Incendiary Bomb | Military Technology - Britannica

Ask the Chatbot Games & Quizzes History & Society Science & Tech Biographies Animals & Nature Geography & Travel Arts & Culture ProCon Money Videos incendiary bomb References Contents incendiary bomb military technology Ask the Chatbot a Question Also known as: fire bomb, firebomb Ask the Chatbot a Question

Learn about this topic in these articles:

description

• In bomb: Conventional bomb types

  Incendiary bombs are of two main types. The burning material of the intensive type is thermite, a mixture of aluminum powder and iron oxide that burns at a very high temperature. The casing of such a bomb is composed of magnesium, a metal that itself burns…

  Read More

laws of war

• In law of war: Weapons

  Like nuclear weapons, incendiary weapons are not specifically banned unless used against the civilian population. It might be argued, however, that their use against enemy combatants (as opposed to military equipment) would infringe the 1925 Geneva Gas Protocol, since they could come within the prescription of “all analogous…

  Read More

World War II

• In World War II: Iwo Jima and the bombing of Tokyo

  …strikes at night, using napalm firebombs, were tried, with startling success. The first, in the night of March 9–10, 1945, against Tokyo, destroyed about 25 percent of the city’s buildings (most of them flimsily built of wood and plaster), killed more than 80,000 people, and made 1,000,000 homeless. This result…

  Read More