Posted: 11/6/2001 7:22:55 PM EDT
| How come we don't appear to be using napalm in our bombing campain? Has its use been banned or something? |
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That's a shame. It seems to me that a 500 lb bomb of high explosives leaves a quick blast, but 500 lb of napalm would cover a nice wide area and seep into foxholes quite nicely. It'd also stick around and burn for a while, maybe setting of any munitions it finds too. Now think of 45 of them dropped from a B-52 and you'd be able to cover a pretty wide area. At least I think you would, maybe napalm bombs are much bulkier and not as effective as I'm envisioning? |
| I dont think a b-52 ever dropped a napalm canister, correct me if i am wrong but i dont think it would fit. The napalm canister is larger than a 500 lb bomb... about the same length but twice, almost three times, as large in diameter. Nap is for attack aircraft not heavy bombers. |
| lazer guided misles cost millions of dollars! If you set off napalm in the mouth of a cave 3 miles long those in the cave ould not give a shi#. Wait till the winter snow comes, then when the rag head is freezing his stones off he will have to make a fire or he will die. When he makes a fire every aircraft in the us inventory will know exactly were he is. It is going to be a giant free fire zone.[:)] |
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The Marine Corps still has a few Mk77 fire bombs left. I saw some dropped a few months ago at CAX 9-10. All in all Napalm is not really that effective, it ECR is around 5m from the center of the drop point. It mostly a psychological used in CAS, but we have yet to do CAS, but BAI. |
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Here are the min safe distances, if troops are the distance away from the center the impact of the of the munition in question, they stand a 1-100 chance of being a casualty. When they discuss HE bombs, they are refering to standard not proxy fuzing, so the distance would be much greater if an air burst is obtained [url]http://155.217.58.58/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/6-71/Appd.htm#Appd[/url] the MK-77 is a 750 lb Napalm canister/bomb CAS is Close Air Support BAI is Battle Field Air Interdiction CAX is Combined Arms Exercise ECR is effective casualty radius. Probably wouldn't want to use WP because although it is good for suffocating troops in bunkers, the chances of getting enough to do that to a cave is small. |