Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!cbnews!military
From: howard@cos.com (Howard C. Berkowitz)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: napalm
Message-ID: <1991Jan27.111625.28845@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 27 Jan 91 11:16:25 GMT
References: <1991Jan21.040347.4589@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
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From: howard@cos.com (Howard C. Berkowitz)

In article <1991Jan21.040347.4589@cbnews.att.com> ron@mlfarm.com (Ronald Florence) writes:
>In his excellent book, _The Face of Battle_, John Keegan writes that
>napalm "contains an ingredient which increases the adhesion of the
>burning petrol to human skin surfaces."  (Viking Press, 1976, p. 323)

Napalm is actually the gelling agent rather than the overall munition
filling.  It is a contraction of NApthenic and PALMitic acids, the
two fatty acids which are combined with aluminum to produce a 
coprecipitated aluminum stearate soap, the gelling agent.  Napalm
was developed in WWII by Dr. Louis Fieser of Harvard, author of
one of the major organic chemistry textbooks.

True napalm is rarely used, as gels with it tend to break up on
standing.  More commonly, a plastic such as polystyrene is dissolved
in gasoline to form a gel, which the Air Force has called "incendigel."

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