Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 257 Methods for Dealing with Napalm Bombs
Of course, if it weren't for the soil protecting Wang Gensheng, at temperatures exceeding 1,000 degrees Celsius, even ten seconds would have been enough to burn him to a crisp, let alone less than a minute.

Just as Wang Gensheng stood up and ripped off the mud covering him, he heard Duan Peng, Wei Dayong, and a group of Marines rushing over.

"Si Ling! Siling!"

Upon hearing Duan Peng and Wei Dayong's worried cries, Wang Gensheng immediately said in an annoyed tone:

"What are you yelling about! I'm not dead yet! By the way, Duan Peng, remember this: when you're digging air-raid shelters in the future, it's best to put a wooden plank on top of some soil. If a napalm bomb explodes, immediately pull the plank down and let the soil dump to seal the entrance!"

Fearing he might forget it later, Wang Gensheng immediately explained how to deal with napalm bombing.

There's no other way. Although the napalm in this napalm bomb is somewhat related to gasoline, its burning power and effect are much greater than gasoline. So the best method is to isolate it with soil.

Gasoline is easily cleared and extinguished, so its battlefield effectiveness is limited. However, napalm is different. Naphtha was developed by a team led by a professor at Harvard University in the United States. At the time, the US felt that its firepower was severely insufficient and its ammunition was inadequate in the Pacific theater because the Japanese were too stubborn, rarely surrendering, and adept at covert attacks. As a result, the US military was consuming a lot of ammunition. Therefore, the US commissioned a professor at Harvard University to develop a particularly cheap, easily mass-producible, yet highly efficient type of ammunition.

Hafo's research team believes that this munition should be able to effectively destroy all fortifications and bunkers, and has a large area of ​​absolute kill zone, so that it can cause great damage without the need for accurate throwing.

It is important to understand that the absolute kill zone of ordinary bombs is too small. Some heavy bombs are said to have a kill radius of tens or even hundreds of meters, but the absolute kill zone is only a few meters or tens of meters. In addition, the kill zone is further reduced when encountering air-raid shelters or trenches. Therefore, they are very ineffective against the determined Japanese army, which leads to an unprecedented amount of ammunition consumption.

Hafo's research team later shifted their focus to incendiary weapons, first proposing good dispersion, long burning time, and high burning temperature. This ruled out white phosphorus and thermite rounds. White phosphorus rounds had very low burning temperatures and short burning times, while thermite rounds had satisfactory burning temperatures but were otherwise unsuitable. Ultimately, they chose fuel oil.

After selecting the fuel, Hafo's research team put forward a series of development requirements. First, it needed to be able to spray the fuel over a large area, creating a massive ignition zone. This required the fuel to be explosive, relying on explosions to spray it over a large area. Second, it needed to be unremovable, meaning it could stick to the target and burn. This meant the burning fuel couldn't be wiped off; attempting to wipe it off would only ignite the fire. Furthermore, the boiling and burning fuel on the target would cause extremely rapid heat transfer, resulting in deep burns in a very short time and potentially causing the building to burn or collapse. Third, it couldn't be easily extinguished; water, rolling, or fire extinguishing agents wouldn't work. Therefore, Hafo's research team ultimately synthesized a compound with very long molecular chains. When mixed with the fuel, this compound, once the fuel's temperature rose, became a highly viscous glue that was difficult to remove. Even scraping with a knife couldn't completely remove it, and slapping it off with your hands would be suicidal. Furthermore, it contains oxidizers and white phosphorus, so once it reaches its ignition point, it can burn for a while underwater. Even if it is extinguished, it will reignite upon contact with air as long as it is not completely cooled. In addition, the combustion temperature is increased by more than 100 degrees Celsius, reaching more than 1,000 to 1,100 degrees Celsius. Combined with its high viscosity, biological experiments have shown that while gasoline can cause a minor burn, this gelatinous oil can burn bones.

This substance not only conducts heat extremely quickly after ignition but is also corrosive to muscle, capable of burning bones instantly. Furthermore, it significantly extends the burning time; if a large area of ​​a person is covered in it and ignites, they will be burned to a charred state with exposed bones in a very short time. Moreover, once ignited, it immediately penetrates clothing and burns directly against the flesh. While the explosive force is not very strong—it doesn't reach lethal overpressure at any distance—the spraying of the fuel is highly effective and extremely inexpensive. The US military was overjoyed after reviewing the report, believing they had found a super weapon capable of defeating the Japanese army on the ground.

This substance was later put to final testing in a large pool on the stadium of Hafo University. After the explosion, the entire pool was filled with burning oil. Not only that, the oxygen content near the pool dropped sharply, while the carbon monoxide concentration rose sharply to a lethal level. This means that even if you are not burned or located in the fire zone, as long as you are close enough to the fire zone, you will still die from poisoning and suffocation. Therefore, any fortification would be useless.

Moreover, this substance can be mixed by soldiers on the battlefield, so there is no need to prepare it in advance. The compound can be delivered directly to the battlefield, which is very convenient for transportation. This is definitely a super weapon.

However, to keep the formula secret, this substance could not be sent directly to the battlefield. Instead, it was handed over to Dow Chemical, which found a way to formulate it into a powder whose specific composition no one knew. Only then was it sent to the Pacific theater. Therefore, its specific composition remains a mystery to this day. This was the most powerful first-generation napalm bomb. Once you were hit by the first-generation napalm bomb, you were doomed. It caused extremely deep burns that could penetrate to the bone in a short time. It was also highly toxic. Even if a small area was hit, deep debridement or amputation was required. Otherwise, even if you did not die from poisoning, the burned area would soon become cancerous. Since napalm bombs were put into use, the problem of insufficient firepower in the Pacific theater was eliminated.

Napalm was originally intended for use in the European theater, but since the European theater was also a battle between white people, the first generation of napalm was too powerful and caused humanitarian controversy. As a result, the European theater did not obtain napalm, and the Chinese escaped a disaster.

The reinforced concrete buildings in Ouzhou could also be burned down by napalm bombs. At that time, no building material could maintain its strength after being heated to 1,000 degrees Celsius. Of course, if the thickness was large enough, only the surface would be damaged. It might not be directly burned down, but it would definitely be burned into a dangerous building. Moreover, once napalm bombs hit a house or the vicinity of a house, it would inevitably cause a fire inside the house. In addition, the drastic reduction in the concentration of oxygen in the vicinity and the sharp increase in the concentration of carbon monoxide made this thing extremely terrifying when used to bomb cities and fortified areas.

During World War II, the United States used this to bomb cities. Because the Japanese houses were all made of wood, the power and effect of napalm bombs were far greater than that of reinforced concrete cities. After the explosion, the cities were reduced to ashes.

Nothing will be left behind. The reason why the Japanese liked to use wooden structures was naturally because they were prone to earthquakes, and wooden houses were also relatively cheap.

(End of this chapter)