>>64127025
Manufacturing smokeless gunpowder involves producing LARGE quantities of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine.
The nitration process is violently exothermic and must be carried out in a slow and controlled manner, the reaction is performed in a water cooled vessel.
If they tried to speed up the process to increase production output, they could have easily caused a thermal runaway.
Likewise, a failure of the water cooling system could cause thermal runaway.
Even if the production of the nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine was carried out successfully, both products, particularly nitroglycerine, are famously sensitive and prone to exploding.
For example, nitroglycerine cannot be safely pumped, so in industrial settings it's usually transported in tubs on handcarts with soft inflatable tires to minimize shocks and impacts.
It then has to be poured by hand when manufacturing products such as dynamite or smokeless gunpowder, so human error is a major risk.
The entire production process is inherently risky. Even in countries with good health and safety standards these plants occasionally burn or explode.
I don't want to imagine the state of health and safety in a shitty run-down russian gunpowder factory that was presumably built by the soviets >50 years ago.
