Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: howard@cos.com (Howard C. Berkowitz)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Napalm
Message-ID: <8232@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 13 Jul 89 03:09:25 GMT
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
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From: howard@cos.com (Howard C. Berkowitz)
Some of the group discussion about napalm has used it as a synonym
for any incendiary gel.  Yes, of course, that is the common practice,
but some detail might be useful here.

Napalm is a gelling agent developed in 1942 by a group led by Louis
Fieser (of organic chemistry textbook fame).  The name comes from
two of its major components, napthenic and palmitic acids.  Technically,
it is a coprecipitated aluminum stearate soap based on the aforementioned
fatty acids.
 
The gelling agent is mixed with gasoline in various proportions for
various munitions.   It is a relatively, but not completely, stable
colloid, and may separate in storage.   Other soaps used for gelling
gasoline, on a field expedient basis, may have storage lives of only
a few days before the gasoline separates.

I'm not sure what the current munition loads are, but at least for
a time, the Air Force was using an alternative called "incendigel (sp?)",
which was variously described as a stable solution or suspension of
polystyrene in gasoline, sometimes with white phosphorus added to
make the gel self-igniting.  I would suspect the polystyrene also 
would tend to make the smoke more toxic.