Napalm

Napalm is a very hot fuel.

It is made by mixing fuel with a powder. This makes the fuel thick and sticky. It sticks to things when it burns. It also burns for a long time.

Scientists first made it in 1942. They worked at a school called Harvard.

They wanted a new way to make fuel. They used this fuel in many wars. It was used from planes and on the ground.

It can be very dangerous to people. This is a very serious thing.

Napalm is a very hot fuel. It is made by mixing a gelling agent with fuel. A gelling agent is a substance that makes a liquid thick. This mixture is very sticky. It stays on things while it burns.

Chemists first made napalm in 1942. A team led by Louis Fieser worked at Harvard University. They needed a new way to make fuel. At that time, natural rubber was hard to find. They made a brown powder to mix with gasoline. This powder made the fuel thick and sticky.

Soldiers used napalm in many wars. They used it in World War II and the Korean War. They also used it in the Vietnam War.

It can be dropped from planes in bombs. It can also be used in flamethrowers on the ground. This can happen from tanks or boats.

Napalm is very dangerous. It can cause severe burns to people. It also uses up the air when it burns. This can make it hard for people to breathe. Because it can hurt civilians, international laws now limit its use.

Napalm is a special kind of fuel used to start fires. It is an incendiary mixture, which means it is made to burn. To make it, people mix a gelling agent with a volatile petrochemical. A petrochemical is a substance like gasoline or diesel fuel. The gelling agent makes the liquid thick and sticky. This allows the fuel to stick to targets while it burns. It also burns for a longer time than regular gasoline.

This thick fuel works differently than plain gasoline. If you throw plain gasoline, it creates a big, blooming fireball. Napalm is different because it can be projected in a solid stream. This allows it to carry much further through the air. Because it is so sticky, it adheres to whatever it touches. It can even flow into deep places like foxholes, tunnels, or ditches. This makes it a very effective tool for military use.

Scientists first created this mixture during World War II. A team of chemists led by Louis Fieser worked at Harvard University. They were working in a secret laboratory in 1942. At that time, there was a shortage of natural rubber. This happened because the Japanese army captured rubber plantations in places like Malaya and Vietnam. Researchers needed a new way to make thick fuel without using scarce rubber. On July 4, 1942, they held the first test near Harvard's Ohiri Field.

Napalm has been used in many different wars over the years. During World War II, it was used in many air raids on Japanese cities. A 1946 report says 40,000 tons of M69 napalm bombs were dropped on Japan. It was also used heavily during the Korean War and the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, about 388,000 short tons of napalm bombs were dropped between 1963 and 1973. Soldiers used it from planes, tanks, ships, and even infantry flamethrowers.

Because napalm is so powerful, it is very controversial. It can cause severe burns to people who are near it. When it burns, it also uses up the oxygen in the air. This can lead to people losing consciousness or having trouble breathing. Because of these dangers, international laws were created to protect people. In 1980, a United Nations rule was made to ban using napalm against civilian populations. Today, the U.S. military uses Mark 77 bombs as a successor to napalm.

Napalm is a specific type of incendiary mixture designed to burn intensely. An incendiary is a substance used to start or spread fires. To create napalm, chemists combine a gelling agent with a volatile petrochemical, such as gasoline or diesel fuel. The term "napalm" is actually a portmanteau, which is a word made by joining parts of two other words. It comes from the names of its original thickening agents: naphthenic acid and palmitic acid. This mixture is much more effective for certain tasks than plain gasoline. While gasoline creates a brief, blooming fireball, napalm can be projected in a solid, coherent stream. This allows it to travel much longer distances through the air.

The mechanism of napalm relies on its unique physical properties. Because the gelling agent thickens the fuel, the substance becomes extremely sticky. When it is ignited, it adheres to whatever surface it touches. This allows the fire to stay in one place and burn for a longer duration than liquid fuel. Napalm also has the ability to flow into difficult spaces. It can move into foxholes, tunnels, bunkers, and even irrigation ditches. Once inside these shelters, the substance continues to burn. Some versions of the mix even included phosphorus to help the fuel penetrate deeply into organic material.

The development of napalm was driven by a shortage of natural resources during World War II. In the early 1940s, the Allied forces used jellied gasoline, but they relied on latex to create these mixtures. Natural rubber became very scarce after the Japanese army captured rubber plantations in Malaya, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand. This shortage forced scientists at companies like DuPont and Standard Oil, along with researchers at Harvard University, to find alternatives. A team of chemists led by Louis Fieser worked in a secret laboratory at Harvard to develop a synthetic version. By April 1942, they had created a brown, dry powder. This powder was not sticky on its own, but it turned into a highly flammable gel when mixed with gasoline. The first official test occurred on July 4, 1942, near Harvard's Ohiri Field.

Napalm saw widespread military use throughout the twentieth century. Its first combat use was in August 1943 during the Allied invasion of Sicily. During World War II, two-thirds of all napalm bombs were used in the Pacific War. These were often used against fortifications on islands like Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. A 1946 report from the National Defense Research Council stated that 40,000 tons of M69 napalm bombs were dropped on Japan. This caused damage to 64 cities and resulted in more deaths than the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The substance was also used during the Korean War to provide close air support for ground troops.

The Vietnam War marked a period of intense and heavy use of napalm. Between 1963 and 1973, the United States dropped approximately 388,000 short tons of napalm bombs in the region. The military used it against many different targets, including tanks, buildings, and even railroad tunnels. Beyond the physical destruction, the substance had a psychological effect on both soldiers and civilians. It was deployed from various platforms, including aircraft, tanks, ships, and infantry flamethrowers. One example of this was the use of "Zippo" riverboats in the Navy.

Because of its intense heat and chemical nature, napalm is extremely dangerous to living things. It causes severe burns upon contact. When the mixture burns, it undergoes a process called deoxygenation, which means it removes oxygen from the surrounding air. This can lead to asphyxiation, which is the inability to breathe, or carbon monoxide poisoning. Even people in undamaged shelters can suffer from hyperthermia, which is an extreme rise in body temperature, or smoke exposure. The intense heat is so strong that it can even be conducted through the metal armor of fighting vehicles.

The use of napalm has led to significant changes in international law. While international law does not specifically ban incendiary weapons against military targets, it does protect civilian populations. In 1980, the United Nations adopted Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. This protocol bans the use of incendiary weapons against civilians. As of December 1983, this became part of international law, and 126 countries have ratified it. In modern military operations, the United States has largely replaced napalm with the Mark 77 bomb.