Word: smokelessly
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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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...
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...
Another new plant at Charlestown, Ind. (capacity 600,000 Ib. daily) is well ahead of schedule, will go into production, operated by Du Pont, in April. And the third, at Childersburg, Ala., will be ready to turn out smokeless powder at the rate of 300,000 Ib. by midsummer. No matter what unforeseen delays might do later, one critical bottleneck was cracked, would soon break. By autumn, the Army and Navy would have a wartime powder supply...