what did they use in the army to fuel flamethrowers ?

"williamhenry" wrote in message
...
what did they use in the army to fuel flamethrowers ?


Pretty sure they used just compressed air and regular gasoline. For
something sticky use napalm. Nothing more than gasoline and Styrofoam mixed
together.

Have fun with it. Let me know when the "film at 11" is.

Chris

Hope he's not ****ed at any of us...
----------------------------
Mr. P.V.'d
formerly Droll Troll
"Chris" wrote in message
news

"williamhenry" wrote in message
...
what did they use in the army to fuel flamethrowers ?


Pretty sure they used just compressed air and regular gasoline. For
something sticky use napalm. Nothing more than gasoline and Styrofoam
mixed together.

Have fun with it. Let me know when the "film at 11" is.

Chris

if I shoot video , doesn't that automatically guarantee failure and or a
Darwin award

williamhenry wrote:
what did they use in the army to fuel flamethrowers ?

I heard that dissolving expanded polystyrene in petrol (gasoline)
creates a pretty exciting mixture, but I imagine it's a bit too viscous
for a flamethrower. Why not use ordinary petrol? You want something
which sticks to the target better?

Chris

"Christopher Tidy" wrote in message
...
williamhenry wrote:
what did they use in the army to fuel flamethrowers ?

I heard that dissolving expanded polystyrene in petrol (gasoline) creates
a pretty exciting mixture, but I imagine it's a bit too viscous for a
flamethrower. Why not use ordinary petrol? You want something which sticks
to the target better?

Chris



Pretty sure the US Army did not use petrol. They used gasoline in their
flame throwers.





Chris
All in good fun.

no I like trolls



;}

Chris wrote:
"Christopher Tidy" wrote in message
...

williamhenry wrote:

what did they use in the army to fuel flamethrowers ?

I heard that dissolving expanded polystyrene in petrol (gasoline) creates
a pretty exciting mixture, but I imagine it's a bit too viscous for a
flamethrower. Why not use ordinary petrol? You want something which sticks
to the target better?

Chris




Pretty sure the US Army did not use petrol. They used gasoline in their
flame throwers.

Yes. Petrol = English Gasoline :-D.

Chris

Christopher Tidy wrote:

Chris wrote:

"Christopher Tidy" wrote in message
...

williamhenry wrote:

what did they use in the army to fuel flamethrowers ?


I heard that dissolving expanded polystyrene in petrol (gasoline)
creates a pretty exciting mixture, but I imagine it's a bit too
viscous for a flamethrower. Why not use ordinary petrol? You want
something which sticks to the target better?

Chris





Pretty sure the US Army did not use petrol. They used gasoline in
their flame throwers.


Yes. Petrol = English Gasoline :-D.

You're both wrong. They used benzine (:

"Jim Stewart" wrote in message
...
Christopher Tidy wrote:

Chris wrote:

"Christopher Tidy" wrote in message
...

williamhenry wrote:

what did they use in the army to fuel flamethrowers ?


I heard that dissolving expanded polystyrene in petrol (gasoline)
creates a pretty exciting mixture, but I imagine it's a bit too viscous
for a flamethrower. Why not use ordinary petrol? You want something
which sticks to the target better?

Chris





Pretty sure the US Army did not use petrol. They used gasoline in their
flame throwers.


Yes. Petrol = English Gasoline :-D.

You're both wrong. They used benzine (:


Darn

So what's Sterno made from ?
----------------------------
Mr. P.V.'d
formerly Droll Troll
"Jim Stewart" wrote in message
...
Christopher Tidy wrote:

Chris wrote:

"Christopher Tidy" wrote in message
...

williamhenry wrote:

what did they use in the army to fuel flamethrowers ?


I heard that dissolving expanded polystyrene in petrol (gasoline)
creates a pretty exciting mixture, but I imagine it's a bit too viscous
for a flamethrower. Why not use ordinary petrol? You want something
which sticks to the target better?

Chris





Pretty sure the US Army did not use petrol. They used gasoline in their
flame throwers.


Yes. Petrol = English Gasoline :-D.

You're both wrong. They used benzine (:

Christopher Tidy wrote:
Chris wrote:


Yes. Petrol = English Gasoline :-D.

Chris

Is that the stuff in the lorries with the "Warning!Fairly Flammable!"
placards on them? :-)


Cheers
Trevor Jones

trevor jones wrote:
Christopher Tidy wrote:

Chris wrote:



Yes. Petrol = English Gasoline :-D.

Chris

Is that the stuff in the lorries with the "Warning!Fairly Flammable!"
placards on them? :-)

I've never seen that. The thing I like is those peanut bags which say
"Warning: May contain nuts" at the bottom.

Chris

"Proctologically Violated©®" wrote in message
...
So what's Sterno made from ?

Alcohol.

H

"Christopher Tidy" wrote in message
...
trevor jones wrote:
Christopher Tidy wrote:

Chris wrote:



Yes. Petrol = English Gasoline :-D.

Chris

Is that the stuff in the lorries with the "Warning!Fairly Flammable!"
placards on them? :-)

I've never seen that. The thing I like is those peanut bags which say
"Warning: May contain nuts" at the bottom.

Chris


Yeah. Real scary, eh? A bag of nuts that *may* contain nuts. Will miracles
never cease? :-)

Harold

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 23:03:29 -0400, "Proctologically Violated©®"
wrote:

So what's Sterno made from ?
----------------------------
It's alcohol in an acetate gel. Used to make it in high school
chemistry class. Wino's used to get high on it - the origin of the
term "squeeze"
Gerry :-)}
London, Canada

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 19:15:07 -0500, "williamhenry"
wrote:

what did they use in the army to fuel flamethrowers ?

CO2 and Gasoline.

There are many thickening agents, including diesel fuel. Most common
IRRC is styrene.

Disolve a copious amount of packing "popcorn" in gasoline until you
get the consistancy you want. Add a little diesel to add persistance.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

what did they use in the army to fuel flamethrowers ?


Not to dodge your question, but your subject line indicates you are
looking for a sticky substance. Suggest the alcohol gel used to start
pellet stove fires.
HTH
Ken.

Let the record show that Gunner Asch wrote back on
Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:30:10 GMT in rec.crafts.metalworking :
On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 19:15:07 -0500, "williamhenry"
wrote:

what did they use in the army to fuel flamethrowers ?

CO2 and Gasoline.

There are many thickening agents, including diesel fuel. Most common
IRRC is styrene.

Disolve a copious amount of packing "popcorn" in gasoline until you
get the consistancy you want. Add a little diesel to add persistance.

From an organic chemist I knew: be careful doing this. Styrofoam
dissolving in gasoline is an exothermic reaction. (it generates heat) Most
of the time, it is not a problem. But if you do it in large enough
quantities, you risk a fire. So if you are doing this in "large enough
quantities", use a water bath or some such to keep it cool.
Unfortunately, I don't recall any specifics as to how much is "a large
enough quantity" to pose a hazard. Patience is a virtue, and all that.

tschus
pyotr


--
pyotr filipivich.
as an explaination for the decline in the US's tech edge, James
Niccol wrote "It used to be that the USA was pretty good at
producing stuff teenaged boys could lose a finger or two playing with."

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 19:15:07 -0500, "williamhenry"
wrote:

what did they use in the army to fuel flamethrowers ?

CO2 and Gasoline.

There are many thickening agents, including diesel fuel. Most common
IRRC is styrene.

Disolve a copious amount of packing "popcorn" in gasoline until you
get the consistancy you want. Add a little diesel to add persistance.


History and Composition of Napalm
"Napalm" is actually now a general term for jellied gasoline. There are many
prescriptions for how to jelly the gasoline, and hence the resulting
products can differ dramatically. In particular, napalm made poorly or with
incomplete mixing can end up being very similar to gasoline, with its
attendant hazards.

Gasoline, being a volatile, easily ignited compound with a high energy
density, was immediately used as a weapon in war. In World War I, both
Germany and the Allies used it in flame throwers, but it burned itself too
quickly to be very effective at igniting the target of the flame throwers.
As you might imagine, intensive research to slow down the burning was funded
by the U.S. government, and in 1942 Harvard University scientists and the
U.S. army chemical warfare service found a way to jelly gasoline that worked
quite well.

They found that mixing an aluminum soap powder of naphthene and palmitate
(hence na-palm), also known as napthenic and palmitic acids, with gasoline
produced a brownish sticky syrup that burned more slowly than raw gasoline,
and hence was much more effective at igniting one's target. The napalm was
mixed in varying concentrations of 6% (for flame throwers) and 12-15% for
bombs mixed on site (for use in perimeter defense).

This mixture was a big hit with the allied forces, who used it extensively
in World War II in flame throwers and fire bombs in the latter part of the
war. (The incendiary bombs that rained on Dresden were probably mostly made
with phosphorus, not napalm, but I have not been able to find an
authoritative source online describing the incendiary material.) Napalm
bombs burned out 40% of the area of Japanese target cities. In the Korean
war, 165 gallon napalm bombs were dropped on enemy troops, with very
effective "results".

Popular weapons continue to be refined and developed, of course, and napalm
was no exception. With many more compounds available after World War II, a
safer and just as effective napalm compound was developed. After all,
gasoline is a pretty nasty substance, and of course is extremely flammable
(see below). The safer napalm is known as "napalm-B", super-napalm, or NP2,
and it uses no napalm at all! Instead, polystyrene and benzene are used as a
solvent to solidify the gasoline.

Napalm-B has a huge advantage over the original napalm - its ignition can be
well controlled. Hence soldiers smoking around napalm-B face no hazard at
all. (I'm told that workers at the Fallbrook Naval Weapons Station used
napalm to put out their cigarettes!) Yet a reliable igniter can be used to
start napalm-B burning exactly when you want it to do so. Since the military
would much prefer that the napalm burn opposing forces rather than their own
forces, the military quickly adopted napalm-B, and it was this form of
bomb-grade napalm which was used for aerial bombardment in Vietnam and which
is currently stored in Fallbrook.

The above information comes from the Encyclopedia Brittanica article on
napalm, and from Scott E. Harrigan, who kindly provided me with information
about the various types of napalm as described in Incendiary Weapons by
Malvern Lumsden.

The rest of this page talks only about the napalm manufactured for the Navy
that is stored in Fallbrook.

The Hazards of Napalm
To a first approximation, the Fallbrook napalm is basically gasoline, only
less flammable due to the addition of plastics. Hence the basic hazard of
napalm is less than the hazard of gasoline.

To be precise, the Fallbrook napalm is a mixture of 46 parts polystyrene, 33
parts gasoline and 21 parts benzene. Let's examine these items one by one.

a.. Polystyrene is best known by the trademark name "styrofoam". You hold
polystyrene in your hand everytime you drink coffee from a styrofoam cup. If
you have ever eaten off a "paper" plate made of plastic, you've eaten off a
styrofoam product. The hamburger meat you buy at the grocery store on a
plastic tray is sitting on polystyrene.
Further, your house is filled with polystyrene products, since most
polystyrene is used to make durable goods such as television cabinets,
appliances, and furniture. This is the "normal" form of polystyrene, a hard,
rigid plastic. Styrofoam is the "expanded" version, which is also used as
protective packaging in the boxes in which these durable products made out
of normal polystyrene come ("peanuts" and styrofoam molds). One third of all
the plastic around you is polystyrene.


b.. Everyone knows what gasoline is, but most people don't realize that it
is one of the most dangerous substances we come into contact with in our
daily lives. Gasoline itself is a very hazardous substance which would never
be allowed to be introduced into our society if we hadn't gotten used to it
in the "dark ages" of environmentalism. Gasoline is a witch's brew of
organic chemicals, many of which are toxic, but whose major danger is that
it is an extremely flammable substance.
People die regularly from gasoline. They die horribly in fires ignited by
gasoline in many different ways. People use gasoline as solvents to clean
parts and die when a careless cigarette or a spark ignites the vapors. Open
containers of gasoline catch fire in garages and workshops when vapors reach
pilot lights. We all drive around with 10-20 gallon bombs of gasoline or
diesel fuel in the fuel tanks of our vehicles. These bombs sometimes go off
in automobile accidents that often cause people to die in accidents that
would have otherwise survived.

It's worth mentioning another hazardous effect of gasoline that
fortunately is going away. Lead pollution caused by leaded gasoline was so
large, causing significant impairment of children's learning abilities, that
the Reagan administration, not a known bastion of environmentalists, banned
leaded gasoline and paint! (Remember James Watt, who single-handedly doubled
the membership in the Sierra Club?)


c.. Benzene is already contained in gasoline. In fact, the "natural"
content of benzene in gasoline is often boosted to around 2% in order to
raise the octane rating.
Benzene is known to cause a specific form of leukemia in humans, but other
than that, little is known about the effect of weak concentrations of
benzene on human health. However, there are two ongoing experiments to find
out the health hazards of benzene:

a.. cigarette smoke contains levels of benzene far in excess of any
other source. Unfortunately, smoking cigarettes kills people too quickly to
measure the effects of benzene....
b.. city air contains benzene from our automobiles burning gasoline and
spewing benzene into the air. Because the half-life of benzene in air is
only a half day, country air has little benzene contamination. Thus if
benzene were quite hazardous at low concentrations, city dwellers would show
the effects.
Because of the known leukemia connection, the latest clean air acts reduce
the allowable percentage of benzene in gasoline to 1%.

Like thousands of toxic chemicals, benzene is found in small amounts as a
naturally occurring metabolic product in fruits, vegetables, dairy products,
meats, and eggs. Fortunately, our livers work quite well at detoxifying
small concentrations of toxic chemicals. After all, our livers can even
detoxify large amounts of toxic alcohol for years before succumbing....


--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com

"Chris" wrote in message
news

"williamhenry" wrote in message
...
what did they use in the army to fuel flamethrowers ?


Pretty sure they used just compressed air and regular gasoline. For
something sticky use napalm. Nothing more than gasoline and Styrofoam
mixed together.

Fooey! Napalm is not and never has been gasoline and styrofoam! That crap
comes from "The Anarchist's Cookbook" and other such stupid pre-pubescent
fire-play booklets.

Napalm originally got its name from Na(ptha) and (sodium)Palm(itate). In
other words, naptha thickened with palm-oil soap. Gasoline and soap work
equally well, but the vapor pressure of gasoline is too great to be safe or
long-lived in storage.

Note, I said SOAP, not detergent. An early "terrorists" version of napalm
was gasoline thickened with Ivory Flakes laundry soap.

LLoyd

"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Gasoline, being a volatile, easily ignited compound with a high energy
density, was immediately used as a weapon in war. In World War I, both
Germany and the Allies used it in flame throwers, but it burned itself too
quickly to be very effective at igniting the target of the flame throwers.
As you might imagine, intensive research to slow down the burning was
funded
by the U.S. government, and in 1942 Harvard University scientists and the
U.S. army chemical warfare service found a way to jelly gasoline that
worked
quite well.

They found that mixing an aluminum soap powder of naphthene and palmitate
(hence na-palm), also known as napthenic and palmitic acids, with gasoline
produced a brownish sticky syrup that burned more slowly than raw
gasoline,
and hence was much more effective at igniting one's target. The napalm was
mixed in varying concentrations of 6% (for flame throwers) and 12-15% for
bombs mixed on site (for use in perimeter defense).

This mixture was a big hit with the allied forces, who used it extensively
in World War II in flame throwers and fire bombs in the latter part of the
war. (The incendiary bombs that rained on Dresden were probably mostly
made
with phosphorus, not napalm, but I have not been able to find an
authoritative source online describing the incendiary material.) Napalm
bombs burned out 40% of the area of Japanese target cities. In the Korean
war, 165 gallon napalm bombs were dropped on enemy troops, with very
effective "results".

Popular weapons continue to be refined and developed, of course, and
napalm
was no exception. With many more compounds available after World War II, a
safer and just as effective napalm compound was developed. After all,
gasoline is a pretty nasty substance, and of course is extremely flammable
(see below). The safer napalm is known as "napalm-B", super-napalm, or
NP2,
and it uses no napalm at all! Instead, polystyrene and benzene are used as
a
solvent to solidify the gasoline.

Napalm-B has a huge advantage over the original napalm - its ignition can
be
well controlled. Hence soldiers smoking around napalm-B face no hazard at
all. (I'm told that workers at the Fallbrook Naval Weapons Station used
napalm to put out their cigarettes!) Yet a reliable igniter can be used to
start napalm-B burning exactly when you want it to do so. Since the
military
would much prefer that the napalm burn opposing forces rather than their
own
forces, the military quickly adopted napalm-B, and it was this form of
bomb-grade napalm which was used for aerial bombardment in Vietnam and
which
is currently stored in Fallbrook.

The above information comes from the Encyclopedia Brittanica article on
napalm, and from Scott E. Harrigan, who kindly provided me with
information
about the various types of napalm as described in Incendiary Weapons by
Malvern Lumsden.

The rest of this page talks only about the napalm manufactured for the
Navy
that is stored in Fallbrook.

The Hazards of Napalm
To a first approximation, the Fallbrook napalm is basically gasoline, only
less flammable due to the addition of plastics. Hence the basic hazard of
napalm is less than the hazard of gasoline.

To be precise, the Fallbrook napalm is a mixture of 46 parts polystyrene,
33
parts gasoline and 21 parts benzene. Let's examine these items one by one.

a.. Polystyrene is best known by the trademark name "styrofoam". You hold
polystyrene in your hand everytime you drink coffee from a styrofoam cup.
If
you have ever eaten off a "paper" plate made of plastic, you've eaten off
a
styrofoam product. The hamburger meat you buy at the grocery store on a
plastic tray is sitting on polystyrene.
Further, your house is filled with polystyrene products, since most
polystyrene is used to make durable goods such as television cabinets,
appliances, and furniture. This is the "normal" form of polystyrene, a
hard,
rigid plastic. Styrofoam is the "expanded" version, which is also used as
protective packaging in the boxes in which these durable products made out
of normal polystyrene come ("peanuts" and styrofoam molds). One third of
all
the plastic around you is polystyrene.

I stand corrected, John. I was not aware of the napthenic acid component.
My version must - again(sigh) - come from "common knowlege" (urban myth).
Well published, but not as well documented as yours.

LLoyd

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 19:15:07 -0500, "williamhenry"
wrote:
what did they use in the army to fuel flamethrowers ?

Under no circumstances, use compressed air to pressurize the
tank. The O2 in the air and gasoline in a confined space makes a
highly dangerous combination. Army used nitrogen.

"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" wrote in message
...
Napalm originally got its name from Na(ptha) and (sodium)Palm(itate).

Aluminum soap, as I recall. In other words, soap *scum*! g

Interestingly, these are the same additives used to thicken greases.
Lithium grease contains a lithium soap.

Tim

--
Deep Fryer: a very philosophical monk.
Website: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms

"Tim Williams" wrote in message
...
"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" wrote in
message
...
Napalm originally got its name from Na(ptha) and (sodium)Palm(itate).

Aluminum soap, as I recall. In other words, soap *scum*! g

Interestingly, these are the same additives used to thicken greases.
Lithium grease contains a lithium soap.


Yeah, but see my retraction, too. It was gasoline -- with napthenic and
palmitic aluminum soaps. And, to my chagrin, there are also modern variants
with styrene as the thickener.

LLoyd

Lloyd E. Sponenburgh wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...

I stand corrected, John. I was not aware of the napthenic acid
component. My version must - again(sigh) - come from "common
knowlege" (urban myth). Well published, but not as well documented as
yours.

LLoyd

Glad to oblige LLoyd,
Here is a bit that clarifies another misconception. The BLU 82 was reffered
to as "Commando Vault" during the Vietnam era BTW.
You also might notice that polystyrene is again present in the mixture. This
has as much to do with the ethelene/styrene component as anything.
Polyethylene and polystyrene start out as natural gas/petroleum and act as
an accelerant once things get going.
Frequent press reports to the contrary, the Daisy Cutter is not a fuel-air
explosive (FAE). It is a conventional explosive incorporating both agent and
oxidizer. In contrast, an FAE consists only of agent and a dispersing
mechanism, and takes its oxidizer from the oxygen in the air. FAEs generally
run between 500 and 2000 pounds; it would be difficult to make an FAE the
size of Daisy Cutter because the correct uniform mixture of agent with
ambient air would be difficult to maintain if the agent were so widely
dispersed. Thus, the conventional explosive technique of Daisy Cutter is
more reliable than that of an FAE, particularly if there is significant wind
or thermal gradient.

The minimum altitude for release due to blast effects of the weapon is 6,000
feet AGL. The BLU-82 was originally designed to clear helicopter landing
zones and artillery emplacements in Vietnam. The warhead contains 12,600
pounds of low-cost GSX slurry (ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder, and
polystyrene) and is detonated just above ground level by a 38-inch fuze
extender, optimized for destruction and ground level without digging a
crater. The weapon produces an overpressure of 1000 psi [pounds per square
inch] near ground zero, tapering off as distance increases.

Eleven BLU-82Bs were dropped during Desert Storm, all from Special
Operations C-130s. The initial drops were intended to test the ability of
the bomb to clear mines; no reliable bomb damage assessment exists on mine
clearing effectiveness. Later, bombs were dropped as much for their
psychological effect as for their antipersonnel effects. The Air Force
dropped several BLU-82B variants during the campaign to destory the Taliban
and al-Qaeda terror networks in Afganistan to attack and demoralize
personnel and to destroy underground- and cave-complexes.


--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com

"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
. ..
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...

I stand corrected, John. I was not aware of the napthenic acid
component. My version must - again(sigh) - come from "common
knowlege" (urban myth). Well published, but not as well documented as
yours.

LLoyd

Glad to oblige LLoyd,
Here is a bit that clarifies another misconception. The BLU 82 was
reffered
to as "Commando Vault" during the Vietnam era BTW.
You also might notice that polystyrene is again present in the mixture.
This
has as much to do with the ethelene/styrene component as anything.
Polyethylene and polystyrene start out as natural gas/petroleum and act as
an accelerant once things get going.
Frequent press reports to the contrary, the Daisy Cutter is not a fuel-air
explosive (FAE). It is a conventional explosive incorporating both agent
and
oxidizer. In contrast, an FAE consists only of agent and a dispersing
mechanism, and takes its oxidizer from the oxygen in the air. FAEs
generally
run between 500 and 2000 pounds; it would be difficult to make an FAE the
size of Daisy Cutter because the correct uniform mixture of agent with
ambient air would be difficult to maintain if the agent were so widely
dispersed. Thus, the conventional explosive technique of Daisy Cutter is
more reliable than that of an FAE, particularly if there is significant
wind
or thermal gradient.

The minimum altitude for release due to blast effects of the weapon is
6,000
feet AGL. The BLU-82 was originally designed to clear helicopter landing
zones and artillery emplacements in Vietnam. The warhead contains 12,600
pounds of low-cost GSX slurry (ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder, and
polystyrene) and is detonated just above ground level by a 38-inch fuze
extender, optimized for destruction and ground level without digging a
crater. The weapon produces an overpressure of 1000 psi [pounds per square
inch] near ground zero, tapering off as distance increases.

Eleven BLU-82Bs were dropped during Desert Storm, all from Special
Operations C-130s. The initial drops were intended to test the ability of
the bomb to clear mines; no reliable bomb damage assessment exists on mine
clearing effectiveness. Later, bombs were dropped as much for their
psychological effect as for their antipersonnel effects. The Air Force
dropped several BLU-82B variants during the campaign to destory the
Taliban
and al-Qaeda terror networks in Afganistan to attack and demoralize
personnel and to destroy underground- and cave-complexes.


--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com



We used to do missions that required landing in an LZ that had been cleared
by a daisy cutter. Lots of short splintered stumps to dodge to keep from
poking holes in the bottom of the ship. Made a nice round LZ though.