Composition C
family of related US-specified plastic explosives consisting primarily of RDX
The Composition C family is a family of related US-specified plastic explosives consisting primarily of RDX. All can be moulded by hand for use in demolition work and packed by hand into shaped-charge devices. Variants have different proportions and plasticisers and include: Composition C-1, Composition C-2, Composition C-3, and Composition C-4.
History
The term Composition is used for any explosive material compounded from several ingredients. In particular, in the 1940s the format "Composition <letter>" was used for various compositions of the (relatively) novel explosive RDX, such as Composition B and other variants.
Development
The original material was developed by the British during World War II, and was used in the Gammon bomb. It was standardised as Composition C when introduced to US service. This material consisted of 88.3% RDX and a mineral oil-based plasticiser and phlegmatiser. It suffered from a relatively limited range of serviceable temperatures, and was replaced by Composition C-2 around 1943, which would later be redeveloped around 1944 as Composition C-3. Research on a replacement for C-3 was begun prior to 1950, but the new generation of Composition C (C-4) did not begin pilot production until 1956.
Composition
Composition C-1 contained a slightly smaller proportion of RDX, but used an explosive plasticiser, which contained tetryl, nitrocellulose and a mixture of nitroaromatics produced during the manufacture of TNT (containing trinitrotoluene, dinitrotoluene, and mononitrotoluene), and a trace of solvent.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Composition C” is family of related US-specified plastic explosives consisting primarily of RDX. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Composition, family and related, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 4, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2990635. The first chronological checks are 1943, 1944, 1950 and 1956.
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This entry incorporates text from “Composition C” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.