Editing Bomb (section)

==Fragmentation==
{{main|Fragmentation (weaponry)}}
[[File:Ming Dynasty fragmentation bomb.jpg|thumb|180px|right|An illustration of a fragmentation bomb from the 14th century Ming Dynasty text ''[[Huolongjing]]''. The black dots represent iron pellets.]]
[[Fragmentation (weaponry)|Fragmentation]] is produced by the acceleration of shattered pieces of bomb casing and adjacent physical objects. The use of fragmentation in bombs dates to the 14th century, and appears in the [[Ming Dynasty]] text ''[[Huolongjing]]''. The fragmentation bombs were filled with iron pellets and pieces of broken porcelain. Once the bomb explodes, the resulting fragments are capable of piercing the skin and blinding enemy soldiers.<ref name="nfrag">{{cite book|author=Joseph Needham|title=Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hNcZJ35dIyUC&pg=PR180|year=1986|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-30358-3|pages=180–181|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160826084851/https://books.google.com/books?id=hNcZJ35dIyUC&pg=PR180|archive-date=2016-08-26}}</ref>

While conventionally viewed as small metal shards moving at super-[[supersonic speed|supersonic]] and [[hypersonic speed|hypersonic]] speeds, fragmentation can occur in epic proportions and travel for extensive distances. When the SS ''Grandcamp'' exploded in the [[Texas City Disaster]] on April 16, 1947, one fragment of that blast was a two-ton anchor which was hurled nearly two miles inland to embed itself in the parking lot of the Pan American refinery.