Chapter 878 New Weapons (2)

There are roughly three types of incendiary weapons developed after World War II: napalm bombs, white phosphorus incendiary bombs, and thermite bombs.

These three types of incendiary weapons and ammunition have great destructive power and are too cruel to personnel. With the signing of the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects, incendiary bombs are prohibited from use as part of the Third Protocol: Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons.

However, let’s not talk about whether the United States, Russia and other major powers respect these treaties. These treaties were formulated decades later, and it is naturally impossible to use them to restrain the German army now.

White phosphorus incendiary bombs are extremely cruel weapons. Napalm bombs only burn on the skin. White phosphorus bombs can burn all the way into the human body, until the bones burn and the marrow burns; and thermite is even more exaggerated. The core temperature of its combustion can reach a terrifying 3,000 degrees. Not to mention steel, even tungsten, the metal with the highest melting point (melting point 3,380 degrees), can melt it.

Facing Marshal Rundstedt’s question, Yannick smiled. "Yes, this is a new type of incendiary bomb. But you can see two weapons, the first one is an upgraded rocket." He briefly explained the advantages of the new rocket, and then continued to introduce thermite bombs.

In fact, the principle of thermite is very simple, so simple that you can learn about thermite reaction in junior high school chemistry class, which is the reaction of metal aluminum with certain metal oxides under high heat conditions. Because the heat released during thermite reaction can melt and flow out high-melting-point metals, the thermite method is widely used in welding rescue projects, such as connecting rails into a long section of rails.

In addition to civilian use, military applications are more extensive, such as loading thermite components into the head of the artillery shell. Because the reaction temperature is extremely high, it is used to make incendiary bombs, which can melt through armor and greatly increase the lethality. In the book "Rocket Artillery" written by former Soviet scientists, it is mentioned that thermite components are used in rocket artillery warhead charges.

Or it can be used to make infantry anti-tank grenades. General anti-tank weapons are difficult to penetrate when facing heavy armor. Thermite bombs completely ignore the thickness of the armor and can keep burning as long as the reactant is still there. In addition, thermite is also used as a weapon to destroy enemy equipment in combat. For example, if you attack the enemy's artillery position by surprise and the enemy is about to counterattack to take back the artillery, you can use thermite grenades to stuff the gun barrel and burn the gun barrel into iron slag.

In later generations, Ukraine's largest arsenal was attacked by terrorists. It stands to reason that the entire ammunition depot is wrapped in thick concrete walls, and there are nearly a hundred soldiers guarding the periphery. It is almost impossible to raid and detonate the ammunition depot from the ground. So how did this explosion happen?

Anti-government militants used drones to drop a Russian-made ZMG-1 thermite grenade from the ammunition depot. Only five minutes later, this thermite grenade caused a small local explosion in the ammunition depot. These small explosions then triggered an irreversible chain reaction, and finally a violent explosion occurred. A large ammunition depot was written off by a small thermite grenade.

Thermite with different formulas can also be made into torpedo warheads, depth charges, etc. Thermite explodes in water and produces secondary explosions due to reduction and decomposition reactions, which is conducive to the expansion and pressurization of bubbles in the water, causing greater damage.

In addition, single-soldier rocket launchers (the most famous one should be the quad rocket launcher that appeared in Schwarzenegger's movie "Alone in the Dragon's Pond", its prototype is the US M202 shoulder-fired flamethrower, loaded with 66mm burning (thermite) rockets, and four salvos can cover a burning area of ​​500 square meters), anti-ship missiles, air-to-air weapons, anti-tank armor-piercing shells, etc., most warheads can add thermite to enhance their power.

"As long as a certain proportion (5%~10%) of thermite is added to ordinary high-explosive bombs, the temperature generated during the explosion is enough to melt steel." Although thermite is terrible, it is not realistic to use it directly to make bombs. Most aluminum in nature exists in a compound state, mainly aluminum oxide. Although the production cost of aluminum has dropped significantly after the invention of electrolysis, it is also a considerable investment to use tons of it for one-time explosive things.

Therefore, the best choice is to use thermite as an additive to increase the temperature of the explosives when they explode, and to increase the heat radiation and penetration during the explosion.

"It's amazing." Everyone was overjoyed. The temperature was enough to melt steel. In this way, even if the enemy personnel hid in ordinary fortifications, they would be burned to ashes.

Everyone continued to move forward and saw a big hole melted in the turret of a Jackal tank, and they couldn't help but admire it.

The United States across the Atlantic is also stepping up the development of their new weapons. One of them is a new navigation method developed by the US Navy and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to allow high-altitude glide bombs to automatically hit enemy warships on the sea.

The person in charge of this research project is Dr. Bernhard Frederick Skinner, an American behaviorist psychologist, a representative of neo-behaviorism, and the founder of the theory of operant conditioning.

Dr. Skinner chose pigeons as the guidance system for the portrait bomb. The guidance principle comes from the conditioned reflex of animals. Dr. Skinner believes that pigeons have a good judgment of targets. The pigeons are placed in a special small cage inside the bomb. The cage is equipped with a screen, which is similar to the touch screen of mobile phones in later generations. When the mark appears on the screen, the current generated on the screen according to the direction of the pigeon's pecking is used to control the flight trajectory of the bomb, thereby achieving the purpose of guidance.

After the conditioned reflex training of food with marijuana and ship graphics, the pigeons will continue to peck at the ship graphics on the screen to obtain food, and the fastest can reach 10,000 times in 45 minutes. This frequency is enough to guide the glide to attack the target. Dr. Skinner also took into account multiple insurance in the design. He put three pigeons in the same cockpit. If any one pecks the wrong target, the "three brothers" will starve together until the mistake is corrected.

After a period of training, the target acquisition success rate of several pigeon groups has reached an astonishing 90%. Dr. Skinner excitedly reported the research results to the Navy. "General Leahy, our experiment went smoothly and we can move on to the next stage." That is to install this "navigation system" into the glide bomb for final verification.

Hearing this, General Leahy was extremely excited. "Great, I'll arrange it immediately!"