RE: [SG] Smoke

At 10:37 AM -0700 10/30/02, B Lin wrote:
>Perhaps there need to be tech levels for smoke:
>
>Tech 1 - basic smoke (white phosphorous, diesel on a hot manifold...)
>Tech 2 - Basic smoke, chemical additives to block IR lasers
>Tech 3 - BS + IR blocking + IR decoys
>Tech 4 - Tech 3 + metallic particle smoke to block millimeter radar
>Tech 5 - Tech 4 + active electronic jammers

I've recently started looking at how to safely make smoke for WWII 
re-enacting that's cheaper than what one gets in maritime emergency 
smoke devices. There are a few companies that provide the components 
and discuss a number of books on this topic. One thing that strikes 
me after having read about this is that the Hot smoke that blocks IR 
will be a bit of a problem close to infantry.

When you're closed down inside a tank, Hot IR smoke isn't really a 
problem. When you're a PBI, something that is spewing hot components 
that are still combusting into the air, might be cause for some alarm 
if it get's thrown too close.

Basically the way most smokes work is by ejecting partially burnt 
combustion byproducts or liquid into the air where they attract water 
vapor and make the nice dense smoke clouds we know and love. The 
mechanism is actually pretty detailed in that you don't want complete 
combustion as that makes your smoke less effective. You want a 
cooling function inside the container that keeps the combustion temps 
down to a certain degree. Things like Cellulose are used to slow the 
combustion process between the oxidizer and the propellant that 
vaporizes the dyes and components that give you the smoke particles.

(Now this is just an educated WAG) The "Hot" smoke, I suspect 
probably ejects still combusting oxidizer, propellant and dye/agent 
that burns in the air creating your IR screen as well as the smoke. 
This means that you've got a pretty violent reaction in the canister 
ejecting material in the air and this up near your Infantry. They 
probably won't like having this stuff too close or in and among 
themselves.

Any Chemist types know more about this mechanism and hot smoke function?

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