What was "Greek fire"?
score:30
It did exist but no one is sure what it was. The making of such was split between different orders and each only knew how to make the next step in the chain. It was delivered via tubes and could be "thrown" towards the enemy. Some of those were man-portable, other were ship bound. Sometimes, you could find it in jars.
The best guess is that it was a petroleum compound but the exact formula is lost.
Source: John Julius Norwich's history of Byzantium in three volumes.
The below images comes from the 11th century Madrid Skylitzes manuscript.
Upvote:0
I am Greek, so I know something about such things. Greek Fire was an early form of napalm that was used as a naval weapon because it could burn on and in water.
Upvote:3
It was pitch/tar and oil that was ignited and sprayed if my memory serves me correctly. It may have had other ingredients (saltpetre, sulphur?) to the mix but it was essentially pitch/tar.
If dynamite existed at that time I doubt they'd have bothered with such a messy and dangerous substance as pitch/tar!
Upvote:5
The greek fire certainly did exist, there is a sufficient number of evidences supporting that, including drawings like this one:
It was apparently some flammable substance that would be hurled towards enemy boats to ignite them, definitely not an explosive however. The exact formula is lost so you will only find some guesses as to what it might have been.
Upvote:8
Greek fire was used by the Byzantines, often on their war boats, as an incendiary to enemy vessels. The formula likely consisted of some mixture of naptha, sulfur, and niter among other compounds. This was basically a Byzantine napalm and was effective at sea because the fire could continue to burn (due to the underlying subtances being highly flammable and not strictly water soluble) even with some water hitting it.
The byzantine war boats fired the ignited substance under pressure allowing some distance to be reached.
More post
- 📝 Where the did the concept of "smear campaigns" originate?
- 📝 During/After the Napoleonic occupation of the Germanic Rhinelands, what happened to the currency in the area?
- 📝 What happened to Hitler's personal possessions and real estate?
- 📝 Can anyone identify these ships? And what year?
- 📝 Were there socioeconomic reasons for the decline of Athenian democracy?
- 📝 Did US soldiers typically keep an official journal or log during the Civil War era?
- 📝 Are there extant rancho budgets (original or contrived) for Mexican California?
- 📝 What are the "sexual causes" for the French Revolution cited in Wikipedia?
- 📝 Has a hereditary peer ever been promoted or demoted to a higher or lower rank?
- 📝 Are states affected by federal law before admission to the union?
- 📝 What, if anything, did Hitler think of the Canadian government's treatment of the Native Americans?
- 📝 Has any real-world culture actually included a "Life Debt" tradition?
- 📝 Why were the Germans during the Nazi era so inventive?
- 📝 Hitler's Dental Records
- 📝 When did the Roman empire start to hire Anglo-Saxon mercenary troops to protect Britain?
- 📝 Which Field Marshal famously used to fire Staff Officers if they could not write orders within two pages?
- 📝 Who was the 18th century French eccentric who proposed the Dutch colonize SW Australia?
- 📝 Did the roman conquerors have directives/guidelines to either integrate or assimilate foreign tribes/folks?
- 📝 Where does the tradition of Christmas gifts comes from?
- 📝 Did the Romans have winter uniforms?
- 📝 How likely it is that a nobleman of the eighteenth century would give written instructions to his maids?
- 📝 After Jesus was executed what became of Pontius Pilate
- 📝 After the First Opium war, Why didn't Britain demand large amounts of territory from China?
- 📝 Why were the workers opposed to Hitler becoming the chancellor of Germany near the end of the Weimar republic?
- 📝 Why was there a "workers' militia" in Eastern Europe but not in the USSR?
- 📝 Was the Volga really Russia's last line of defense before the Urals?
- 📝 Were there mercenaries around for WWI?
- 📝 What is the diplomatic record on President Sadat's 1971 peace offer to Israel?
- 📝 Why did mass production have to wait until the Industrial Revolution?
- 📝 Theoretical approaches to History
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Did Adolf Hitler ever address the fact that his own appearance was almost an exact opposite of what he considered the ideal Aryan appearance?
- 📝 Was murdering a slave illegal in American slavery, and if so, what punishments were given for it?
- 📝 What was the historical context of the 2nd amendment to the US Constitution?
- 📝 During the breakup of the Soviet Union, on what basis was citizenship granted or withheld for each of the fifteen new republics?
- 📝 What was the typical peasant's diet like in Europe during the High Middle Ages?
- 📝 What led some people to (correctly) believe that there was no land under the ice cap at the North Pole?
- 📝 What was the status of Arab Christians during the crusades?
- 📝 What was the religion of the Arabic people before conversion to Islam?
- 📝 What was the purpose of Nazi extermination camps?
- 📝 What was wrong with Hitler's left hand?
- 📝 What was the internal Soviet reaction to the moon landing?
- 📝 What was the function of the walls of Jericho?
- 📝 What was the pound (unit of weight) initially equal to?
- 📝 At what point was the Byzantine Empire's decline irreversible?
- 📝 What was the reason for Soviet troops to withdraw from Yugoslavia in World War II?
- 📝 What was the point of horse armour?
- 📝 What was the first solar eclipse that was demonstrably predicted in advance?
- 📝 What was the role of the Soviet Navy during WWII?
- 📝 What was the plan for an abort of the Enola Gay's mission to drop the atomic bomb?
- 📝 What was the economic basis for West Berlin?
- 📝 What was Japan's grand strategy in WW2?
- 📝 What kind of ink was used by medieval scribes in Iceland, given that there were no plant galls for iron-gall ink?
- 📝 What was Hitler like in private?
- 📝 What is the evidence to claim that political order in ancient Rome was sufficiently different under "kingdom", "republic" and "empire"?
- 📝 What was the average height of Roman men and women?
- 📝 What was the longest a World War II submarine stayed at sea without being resupplied at a port?
- 📝 What was Muhammad's religion before becoming a Muslim prophet?
- 📝 What was the cleanest war ever fought?
- 📝 What was the Seven Years War called at first?
- 📝 What was a plausible timetable for a train journey across Europe in 1870?