Lupine Publishers | LOJ Pharmacology & Clinical Research
Abstract
The
incendiary weapons were among the first that were used beside the considered
personal weapons: clubs, stones, stone knives. When the human being began to
dominate the fire, he managed to develop ways to use it for his benefit, both
in peaceful actions (such as changing food by roasting or cooking the clay to
produce pots, figurines and adobe for construction) and in other types of
aggressive applications, developing methods to burn the possessions of the
enemies. Of course, fire management also allowed the knowledge of the smoke,
which was then used for at least two purposes: taking advantage of its toxic
properties to dislodge strategic positions (or force the animals sheltered in
caves to go out and be at the mercy of the hunters) or to raise screens that
hid some aggressive movements to indiscreet eyes. It has been said that the
first incendiary agent used for war purposes was the so-called “Greek fire”,
which was applied from the seventh century until the end of the Middle Ages.
Its importance was supreme for the Byzantine Empire, helping to repel the
attacks directed against Constantinople by the Arabs and the Russians between
the years 671 to 678 of our era, but it was also of vital importance to repel
attacks of the crusaders in the XII century. Although it is considered the
direct predecessor of NAPALM, it may not be real that it was the first weapon
of this class.
Introduction
The
interpretation of some Assyrian reliefs shows that in the ninth century BC.
incendiaries were used, especially during settlement sieges; torches, lighted
resins and lighted oil pots were thrown at the aggressor troops. Herodotus
mentions that the Persians used arrows whose tip was smeared with pitch lit
during the capture of Athens, around 480 BC. The Peloponnesian War records the
use of incendiary weapons against wooden walls in 429 a. C. The catapult made
it possible to throw burning materials against specific targets at the sieges
of Syracuse (413 BC) and Rhodes (304 BC). By that time (Alexander the Great
already dead) they began to develop the incendiary missiles and the mixtures
difficult to control. For example, Aeneas mentions (360 BC) that pine needles,
sulfur, pitch and resin or incense were used, which produced a fire that was
not quenched with water but with vinegar. History is full of events and battles
fought in the midst of fire. The incendiary mixtures were improving as the scientific
knowledge was increasing on time. The discovery of oil generated new
possibilities in these aspects, because it allowed to defend stone walls by
setting them on fire with materials that adhered to any solid. It is said that
Alexander the Great once found a lake of naphtha that flared up as soon as a
flame approached it. The material of the lake was distributed along a whole
street and when a flame approached one end, immediately the fire spread to the
opposite side. To extinguish such fires, it was necessary to use enormous
quantities of water or soil, mud, vinegar or alum, among other materials. It
should be noted that the current vinegar is not much more effective than plain
water, but it is believed that in the classification of vinegar made by ancient
authors such as Plutarco, mixtures and sauces made with vinegar and salt were
included; in fact, Pliny mentions that the Gauls and the Germans extinguished
the ignited wood using salt water from the sea. During the colonization of
North America, American Indians used lighted arrows to set fire to the
facilities of white pioneers. In Europe, the men of King Charles of Sweden, in
1701, burned straw to produce a smoke screen covering the activities of the
aforementioned army, mainly when crossing the Dvina River. An incendiary agent
is a chemical or a mixture of chemicals that produces a combustion reaction and
releases a large amount of heat continuously. The oxygen necessary to maintain
combustion can be obtained from the atmosphere or it can be part of the
incendiary agent, which gives characteristics of autonomy to the corresponding
weapon. The heat of combustion of an incendiary agent must be high enough to
ignite or damage the selected target, with a speed that does not allow rapid
dissipation and, at the same time, facilitates the transfer of heat between the
agent and the target.
The
primary purpose of incendiary weapons is to cause damage to the enemy in their
persons and property, mainly by means of heat or direct flame. It may be the
case that weapons of high explosive power cause heat waves and even fires, but
because the predominant effects and the intention of their use are focused on
the explosive and fragmentation effects, we will not address their use and
characteristics. Some incendiary agents are poisons “per se”, while some others
produce toxic or asphyxiating effects when burning. The incendiary agents can
be of an intensive or dispersive type; the intensive ones are destined to
materials and constructions that are not very combustible, for which it is
required that their combustion temperature is very high and that their flames
form a compact mass. Within this type of agents we have the metallic ones
(based on reactive metals) and the pyrotechnic ones (they contain their own
source of oxygen). On the other hand, the dispersive agents are destined for
easily combustible objectives or for living beings; these objectives do not
require great intensity of fire and heat as the dispersion in large areas of
small quantities of the incendiary in combustion is sufficient to cause damage.
Here pyrophoric (substances that ignite spontaneously on contact with air) and
those made with oils (such as Napalm) are highlighted, increasing their
destructive power according to their adhesiveness, that is, their ability to
stick to surfaces during the combustion, for which additives have been devised
that improve their adhesive properties. Molotov street bombs (gasoline and oil
in a fragile bottle with a rag on the mouth) are dispersive arsonists, which
increase their adhesiveness if they are added sugar, for example. The sugar
with the temperature begins to caramelize, sticking to the surfaces and takes
some time to burn completely.
The
incendiary weapons systems are composed of three main parts: the incendiary
agent itself; ammunition to discharge and ignite the incendiary agent in the
desired area, and a propulsion system that allows the ammunition to reach the
established target. Current technology systems allow incendiary weapons to be
launched by aircraft, artillery pieces, combat vehicles and even infantrymen.
For a Better Understanding of This Type of Weapons, We Can
Classify Them As Follows:
Metal
Incendiaries
This
type of agent is made up of metals that react easily with atmospheric oxygen.
The best known and most used is magnesium, not so much for its price as for its
accessibility and its high reactivity. Very generally, to increase its
performance as an incendiary, it is used in alloys, the best known being the
so-called Elektron, which contains aluminum and small amounts of copper. It is
also possible to heat it and react it with water, which generates hydrogen,
which burns or explodes, making it difficult to control the fire. One way to
further complicate the control of this kind of fires, is adding 20% of cadmium
to an incendiary alloy, generating, as a combustion product, a gas that is
twice as poisonous as hydrogen cyanide. In small bombs, whose weight ranges
between 50 and 250 kg, it is very used against buildings of brick, stone,
cement or metal, because the bombs have the capacity to penetrate across the
roofs and explode inside the buildings, causing the inflammation of the goods
contained in the targets. Looking for greater effectiveness, they are usually
thrown in bunches of at least 100 units. Another metal used as an incendiary
agent is zirconium, which has an additional property to those of magnesium: it
produces sparks when hitting hard surfaces. Uranium is also a pyrophoric agent,
which can be obtained for these purposes from the preparation of enriched
uranium to be used as a nuclear fuel; Non-radioactive uranium is then used as
an incendiary, for example, in aerial darts.
Pyrotechnique
Incendiaries
This
class of agents has the characteristic of containing its own source of oxygen,
in such a way that an impoverished atmosphere does not hinder its combustion.
The main agent of this classification, the termite, mixes aluminum powder and
iron oxides. It is lit by a wick and burns with greater violence than magnesium
and at a higher temperature; during combustion molten metallic iron is
released, which contributes to the propagation of heat. It is worth mentioning
that the termite was the most used incendiary agent during the First World War,
and it still remains in use to this day.
The
termite is usually modified to improve its characteristics, by adding some
materials. Such is the case of thermate, which consists of thermite added with
metallic aluminum, sulfur and barium nitrate. Other kinds of termatos include,
in addition, carbonaceous materials that increase the total generation of heat.
The thermats are widely used in hand grenades and aviation bombs whose use
corresponds to that described for magnesium bombs.
Pyrophoric
Incendiaries
These
are materials that ignite spontaneously when they come in contact with the air.
In dry air the beginning of the reaction it is difficult or delayed a little;
for these specific cases a special wick is used. White phosphorus belongs to
this classification, which is very common for burning very combustible
materials. When it contacts the air, it explodes into flames and, due to the
humidity, produces dense clouds of smoke. This last property causes it to be
used, in addition to being an arsonist, to make signals or to spread smoke
screens. Coupled with the above, it turns out that, once in flames, white
phosphorus adheres strongly to surfaces and is extremely difficult to
extinguish with water (and if it goes out, it self-ignites again once dry). All
these properties make it difficult to control the fires started by this agent.
To increase its efficiency, it is common to use plasticizers and flammable
substances of high combustion temperature. A typical mixture of the latter
class is composed of finely divided white phosphorus, suspended in a rubber and
xylene gel. It is commonly used in aviation rockets, supporting ground
operations. A single launcher can fire six rockets with a minimum caliber of 70
mm, and several of these rocket launchers can be attached to an aircraft.
Another important pyrophoric is triethylaluminum, a liquid that burns on
contact with air or water, sometimes with explosive violence. Polyisobutylene
can be used as a thickening agent, which produces a plastic that is capable of
causing severe epithelial burns and which is very difficult to extinguish. This
is used in rockets that are fired from portable launchers. The most common
rockets of this type, are projectiles of 66 mm of caliber that are fired with a
launcher of four tubes resting on the shoulder; they have a weight of 1.5 kg, a
range that varies from 200 m (with millimeter accuracy) to 750 m (with less
accuracy) and a payload of 0.6 kg of thickened triethylaluminum. Upon impact,
this load is spread over a radius of approximately 20 m.
Oil
Based Incendiaries
Petroleum-derived
hydrocarbons are an excellent raw material for incendiary agents: they are
abundant, have a high heat of combustion and generate appreciable amounts of
carbon monoxide, among other properties. However, those whose volatility allows
them to light easily, such as gasoline, burn too quickly, so when thrown away
they are consumed in a large flamboyant but ineffective flash. For this reason,
gasoline is mixed with thickeners that help to significantly increase its
destructive power: they make it more suitable for warlike uses depending on the
modifications to its flow properties; their cohesiveness and adhesion
properties are also altered in such a way that they adhere to the surfaces, the
burning time is prolonged and the combustion temperature is increased. The most
common additive was rubber, towards the beginning of the Second World War;
however, rubber became a strategic raw material for the manufacture of tires,
so it was imperative to find a substitute. The isobutyl polymethacrylate and
the polymethyl methacrylate began to be used; shortly after it was seen that
certain soaps were more advantageous than polymers (soaps are metal salts of
fatty acids).
In
1942 it was discovered that an aluminum soap obtained from coconut acid,
naphthenic acid and oleic acid, is a thickener of special qualities. This soap
was given the name of Napalm (contraction of the words NAphtenate and
PALMitate), a term that has been generalized to designate, in addition to the
soap that gives rise to, all the types of thickened hydrocarbons that are used
as incendiary agents. This soap easily absorbs moisture from the air and can be
mixed with gasoline to obtain a gelatin that varies in its consistency, depending
on the amount of soap used, from a very fluid liquid to an almost solid jelly.
For portable flamethrowers, for example, a mixture of 30 liters of gasoline
thickened with 1 kg of soap is used. For use in incendiary bombs, larger
quantities of napalm soap are required to ensure that the fragments that emerge
from the explosion that disperses them are not less than 100 g in weight. They
are employed profusely in the so-called tactical incendiary bombs, for the
support of terrestrial activities, either against military installations and
vehicles or against population centers. These bombs consist of a thin walled
container loaded with napalm (one of the most used versions is 400 liters
capacity). When impacting the ground, the bomb disperses its content on an
elliptical surface of approximately 120 m in length by 25 m in width; in this
model the napalm is lit by a load of less than 1 kg of white phosphorus, which
produces a huge fireball that slows down by just 5 seconds, but leaves the
napalm burning for at least 5 minutes more. Since the described container takes
the form of an auxiliary fuel tank, a single airplane can carry several of
these bombs under the wings.
You
can also use napalm in flamethrowers (which from the invention of napalm
acquired a special tactical importance), of which there are two main types: the
portable and the mechanical. The first, to be transported by a soldier in the
back, consists of a napalm tank, another one of compressed air (or any other
propellant) and a nozzle with a lighter. The most used model weighs about 25
kg, has capacity for 15 liters of napalm, a range of 50 m and a minimum
duration of 8 seconds when it is fired in a single burst; of course, you can
also shoot in shorter bursts. The mechanical flamethrower can be used as a main
or auxiliary weapon mounted on a combat vehicle. Its capacity is usually 1,300
liters, its range is 200 m and its minimum duration is one minute.
The
most recent investigations about this type of agents indicate that the
possibility of adding napalm pyrophoric substances that assure re-ignition once
it has been turned off is studied, as well as adding special compounds called
metallic carbonyls to its formulation that increase its toxic action in closed
spaces, simultaneously generating carbon monoxide and poisonous metallic
aerosols.
Employment
of Fire Agents
Basically,
the use of incendiary weapons is directed towards military targets to
immobilize transports; for the destruction of strategically important
facilities; for the destruction of centers of food supply or of fields of
culture, cattle raising, etc .; obviously to kill and, finally, even when these
are not the only uses, to bring down the morale of a people at war. The
instinctive fear of fire dates from its discovery by the man of the caverns.
Therefore, the psychological effect of the use of incendiary weapons can be
more devastating than the weapons themselves, because of the consequences
generated by a wave of generalized panic that hinders and even makes impossible
the survival and control procedures that could be applied. The fact that
incendiary weapons are artifacts whose effects go beyond any humanitarian
consideration in acts of war, led to the signature in 1980 of the Protocol on
prohibitions or restrictions on the use of incendiary weapons, within the
framework of the holding of the United Nations Conference on Prohibitions or
Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to
Be Excessively Injurious or of Indiscriminate Effects, which took place from
September 15 to October 10, 1980. It should be noted that publication by The UN
report on napalm and other incendiary weapons was followed very large efforts
to regulate such weapons. It is argued that certain incendiary weapons can have
a very high specific military value, but it is also true that the wounds caused
by them are appalling and extremely painful, difficult to deal with and often
lead to death or permanent deformations and incapacities, without counting the
serious psychological traumas that leave as a sequel in the victims. The
aforementioned report concludes that the use of these weapons must be
considered to cause unnecessary suffering. Therefore, there is a tendency
towards a complete and absolute prohibition rather than a limited prohibition,
which lends itself more to violation than to compliance with the norm. This has
happened in different parts of the world: Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Chechnya, Afghanistan, Syria, etc. It has come to the cynical extreme to say
that bombs with white phosphorus are used not as incendiary weapons but as a
method of night lighting! If this type of weapon is totally and absolutely
banned, the road for its control and destruction is facilitated, that is, the
road to disarmament is cleared and paving stones are laid to pave the avenue of
peace. Hopefully we can see it soon, for the good of all humanity.
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