Molotov Cocktail

As a kid my dad had taught me how to make a Molotov Cocktail. While my dad was in his youth there were lots of student strikes and agitations in India and Molotov Cocktails were ubiquitous.

I remembered the Molotov Cocktail because Iam seeing that it was used big time in the recent Paris riots.

Once I had prepared a Molotov Cocktail at home the the results were not too encouraging. I had used Kerosene.

Some gyan on Molotov Cocktails

• A Molotov cocktail (or petrol bomb; also benzine torch) consists of a glass bottle partly filled with flammable liquid, usually petrol (gasoline) or alcohol (generally methanol or ethanol). The mouth of the bottle is stopped up with a cork or other type of airtight bung (rubber, glass, or plastic), and a cloth rag is fixed securely around the mouth. The weapon is used by first soaking the rag in a flammable liquid immediately prior to using it, lighting the rag, and throwing the bottle at the target. The bottle shatters on impact, spilling the flammable liquid over the target, which is then ignited by the burning rag.
• Common practice is to throw several full unlit bottles to saturate an area, then to ignite the target with a lit one. This avoids some of the risk of throwing several lit devices (the enemy sees the flaming bottles approaching and knows which direction to start shooting, possibility of missing, dropping the device after lit, etc).
• Molotov cocktails are similar to napalm bombs in principle. Napalm (short for naphthenic palmitic acids) was originally made by combining flammable naphthalene and petrol with thickening agent palmitic acid, the latter two being the main ingredients of Molotov cocktails.
• The name "Molotov cocktail" is derived from Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, a Soviet politician who was the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs (Foreign Minister) of the Soviet Union, with an ironic reference to the 1930s fashion for pre-dinner "cocktails". During the buildup to World War II, when Finland refused to surrender some land to the Soviet Union, the Soviets invaded. The poorly-equipped and heavily-outnumbered Finnish Army, facing Red Army tanks in what came to be known as the Winter War, borrowed an improvised incendiary device from the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War; in that conflict, the Church- and Axis-backed Nationalists under General Francisco Franco had used the weapon against Soviet T-26 tanks supporting the Spanish Republicans in a failed 1936 Soviet assault near Toledo, 30 km from Madrid[1].

When Molotov claimed in radio broadcasts that the Soviet Union was not dropping bombs but rather delivering food to the starving Finns, the Finns responded by saluting the advancing tanks with "Molotov cocktails."

Practical Mistakes committed while handling Molotov cocktail

The easy construction of a Molotov cocktail makes it a standard weapon of guerrilla warfare and violent rioters, but it can be challenging for an amateur to make an effective device. The most common failure is in over-filling the bottle, as a full bottle will not ignite quickly when it breaks on impact (although it has a longer burning potential). For a device to explode rapidly on impact, the bottle should be only one-half to two-thirds full. Another common mistake is failing to wipe down the bottle, which removes flammable residue, prior to lighting the rag. Yet another error is to use the ignition rag directly to stopper the bottle. Other common difficulties include failing to make an airtight seal with the stopper to prevent escaping fumes, a too-long or too-loosely secured ignition rag, using an inappropriate bottle (e.g., short-necked, wide-mouthed, too fragile, or too tough), and above all, mishandling after the rag is ignited.