It's not the volume that makes them distinctive; you can have just as high SPL from small arms fire. My closest experience was a staged tank platoon attack, fi

It's not the volume that makes them distinctive; you can have just as high SPL from small arms fire. My closest experience was a staged tank platoon attack, firing blanks at us. Bone-shaking is a good description, even far away from the muzzle blast - while the sound pressure was tolerable.