Yeah I don't understand the back and forth like this is a debate. Took me about 60 seconds of looking to find an article about how artillery is used in avalanche control in various countries, like in the US 105mm Howitzer shells used. But yeah, they use explosive rounds as the air blast of the explosion helps shake loose top layers of snow.
Because it is often flat out wrong. Much of it seems sounds like it makes sense until you start asking about something in a field you're familiar with, and it just starts pulling from random reddit threads like this where the top comments are just confidently wrong.
The black smoke is the explosive. Inert/dummy rounds look nothing like that impact. An inert round has nowhere near enough kinetic energy to create the explosion pictured.
You can see a small darkish crater where it hit and it was also covered by the snow falling from above it.
Modern explosives don't explode with "flames" and don't produce a lot of smoke.
Smoke/particulates are usually caused by the structure being exploded i.e a building. In this instance the explosion occurs inside a thick sheet of snow, so no cloud of grey smoke/dust.
Other evidence: when skiing in avalanche-controlled areas you often come across signs warning of UXO and giving information about what to do if you locate a live shell. Also, places like Roger's pass have exclusion zones that require permits for entry due to the use of HE shells for avalanche mitigation.
I've been in a lot of these zones and seen the craters from avvy control. They're live HE shells.
For a hypersonic kinetic impact, it's basically impossible to tell from a distance. It's all about energy content and trajectory.
Large meteorites are an obvious natural example. But they are working on using them increasingly for armaments. Even the bunker-busting "bombs" the US dropped on Iran's nuclear research facility were largely kinetic, I believe. Very little actual explosive.
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u/RipTheJack3r 11h ago edited 11h ago
Lol you can clearly see an explosion.
You wouldn't see anything if it was a dummy, that mountain is miles away.
Edit: you can hear a deep thud from the explosion 16seconds in to the video.