trackend said:
The most common form of incendairy charge is Thermit which is used extensively nowdays for welding rail track and it gets pretty warm Ive seen a shovel melted through in less than half a second
"Thermite" is a mixture of 8 parts iron-oxide and 3 parts alluminum, both in powedered form. It is hard to ignite and this is usually accomplished using a welding torch or using a magesium casing (for military useages such as grenades) which is ignited to provide the necessary heat.
In civilian usage, thermite is useful for some welding applications (often for repairs, especially underwater), as it provides the necessary heat and the burning produces very pure iron as a byproduct which if properly setup can fill in the weld.
However, in military useage, it is mostly used to destroy enemy equipment or your own equipment if it must be abandon. When a thermite grenade is placed on the works of a steel peice of equipment, it not only damages it by melting part of it but it also fills the works with molten iron.
For bombs however, most incendiaries are either napalm like, or they are a mixture of alluminum and magnesium and an oxidizer (like barium nitrate), usually in powder form using some kind of wax (often lard in WWII) as a binding agent.
Before napalm, large containgers of oil/lard with small amounts of incendiary metal ingiters were used. The Germans used a magesium/aluminum casingl filled with oil/lard in the firebombing of British cities. Once napalm was developed, it was the favored type of incendiary for city bombing, especially by the RAF.
I'm not sure of this, but I think one advantage was the empty bomb casing could be loaded and then the napalm mixture pumped into the casing in place in the plane, making the loading easier.
=S=
Lunatic