Word: smokeless
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...order was designed to relieve not only a looming smokeless powder shortage, but the sugar scare (see p. 70). Most ethyl alcohol is normally made from molasses, a by-product of sugar. To increase their production, however, the regular alcohol makers have recently been using not just blackstrap molasses but whole cane syrup (high-test molasses), thus cutting into the sugar supply...
Grounds for the hoarders' fears: 1) Hawaii and the Philippines, which should have contributed some 2,000,000 tons of raw sugar to the U.S. this year, may not be able to supply any; 2) vastly increased needs for alcohol for smokeless powder (see p. 66) may throw all the supply figures galley west; 3) nobody knows how much sugar the U.S. may have to Lend-Lease to Britain, the U.S.S.R., other allies. But the Commodity Research Bureau last week estimated minimum raw-sugar supplies for 1942 of 4,575,000 short tons, not counting any at all from...
When the potent new explosive goes into mass production, it will head an impressive list of U.S. military explosives. Chief items: TNT, amatol (a mixture of TNT and ammonium nitrate for artillery shells and aerial bombs), smokeless powder (long in use as a propellant), tetryl (used in shell boosters to provoke the detonation of laggardly TNT or amatol). Least sensitive of all the Ordnance powders is ammonium pictrate, which is used in armor-piercing projectiles because it can wham through steel without going off at first impact...
...anxious to make a deal for two reasons. First, it would assure the Army and Navy of high-test molasses, one of the chief raw materials in making industrial alcohol, which is essential in smokeless powder (TIME, Oct. 13). By purchasing the entire crop, furthermore, the U.S. would avoid future open-market competition-especially with Britain. Already this year such head-to-head bidding has lifted Cuban sugar prices 230% to 2.5? a lb., highest since...
...needs this alcohol. Each time a 16-inch naval gun is fired, 1,500 Ib. of smokeless powder, which took 60 gallons of alcohol to manufacture, is blasted into air and even a rifle shot blows up enough alcohol to make a cocktail. U.S. alcohol output is not geared to this kind of shooting. Regular producers like Commercial Solvents and U.S. Industrial Alcohol have nearly doubled their output since March, can go no further because of the shortages in copper and machine tools needed for new stills. Yet reserve stocks are only 5,000,000 gallons (three or four days...