Operation, white phosphorus filling

Engineering Design for White Phosphorus Filling Operations and Facilities... 

This paper describes the development of a system and facilities for safe, efficient, and accurate filling of white phosphorus (UP) munitions. This new development replaces dip-fill operations used by the U.S. Army for over thirty years, a production method that was hazardous to operating personnel and generated unacceptable quantities of phosphorus contaminated water and gas. The new development, Volumetric Filling, is relatively pollution free and exceeds the U.S. Army s standards for filling of white phosphorus munitions. 

Since World War II, Pine Bluff Arsenal has produced millions of white phosphorus (WP) munitions for the United States Department of o Defense. White phosphorus has a specific gravity of 1.728 at 145 F (the temperature that is normally used for WP filling operations) and melts at 111.4 F it ignites spontaneously in atmospheric air and generates a dense white 6moke, phosphorus pentoxide (P Oc). 

Four types of 500-pound bombs looked suitable on paper, and to determine which was best the technical staff, with co-operation from the Ordnance Department, set to work on all of them. One had a thick steel casing filled with napalm and carrying a HE-white phosphorus burster igniter. Two others were identical with the above except for the casing, one being of thin steel, the other of magnesium. The fourth bomb was filled with a number of small incendiary units that scattered when the bomb exploded. 

The CWS used white phosphorus as a filling for shells, rockets, bombs, and grenades, all of which the armed forces employed extensively in World War II. Artillery and chemical mortar companies hurled shells to set fire to enemy held buildings and cane fields, to drive enemy soldiers from fortified positions, to unnerve enemy troops, to support infantry attacks, and to shield flame thrower operators. Naval vessels threw WP at shore installations on Saipan, Eniwetok, and other places to support amphibious assaults. The Army fired a sizable portion of the two and one-half million 2.36-inch rockets filled during the war to screen operations, to start fires, and to wound and unnerve the enemy. Airplanes dropped WP bombs on enemy installations to start fires or aid infantry. For infantrymen and... 

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