Newsgroups: sci.military
From: ahahma@utu.fi (Arno Hahma)
Subject: Re: Sugar-powered 16" guns
Message-ID: <1992Jul10.023243.23473@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM>
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1992 02:32:43 GMT

From ahahma@utu.fi (Arno Hahma)

In article <1992Jul6.221648.27955@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM>
military@cbnews.att.com writes:

>>|"One shot from a 16-inch gun consumes 1,500 pounds of sugar
>>Could someone explain this quote to me?  They made explosives from sugar?

>Not directly.  I'm not absolutely positive (I had hoped someone else would
>answer this) but I believe the sugar is used to make alcohol which is
>needed for manufacturing the explosive or propellant.

That is right, one such shot might well require that much alcohol to
be made. In other words, if you need 300 kg of alcohol, it means you
need about 700 kg of sugar to make the alcohol. Alcohol is used as a
solvent for smokeless powder manufacture (ether-alcohol mixture; ether
is made from alcohol as well). Not all of the solvent mixture can be
recovered.

>Bill Thacker   Moderator, sci.military  military-request@att.att.com
>(614) 860-5294      Send submissions to military@att.att.com

ArNO
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