German use of napalm during 1941?

[davebender]

5 August 1941.
Summary Report to Commissar of Defense for Armored Forces.
(extract)

The absence of cover by fighter aviation allowed enemy dive bombers to bomb and pour down upon tanks with phosphorus mixtures.

Colonel Ivanin
Chief of Western Front Armored Directorate.

Sounds like Luftwaffe aircraft were using napalm (or something similar) during 1941. What do you think?

 

[Matt308]

Phosphorus is not napalm.

 

[tyrodtom]

Napalm is just thickened gasoline, parafine, naptha, etc. jellied by adding polystrene. Sometimes a phosphorus booster/fuze is used to set off the mixture, but there's no phosphorus in the napalm itself.

 

[davebender]

That's modern napalm.

During WWI and WWII various mixtures were used for flame fuel. For instance some types of powdered laundry soap can be used to thicken gasoline.

 

[tyrodtom]

That's modern napalm.

During WWI and WWII various mixtures were used for flame fuel. For instance some types of powdered laundry soap can be used to thicken gasoline.

True dave. One of my duties in the USAF at NKP, Thailand, was making napalm.
There's lots of different methods of thickening gasoline, some are not so safe though.
You can't mix phosphorus with any combustible liquid and expect to survive the attempt though. Some varities of phosphorus will ignite at room temprature on exposure to air.
Mixing the napalm with styrene as the thickening agent makes the napalm much more sticky.

 

[davebender]

David Glantz performed the translation from Russian. In parenthesis he suggests Colonel Ivanin is referring to napalm. That certainly makes more sense to me then phosphorus which is normally used (by military) for producing smoke.

 

[davebender]

A but off topic but....
Army Equipment Data Sheets: Chemical Weapons and Munitions - Google Books

The stuff I used to make flame fuel at Fort McClellan. Add a can of thickening compound to 55 gallon drum of gasoline and you get flammable jelly. Blow it up after dark and it looks very cool.

 

[tyrodtom]

No they also used phosphorus in bombs. Very effective in starting fires, used on vehicles, stuctures, gruesome when used as a anti-personnel weapon.
The onlt way you can put it out is to completely cut it off from oxygen permnentely. You can submerge it in water as long as you want, pull it out, it'll reignite itself.
Small amounts are used in marking rounds, rockets, and smoke granades.

 

[stona]

phosphorus which is normally used (by military) for producing smoke.

A convenient way around various conventions to which we have signed up.

It is used as an offensive weapon by several nations who shouldn't be using it in this capacity.

Cheers

Steve

 

[davebender]

28/32 cm Nebelwerfer 41 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
32cm rockets contained 50 liters of Flammöl. I would hazard a guess someone added a bit more thickener and used the mixture to fill AB 250 containers.

 

[Snautzer01]

see here mixture 30% benzine 70% petroleum

 

[davebender]

Multiple sources state German Army flame fuel consisted of low grade gasoline thickened with tar.

Germany had a bottomless supply of coal tar as a byproduct of coke production for making steel. German chemists used it to make everything from dyestuff to Bayer aspirin. Makes sense to use it for flame fuel if it will work as a thickener.

 

[tyrodtom]

Germany may have had a bottomless supply of coal tar, but they didn't have a lot of excess bezene or other petroleum products.
Thickener doesn't help a lot with a shortage of the product you want to thicken.

 

[davebender]

1941 Germany was short of almost everything except coal, steel and aluminum. I doubt low grade gasoline (from natural petroleum) was any more scarce then rubber, copper, tungsten, chromium, etc.

 

[tyrodtom]

Good idea, run em out of gasoline even sooner.

 

[Civettone]

White phosperous was a common weapon in WW2. I do not see any reason why Glantz would confuse this with Napalm. I gather he merely made a reference of comparison. Originally napalm was with palm oil, quite impossible for the Germans to acquire in sufficient amounts. But if he is referring to something 'like napalm', it would still be far fetched. The German Flammwaffen would be closer to napalm.

Kris