Cloning the Ukrainian Fanta Bomb

The Ukrainian Fanta Bomb is perhaps one of the most simple yet exotic devices we have tested to date. We get asked to test out many different explosive devices, and the Ukrainian fanta bomb is bar far up there in the category of wild concepts. We saw the original video that was made by an unknown Ukrainian soldier. It made the round across numerous social media platforms. Wars have a habit of forcing combatants to cook up wild devices through improvisation. So, we did our best to recreate the device and tested it to see if it would actually be effective.

Special Thanks to Bulletsafe for providing us with the body armor. If you want to score some awesome armor, be sure to use the promo code Ordnance10 for a 10% discount from their website.

Music

TeknoAXE - Revenge of the Atari Overlords
*This track is Royalty Free and is free for anyone to use in YouTube videos or other projects, whether monetized or not.*

Track: Jungle Mood — Peyruis [Audio Library Release]
Music provided by Audio Library Plus
Watch: • Jungle Mood — Pey...

Track: Far Far Away — Ferco [Audio Library Release]
Music provided by Audio Library Plus

Karl Kasey of white bat audio – Vice

Chapters
00:00 – Introduction
01:49 – Jake explains the Fanta Bomb
03:44 – Range Preparation
04:59 – Russian F1 Grenade test
07:22 – First Fanta Bomb Test
09:01 – Fighting Position Fanta Bomb Test
11:00 – Final Thoughts

[bacillusrex]

This is definitely one of those "Should I watch it? Screw it, I'm probably already on a watch list" type of videos.

[Bigdaddyslasher]

The small drone warfare in Ukraine has really changed modern warfare. It's crazy watching those videos from both sides.

[brolohalflemming]

My take away from this is there's an obvious gap in the market. Make armoured codpieces great again! Protect those assets!

[SneetyPete]

The buzzing of the drone during the explosions really adds to the authenticity of the tests

[aivarasdarulis]

Making explosives (very often quite damn powerful and often with lethal outcomes) in Soviet Union and countries that once were occupied by it (I myself am Lithuanian and I know how popular this always was with kids and teenagers in ex Soviet countries) was a fascinating hobby, one that was not expensive, obviously very fascinating and “cool”, if you like.
My brother studied chemistry in Vilnius University for 4 years, but even in pre high school days he had interest in chemistry, especially with explosives. All my knowledge came from him even though he never would tell me how to make these things as I was much younger but when you are very keen to know how something is made you will find out.
Low level things that every elementary school kid starts with are those smoke “grenades” out of saltpeter (I think that’s what you people call amonium nitrate or sodium nitrate or sometimes we’d use potassium nitrate), dissolved in lukewarm water and sheets of newspapers dipped and doused in it left in the solution for some time to soak all of that nitrate in. Then those newspaper sheets would be dried, thightly rolled up cigar-like until you reach diameter of around 10cm or whatever your fantasy wants, then tightly wrap it up with celotape. Once lit up, it would provide amazing amount of smoke. Then another one would be old school gun powder (and all sorts of gunpowder like smokeless but it’s not as fun), also adding various metals to achieve certain color of fire or smoke. Then kids would move up to “grenades” :)))) - aluminium powder, potassium manganate (that one was always big problem due to it being sold in pharmacies in small amounts for big money for us kids back then) and sulphur (we would scout railroads where logistics freights would move fertiliser from Belorus or Russia towards Lithuania or Kaliningrad; some carriages would be full of raw sulphur rocks and we would simply pick up rocks of it on the tracks as I guess some carriages had holes in them), and a mixture of those chemicals would be wrapped tight in a newspaper with three dry stones inside to provide a spark once that “grenade” would hit a hard surface and detonate the mixture - this one was very intereting to make yet simole and very impressive. Me and my friends never had any trouble but few kids in my school har those “grenades” detonate in their hands when tightly wrapping that ball with the stones inside and due to applying too much pressure the stones would spark and ignite the whole thing.
Then later we’d come up with detonators and this concept seemed so cool to us and then it was when things escalated :). You know the most basic one, with a tiny bulb like indicator from cars, or a single Christmas light - we’d fill them with smokeless gunpowder or simply crushed match heads. We’d seal the bulb/light with candle wax or modeline (?), connect the bulb to two cables and use 9V battery - I know this is simole but it seemed so damn cool at the time and very impressive.
Later we’d learn how to make I guess rockets (small fireworks that go up making that whistle type sound) from sugar and amonium nitrate (I might confuse names in English for these materials).
What I am saying majority of male population from these countries know how to make these basic explosives due to the fact that we had to entertain ourselves with whatever we could, I mean us kids from working class families. This is why you have so many videos online of Eastern Europeans building motorcycles, buggies, cars in their garages (or at home - no joke), forging knives and other interesting things (I knew a guy who would forge knives in his balcony in a Soviet era appartament block). It is not because people here are smarter or something, it is because it’s one of most human-defining traits - curiosity. And also all this is often driven by boredom or lack of alternative things for youth in more socially deppressed areas.

P.S. It is illegal to make these and in many places it is illegal to even purchase certain chemicals, so please do not try to make any by your own, please check your local law and make sure you follow safety procedures if you insist making this stuff. While very interesting, I know many cases where people lost fingers or had facial injuries for life. I read cases of death even and on the news years ago I saw a story about a guy blowing himself to death by detonating an empty fire estinguisher filled with ANFO-like substance by using some very short detonator.

Be safe

[Jay-lnco]

In the army we had a whole course on making IEDs. Like, out of grenades? Take a block of TNT, a stick, some tape, a fuse and tape. Tadaa! A stick grenade.

[ulfhedtyrsson]

Canadian Goat Mounty here, buddy. Thanks for the shout out for reporting this kind of terrifying shenanigans. It's aboot time for us to get the due diligence for investigating such horrifying media, friend.

Yours truly,
Royal Canadian Goat Mountors, guy.

[mikewilliams]

Body armor may stop frags. But the main artery in legs and arms. Just takes one to hit a artery. Great video.

[robertjewczwicz]

The fact that you have to specify “don’t do this at home, it’s dangerous” when you’re building homemade explodey potions really makes me wonder if saying it will even stop the kind of person who would do it from actually doing it.
But this is a neat video. The creativity and ingenuity of the warfighter when the safety of their home and their people are threatened is just mind boggling.

[magic.marmot]

I do enjoy the humor, especially mixed with the serious nature of safety and showing the chaotic destruction that comes with explosive devices.
Much appreciated.

[terryfaugno]

The delivery method that they used for the Fanta grenades is one of the next generation warfare deals: lightly modified DJI and other civilian drones.

[roc_cave]

You ever seen a bomb as big as a 2-liter?
you could only fanta-size.

[bettyswallocks]

The dummy from the trench with the body armour is still alive, but he’s not having any more kids.

[georgerobartes]

The Home Guard in the UK during WW2 improvised numerous explosive devices including the glass " Kilner" preserve jar packed with 2-4 oz of Nobel 808 or gun cotton, topped with pea shingle off the beach or gravel excavated from a local pit and ignited with safety cord . Another was the ' M Mine ', a cardboard tube with 64 glass marbles and 4 oz of Pentolite set off with a tread on friction fuse and completely undetectable.
Nice to see the old British devices making a reappearance with a modern twist .

[JP-jdsu]

You had me at "the Army ruined all kinds of stuff". Me too brother, me too.

[alden]

You could rejuvenate the targets with white FlexSeal rubberized spray (or similar) then spray red and then white for witnessing. The rubber spray would fill/clog old holes, and the red-under-white would show through wherever new holes appeared. Think of it the same way you would a spray-on detection system for cracks in metal parts. With those, you spray on a penetrating oil dyed a bright color, wipe away excess, then spray on a white colored developer that contrasts with any dyed fluid that seeps back out of cracks. Same concept, but with contrasting paint colors.

[methylene]

13 minutes of jibba jabber to find out what they used for their fanta bomb? No thanks, I Googled it and found out in 30 sec.

[VIKING-SON]

Good stuff to know about granades and IED device's.
I remember way back in 1972 in basic training, during a day at the range. Seeing the demonstration of the effects of a claymore mine on 30 target silhouette.
Everyone's jaw dropped witnessing the effect of that type of weapon. Thanks for educating the public on what soldiers and civilians are living through in a combat zone...

[jlambuth]

This was a fun one to test minus the brutal heat. That didn't help.

What are some other video projects you would like us to do?

[nekomasteryoutube]

I still love that someone called the RCMP like what hte hell are our Mounties going to do about an American blowing up stuff with a license? I mean yeah maybe they might let the FBI, ATF or police in your area know about this and then they'll find out that Oh yeah, buddies licensed, he's good.