I know napalm usage was quite common in wartime between WW2 and Vietnam, and I’m also very aware of just how damaging the substance was to the people affected. Internal damage, skin essentially melting, burning underwater (cue Phil Swift), etc. My question is, how were soldiers able to, for lack of a better word, safely use napalm without harming themselves as well as their targets?
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Napalm was sprayed at high velocity. As long as you don’t do it into the wind, you’ll be fine. Wearing some gloves or other protective gear (as you might in a war zone) also helps.
So basically the same way they used bullets without harming themselves.
They generally dropped it from planes, that said there probably were instances where it hit their own soldiers, friendly fire in Vietnam was a big problem
Napalm is relatively safe when not burning. So you can load it into bombs and flamethrowers without much risks. Just make sure to keep away from any sources of flames like lit cigarettes or running engines. When stored in these containers the napalm is also quite safe as there is no air for it to burn with. So even if a bullet were to hit the bomb or flamethrower tank it will not ignite and just spill out on the ground. The napalm is primarily dangerous when you spread it out over a larger area, either with an incendiary bomb or with a flamethrower. These weapons systems also have ways to ignite the napalm. Most flamethrowers even had the ability to spread napalm without igniting it allowing it to go further, it could find another source of ignition or it could be ignited by a followup burst but more then often the enemies surrendered after getting covered in napalm and no fire was needed.
Napalm itself,while not burning is about as harmful as gasoline because it’s basically jellied gasoline. Use the same precautions handling it as you do when refueling a vehicle and it’s perfectly safe.
Agent Orange OTOH is a whole different matter.
It is explained fairly well in “The Bomber Mafia” by Malcom Gladwell. The Defense Dept. even built a fake Japanese town to test napalm. It was great for burning wooden structures.
Usually by dropping it from planes in the form of bombs on the enemy instead of themselves.
Unfortunately, friendly fire did happen on occasions. But if used at a safe distance it didn’t pose a particular danger.
It could also be sprayed by a flamethrower, which again is aimed away from the user.
Napalm is essentially just gasoline in a gel-type consistency. Once the jelly fuel is burned up it’s just a normal fire. The danger comes from getting that gel on you while it is burning, because it is sticky and flammable.
In terms of harm to the user, Agent Orange was probably far worse long term. This was a toxic pesticide sprayed on the forests and water, and soldiers who deployed it or were exposed to it on the ground experienced high rates of cancer.
A lot of people have already mentioned that it was mostly dropped from planes and that’s absolutely correct.
I’ll assume your not talking about that and are thinking more in line with soldiers using flamethrowers. And the answer there is that flamethrowers have a LOT more reach than you would expect, up to about 50 yards. which is about the same effective range as a handgun in the have of a well trained marksman. 99% of the fire is far enough away from the person holding the flamethrower that they’re not in any real danger from it
With bombs, mostly.
Napalm was primarily used for fireboming a large area.
Where it did see use in close range you’re mostly talking about flamethrowers, personal or vehicle mounted, which use a mixture with more gasoline to thin it out a bit more and make it readily sprayable. In which case….stay behind the spray.
Friendly fire was a big issue in Vietnam.
Napalm is a gel rather than a liquid or aerosol. That was its major innovation.
Gel adheres to itself. This self adherence makes it burn slower as the outer layer of gel has to burn before the inner layers can burn. The self adherence also reduces the drag cross section and makes it able to be thrown further and less affected by wind.
Older liquid and aerosol flamethrowers tended to burn very fast and not travel very far, which led to a big cloud of burning material close to the user, which made it dangerous for the user. Napalm solved those problems and made it safer for the user.
Napalm attacks would be called in via air strikes and these would be requested where Americans either couldn’t go or suspected were heavily filled with enemy, usually to deliberately torch the area so troops could then possibly go. But American soldiers definitely did not go unscathed, In the battle for LZXRAY napalm was dropped 1st Air Cav’s positions in a friendly fire incident. Many suffer side effects today from napalm exposure.
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