweig.[20] By 1937, Shardin believed that hollow-charge
effects were due to the interactions of shock waves. It was during the testing of this
idea that, on February 4, 1938, Thomanek conceived the shaped-charge explosive (or
Hohlladungs-Auskleidungseffekt (hollow-charge liner effect)).[21] (It was Gustav Adolf
Thomer who in 1938 first visualized, by flash radiography, the metallic jet produced
by a shaped-charge explosion.[22]) Meanwhile, Henry Hans Mohaupt, a chemical
engineer in Switzerland, had independently developed a shaped-charge munition in
1935, which was demonstrated to the Swiss, French, British, and U.S. militaries.[23]
During World War II, Germany, Britain, the Soviet Union, and the U.S. developed
shaped-charge munitions.[24][25] The development of shaped charges revolutionized
anti-tank warfare. Tanks faced a serious vulnerability from a weapon that could be
carried by an infantryman or aircraft.
One of the earliest uses of shaped charges was by German glider-borne troops against
the Belgian Fort Eben-Emael.[26] These demolition charges developed by Dr.
Wuelfken of the German Ordnance Office were unlined explosive charges[27] and
didn't produce a metal jet like the modern HEAT warheads. Due to the lack of metal
liner they shook the turrets but they did not destroy them, and other airborne troops
were forced to climb on the turrets and smash the gun barrels.[28]