An early use of plastic explosives was in the warhead of the Petard demolition mortar of the British Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE) which was used to destroy concrete fortifications encountered during Operation Overlord (D-Day).
[citation needed] They are generally not used for ordinary blasting as they tend to be significantly more expensive than other materials that perform just as well.
A common commercial use of plastic explosives is for shock hardening high manganese percentage steel, a material typically used for train rail components and earth digging implements.
During World War II it was extensively used by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) at Aston House for sabotage missions.
Captured SOE-supplied Nobel 808 was the explosive used in the failed 20 July plot assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler in 1944.
[7] During and after World War II a number of new RDX-based explosives were developed, including Compositions C, C2, and eventually C3.
The origin of the obsolete term "plastique" dates back to the Nobel 808 explosive introduced to the U.S. by the British in 1940.