[TML] Molding Ships

[Charles Prevatte]

> I'm not sure that airdropped napalm would be all that effective
> against men sheltered below ground level in trenches. If the aircraft
> got a direct hit then you'd kill the men in one particular bay of the
> trench. No more. In other words, apart from the terror factor, not
> really any more effective than an artillery bombardment.
>


The whole point of napalm is that you can not hide from it.  If you are in a
bunker underground you still die, just of suffication.  Napalm was designed
as a bunker killer.  Just like with flame throwers, a direct hit was not
needed.

The only real defence against a naplam strike in a sealed bunker with it's
own air supply.

As for the planes, well those would have had to be upgraded first as their
payload in that time period  (WW1) was a few hundred pounds.  Bombs at that
point were often hand dropped, and the fighters were armed with 2 lewis guns
(at best) with a lower cyclic rate than a WW2 tommy gun.  Fortunately for
the pilots of that era they did not generally carry enough ammo to melt the
barrels of their guns.  A common problem for their army buddies that had to
keep firing for longer periods of time to stop the current "over the top"
charge.  WW1 was a very different war from WW2.  Most of us today would have
a hard time understanding the problems involved in fighting WW1.  Even army
trucks were relatively new and breakdown prone.  Many ships were coal fired
steam ships, and torpedos were very very new things that were hard to get
hits with and were almost solely the providence of the Germans.

Remember in WW1 warships were basicly airplane proof.  In WW2 one airplane
could cripple or kill the biggest ship afloat.  The Bizmark in WW2 was
crippled by one Swordfish torpedo plane (a bi-plane).  A lot of the weaponry
we think about as being part of WW2 was in fact not available untill late in
the war.  We started with far less effective weapons.  The USA did not even
have a heavy tank until the last 18 months of the war in europe (the
Panther) and our Shermans and Stewarts took a terrible beating from the
Panzer and Tigers with their bigger guns and heavier armor.  One fameous US
tank commander had 3 tanks shot out from under him in one day.  What we had
was more.  More of everything, compared to the Germans and a safe place to
build everything.  The USA has been very lucky, we have never had to fight a
world war on our own soil.

Charles L.
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