JONNY PHILLIPS: The most dramatic and surprising use of concrete in recent years has been its deployment as a precision weapon in modern warfare.

RICHARD AMBROSE: They actually use concrete to make bombs.

NARRATOR: Concrete bombs contain just solid concrete and a guidance system, but no explosives, meaning there should be much less collateral damage. I feel an experiment coming on.

RICHARD AMBROSE: Bring on the heavy machinery.

NARRATOR: Concrete bombs were first used in combat during the 1990's and they're still in use today. Unlike many explosive bombs which disperse lethal shrapnel over a wide area, concrete bombs contain no shrapnel at all.

JONNY PHILLIPS: We've decided to see just how much damage an explosive bomb can cause to the area surrounding its target, and then compare that to the collateral damage resulting from a concrete bomb.

RICHARD AMBROSE: Now the way we've decided to do that is to line up 3 cars using the centre vehicle as the target for our bombs.

NARRATOR: The center car will be rigged with explosives to simulate the sort of damage that a real life explosive bomb causes when it hits its target.  When this empty munitions case drops on the car from 40 meters it'll trigger an explosion similar to a medium sized bomb.

JONNY PHILLIPS: By looking at the damage caused to the cars parked either side of the main target, we can see how much truth there is in the theory that concrete bombs cause less collateral damage.  First up, the explosive bomb.

RICHARD AMBROSE: Come On

JONNY PHILLIPS: Alright mate. Yeah

RICHARD AMBROSE: Can you take it up?

JONNY PHILLIPS: Right its at the top

RICHARD AMBROSE: Okay mate you ready, countdown from three

JONNY & RICHARD AMBROSE: Three...Two....One

JONNY PHILLIPS: It's going.

JONNY PHILLIPS: Look Out!  Look Out!  Look Out! (Laughs)

JONNY PHILLIPS: Anything but a swear word.

RICHARD AMBROSE: That went my goodness me. That is That's totaled.  Look at the other two.  The other two are done.  Oh look.  Geezzz the windscreen.  I thought that was coming towards us actually

RICHARD AMBROSE: I had to hit the deck.  I don't believe.  Look at the state of it.

JONNY PHILLIPS: I've never seen devastation like it.

RICHARD AMBROSE: That is annihilated.  It's chewed up.

JONNY PHILLIPS: And look at this you can really see where the blast tried to escape the enclosed space; it's tried to blow the roof off, look. Folded right up. If these had been buildings either side of that target they'd have been destroyed.

RICHARD AMBROSE:

Yeah, they'd be gone.

JONNY OOV:

Wow that's pretty scary.  That'd one half of the experiment done.

RICHARD AMBROSE:

Tell you what its now, its time to see if the concrete does as much damage.

RICHARD AMBROSE:

The concrete bombs dropped from aircraft in warfare range in weight from just over 200 kilograms to nearly a ton, now our concrete bomb weighs 650 kilograms, which is roughly equivalent to a medium sized real life weapon.

Now this red car is gonna be the central target.  Jonny's gone to get another car for the side. That's his car!  Jonny, Jonny, that's your car.

JONNY PHILLIPS:  It certainly is mate.

RICHARD AMBROSE: What you doing?

JONNY PHILLIPS: Well I'm so confident that this is gonna work that I am willing to put my own luxury, executive saloon on the line.

RICHARD AMBROSE: No way.  You're mad

JONNY PHILLIPS: Seriously, no no no, I am confident.  Honestly.

RICHARD AMBROSE: Alright then.  Bombs away

JONNY PHILLIPS: Yeah let's get it on.

JONNY PHILLIPS: Right you ready?

RICHARD AMBROSE: I can't wait, I am ready,

JONNY PHILLIPS: I am ready, you ready?

RICHARD AMBROSE: Yeah let's go.

JONNY PHILLIPS: Take it up please

NARRATOR: Will Jonny's car survive unscratched?  Or, on this occasion, will the concrete bomb actually cause some collateral damage? If it does, then it looks like the boys might be walking home tonight.

RICHARD AMBROSE: That's 650 kilograms up there.

JONNY PHILLIPS:  Yeah I've been waiting for this all day. On 3, 2, 1, ....Ohhhh my word. (Explosions)

JONNY PHILLIPS: Rock and Roll.

RICHARD AMBROSE: It's caught it like a ball.

JONNY PHILLIPS: Absolutely, unbelievable. Oh my word that is a stunning success.

RICHARD AMBROSE:

I am seriously pleased we weren't sat in there.

JONNY PHILLIPS:

Yeah, yeah I'm with you on that one.  I just can't get over the fact that there isn't a scratch.  Look.  Nothing.  On either of the cars, on either side

RICHARD AMBROSE: It's unbelievable.

JONNY PHILLIPS: If you compare it to the explosive bomb which absolutely annihilated everything.

RICHARD AMBROSE: Tore it apart didn't it.

JONNY PHILLIPS: It's a lot more effective isn't it?

RICHARD AMBROSE: I tell you what, do you want to give me a lift home?

JONNY PHILLIPS: Yeah I'll give you a lift home.  I tell you what I never knew quite how amazing concrete was until this day.

RICHARD AMBROSE: I tell you its awesome stuff.