I can remember the exact moment I fully appreciated the enjoyment that can come from using explosives... The old car body disintegrated into a shower of metal shards from the impact of the HE (high explosives) round.

The concussion from the shot threw up sand and bits of rock in a gritty, dusty shower.  Trapped between the explosion and the little basalt canyon as I was, the blast about washed me off the tank.  It was as if the steel monster had run into a wall of Jell-O.

All the sagebrush and wire grass in front of the tank was uprooted and destroyed.  Any living thing up to sixty feet under and in front of the main gun would have been killed by the muzzle blast.  It was at that moment, sitting in the basket as I rode through the tank commander school on the desert south of Boise, Idaho, that I realized I was addicted to high explosives.  The smell was exhilarating, the effect of the tank a charm, and the return rumble of the round as it detonated downrange a pure delight.

Ragnar Benson
From: Ragnar's Guide to Home and Recreational Use of High Explosives
Page 109,110, Copyright 1988