Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 258 Wu Qianli as a Subordinate
Of course, napalm is not suitable as fuel for flamethrowers because of its explosive nature.

Therefore, in order to adapt to individual flamethrowers, napalm bombs quickly evolved into new models. Since flamethrowers can obviously spray a much farther distance by spraying a viscous, non-dispersible, and non-fragmentable jet of oil, napalm bombs that lost their explosive effect appeared.

Because the oil jet from a flamethrower is less prone to breaking and dispersing, it travels much farther than gasoline. A flamethrower with a range of over 20 meters can shoot napalm up to 50 meters. As for flamethrowing tanks, which can shoot over 50 meters with gasoline, they can shoot over 100 meters with napalm.

At the end of World War II, the napalm research team received tons of thank-you letters from veterans of the Pacific theater, mostly expressing gratitude for the napalm that saved their lives. It's hard to say whether victory in the Pacific theater would have been possible without napalm; it at least halved American casualties in ground combat and reduced the duration of battles by at least half.

Without napalm, US casualties would have doubled, and more importantly, the war would have been significantly delayed. If the war had been delayed by one or two years, the outcome would have been unpredictable, and it would have been uncertain whether the Japanese or the Americans would be killed first.

However, napalm bombs were questioned for their humanitarian effects after the war, so their lethality was modified. They are not as lethal, but they are still very terrifying. They remain explosive and have an indelible burning effect. The time to achieve deep burns is still much shorter than that of regular gasoline. They are still somewhat toxic, and the burned areas are prone to cancer after healing. It is best to clean the wound and graft skin. The general formula has also been leaked, but only the main ingredients have been leaked. The specific detailed ingredients are still unknown.

Post-war napalm was actually much more humane than the first generation of napalm. It was less toxic, and its combustion temperature was lowered to around 900 degrees Celsius, the same as that of ordinary gasoline. It was also no longer corrosive and could not quickly penetrate clothing and burn directly on the skin. In other words, being stuck to it did not necessarily mean certain death. If you were wearing clothes and it did not fall directly onto your skin, and you were quick enough to remove the burning clothes, it was entirely possible to escape death. With the first generation of napalm, if you did not react quickly enough after being stuck, you would be doomed.

During the Battle of Jumeirah, due to the freedom of the press in the battlefield at the time, a large number of photos of napalm victims flooded major newspapers in the United States. They were quickly condemned by all sectors of the United States, who regarded it as an extremely inhumane and heinous weapon. Harvard University and Dow Chemical were overwhelmed by the criticism. Therefore, not long after the end of the Battle of Jumeirah, the U.S. military announced that it would no longer use napalm.

However, during the Gulf War in 1991, the media discovered that the US military had fired napalm bombs again. The US military held a press conference, saying that they were not napalm bombs but a new type of incendiary weapon that conformed to the general rules of incendiary weapons. However, British experts believed that they were napalm bombs and that there was no essential difference between them and the previous napalm bombs. Later, the napalm bomb incident became more and more controversial, and the US military had to announce that it would permanently abandon the use of napalm bombs in warfare. Therefore, after the Gulf War, the US military has never used this type of incendiary weapon that can sustain combustion, conduct heat quickly, has a large burning area, and cannot be removed from the attached material after burning and cannot be extinguished.

Napalm bombs were actually only used in the Yamaguchi battlefield. They were not used in the Okinawa and Japan. The first generation of napalm bombs were only used against the Japanese and in the Chaozhou battlefield.

After that, the United States modified the formula for napalm. The first generation of napalm was too powerful, with excessive lethality. Someone tried to extinguish a small piece of napalm that landed on a person with his hand, but ended up getting napalm on his hand. The bones in his hand were burned out, and he died on the spot from suffocation. That was an example of excessive lethality.

However, because napalm was less lethal after the war, and the battlefield news environment in Yue was highly open, a large number of Yue people were burned by the new napalm and there were a lot of photos and videos of them running around on fire, which ultimately ruined the battlefield future of napalm.

If it were still the first-generation napalm bomb, this scene wouldn't happen. It would burn to the bone in an instant, and with the lack of oxygen, there would be no way to escape. It would just collapse and die on the spot, leaving only a charred skeleton.

Fortunately, Wang Gensheng reacted quickly and cleverly used the method of covering himself with soil to avoid being burned by the napalm; otherwise, he would definitely have been burned to death. After all, given the circumstances, it would have been quite difficult for Wang Gensheng to jump out of the pit and then run out of the blast radius of the napalm bomb. Therefore, he had no choice but to use the method of covering himself with soil to protect himself.

Just as Wang Gensheng was pondering whether there was a more effective way to deal with napalm, the leader of the Eighty-Nine Lions spoke up:

"Wang Siling, thank you so much! If it weren't for your reminder, the eighty-nine lions would have suffered heavy losses today, especially the grain; we probably wouldn't have been able to salvage it!"

Wang Gensheng nodded and accepted the gratitude of the leader of the Eighty-Nine Lions. After all, according to the plot of the movie "The Battle at Lake Changjin", even with Wu Qianli's reminder, many of the Eighty-Nine Lions' warriors were still burned to death by the high temperature of the napalm bomb.

Therefore, regarding this eighty-nine lion chief who has not yet entered a state of war, he said:

"From the moment you enter Chaoguo, you must be prepared for war. The American bombers will not be as short of fuel and ammunition as the old quail bombers. Therefore, you must pay attention to concealment and dispersed marching when you are on the march. Do not concentrate in one place, or you will only become live targets for the American bombers!"

Having said that, Wang Gensheng then thought of the adhesive and burning properties of napalm, and said to the Lion Chief:

"By the way, tell the soldiers that if they get stuck to the flames of napalm, they should never pat it off with their hands. They should remove their clothes or cover it with sand. Patting it off with their hands will burn their hands through due to the high temperature! Of course, I will also go to the front-line command and tell them this method, so that the front-line command and all the soldiers who are going into the rain will tell them!"

Upon hearing this, the leader of the eighty-nine lions' eyes lit up immediately, and he said:

"By the way! Wang Siling, are you planning to go to the front-line command post? Could you take our Lion's Seventh Infiltration Company with you? They've received a mission to escort a radio to the front-line command post. This mission is very important, so I'm worried something might happen to them. If Wang Siling could escort them along, I would feel much more at ease!"

After the bombing, the leader of the Eighty-Nine Lions no longer felt that the rear was safe. Therefore, when he heard that Wang Gensheng was going to the front line to take command, he naturally thought of the mission of escorting the radio!

(End of this chapter)