Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: allen%codon1.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Edward Allen;345 Mulford;x2-9025)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Napalm
Message-ID: <8534@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 24 Jul 89 05:14:14 GMT
References: <8232@cbnews.ATT.COM> <8518@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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Approved: military@att.att.com



From: allen%codon1.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Edward Allen;345 Mulford;x2-9025)


Kameran Kashani writes:

White phosphorous will also burn under water, making it harder
to extinguish the fire, and polystyrene makes the Napalm sticky
so it's harder to scrape off.  Neither of these enhancements
were appreciated by the Viet Cong.
-- ___________-----------------------------

I think this is mistaken.  My understanding of phosporus from both playing
with it in high school chemistry and accounts of WP wounds that I've read
is that phosphorus spontaneously ignites in air but water puts it out.
It's just that when you remove the water it re-ignites.  Some of the more
rowdy guys in the chem class used this principle to make time delayed
smoke bombs.  They'd put a couple grams in a dish of water and tuck the
dish in a corner of the lab where it could sit undiscovered as the water
evaporated.  Several hours or days later the lab, or even the whole floor
would fill with smoke from the spitting, burning phosphorus.  I also
specifically remember reading that soldiers with white phosphorus
fragments in them would try to get into water to extinguish them, but if
the fragments weren't removed while still submerged, they would re-ignite
when the men came back out.

Ed Allen (allen@enzyme.berkeley.edu)