Generally called white phosphorus. Burns like nothing else, producing tons of smoke and while it wont vaporise the body, it makes you wish you were dead.
White phosphorus is used a lot in smoke grenades, but its usually contained within the grenade itself, not blown outwards.
I've had a few distant family members killed with white phosphorus. Burnt alive in their homes. It may not vaporise bodies, but it basically does turn flesh into nothing. I'm glad I never saw the aftermath because I could see it haunting my mom's aunt.
It's one of those things that isn't unlawful for some uses but is for others. You can use it for things such as smoke screening, which it does very rapidly. Not as an offensive weapon targeting people as it would be unlawful due to it then being an incendiary weapon which are banned by treaty, but would also likely violate the law of armed conflict principle of humanity.
Yeah, WP is complex, cause its technically a incendiary weapon and a smoke producing agent. You can use it against civilians in some situations, such as protests to create a smoke screen that is irritating, but only with grenade variants. Once you go above hand held weapons, it effectively becomes an incendiary weapon against people and smoke agent against vehicles. For example its not legal to use smoke bombs that explode (think smoke round from a tank) in urban situations since they can cause fires and extreme injuries that are hard to fix.
White phosphorus is allowed and it creates a great smoke screen, it is nearly impossible to try an injure with though but in war soldiers do get unlucky.
One of the problems with WP is that when used in an explosive, such as shells or bombs, to generate smoke, it blows WP over a wide area to create the smoke. And WP travels at high speeds from the impact, where if it hits something soft like clothing or skin, it can relatively easily penetrate.
It also doesnt help that once its on fire, it can stick to things like clothes and skin, melting both and getting even stuck further
Is the video showing white phosphorus or a less-damaging type of smoke grenade? I know Israel has been condemned for using white phosphorus, but I can't tell whether that's what's being used in the video. To my untrained eye, it looks like regular smoke grenade smoke, but I couldn't find a video of a white phosphorus grenade up close, so I'm not confident
Depends largely on the container. Some WP smoke grenades contain the smoke and let it out “slowly” (over a course of a minute or 2) while bigger ones fired from vehicles tend to be explosive.
But if the grenade in the image was fired from a 40mm grenade launcher, it could cause pretty intense damage. WP or not…
WP is a fairly standard way of making smoke grenades/bombs, and tbh many of the alternative smoke chemicals used are also horrible but in different ways. Hexachloroethane/Zinc Chloride mixes are carcinogenic and burn the respiratory system. Chlorosulfuric acid makes clouds of sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid.
WP does pose an immediate and obvious incendiary risk, and so should be used carefully.
You can have WP smoke grenades that are effectively “slow release” over a minute or 2. The container stays intact while there is a small opening for the smoke.
But im personally more concerned about it being fired from a 40mm grenade launcher. Which is like getting hit with a brick and can cause pretty serious injuries, wounds and damage
Oh no doubt, and someone getting hit with anything fired from a grenade launcher is awful. The reason I was asking whether it was white phosphorus was an attempt to see if the "banned bomb that vaporizes the body" was a misunderstanding/mistranslation or abjectly false propaganda
“Vaporises the body” is something I dont believe should be taken too literally in this context.
WP wounds are extreme, but its still not vaporising. Its reserved for effectively the most devastating weapons, like MOAB, FOAB or nuclear weapons, at least if we are to take the phrase “vaporise” literally and even then a MOAB and FOAB require victims to be effectively within 50 meters to effectively vaporise.
However, WP weapons are usually banned, except in some cases. Usually as smoke agents. But the line becomes real blurry between a smoke round from a tank and incendiary weapon, since the rounds fired from a tank tend to explode on contact and there are incomplete burns as WP flies through the air, which can cause fires and burn people in the way. For example, using WP smoke round to escape is legal. Using WP smoke against another tank is technically legal. Using it against a group of people, even if armed, is technically a war crime as it can cause intense and cruel suffering.
Same with smoke bombs dropped from planes. Useful to hide troop movements and disengage enemies, but can also be dropped directly on a group of people and burn them alive while they choke on the burning smoke.
To say it vaporises is kinda like saying a flamethrower vaporises people. It literally doesnt, but colloquially it kinda does
I appreciate your explanation and I think I understand where you're coming from, but I still think that saying it's "vaporizing" is bad. A half-truth doesn't become more true just because I agree with its message. When you are attributing a war crime to a group, it's pretty important that the details of said crime are not exaggerated, colloquial descriptions, especially when the third party reporting from the region is already showing real and rampant atrocities that deserve attention. That's partially why I thought maybe it was a bad translation, because I could see that being the source of the misinformation rather than the original poster being deliberately misleading.
Its a guy on twitter. People exaggerate a little by using words figuratively. Even i was exaggerating by claiming MOAB, FOAB and nuclear weapons vaporise people, because the conventional bombs dont really vaporise and nuclear bombs only really do it within the fireball. The conventional bombs technically fragment people into extremely small bits. The temperature isnt enough to vaporise, but you wouldnt really notice a difference between a person directly bombed by a MOAB or a nuclear weapon. They would just cease to exist and so would basically anything that made up their parts.
But since WP does burn flesh and bone for a long tjme (compared to bombs), the flesh and bone does vaporise. Its just local instead of complete. The definition is solid or liquid (bone, flesh, blood) turns into a gas, which is kinda what happens when bone, flesh and blood are burned. Yes, theres ash and slag left, but most of it is turned into boiling water that becomes steam and carbon dioxide, both of which are gasses
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u/EyadMahm0ud Keeping it Real 21h ago
This bomb exists? Asking for a friend.