Judas belt

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some information in this article or section is not attributed to sources and may not be reliable.
Please check for inaccuracies, and modify and cite sources as needed.

This does not adequately cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
This article has been tagged since June 2006.

An eighty round judas belt, the fuse burning, about to start exploding.

A Judas Belt is a very loud firecracker.

[edit] Description

A Judas belt consists of a number of small explosive rounds, each one typically 2" long and 1/2" in diameter, arranged sequentially along a common fuse. The belt is either laid out on the ground or suspended from a tree or wall, and the end of the fuse is lit. As the fuse burns, it ignites each of the explosives in turn at a rate of up to 1000 rounds per minute.

The noise produced is similar to that of a machine gun, but slightly irregular due to the inherent differences between the rounds.

While belts of up to ten thousand rounds have been known, typical ones contain only two to three hundred.

[edit] Safety

Due to the proximity of the individual rounds, it is possible (and common) for an unexploded round to be thrown some distance by the explosive force of the adjacent one, before exploding itself. This unpredictable nature makes the Judas belt more dangerous than it seems.