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 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.
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