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Torpedo juice: Legendary, illegal WWII liquor drunk in Alaska and the world

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Re: Torpedo juice: Legendary, illegal WWII liquor drunk in Alaska and the world

#11

Post by russell_h »

namanyayg wrote: post #8
natmaka wrote: post #7

In France, around 1985, an old man said to me that just after WW2 he was, as a French soldier, working in Germany in some airfield or military site which was then used to host Allied soldiers of various nationalities. They had a problem with Soviet soldiers dying due to some poisonous/toxic substance they consumed. It lasted for days, maybe weeks. Nobody had a clue. Then they realized that some/many Soviet soldiers h…

Why were people even drinking jet fuel? Did it have any psychotropic effects?

I read somewhere that some Soviet jets used huge quantities of alcohol for cooling.

Re: Torpedo juice: Legendary, illegal WWII liquor drunk in Alaska and the world

#12

Post by echoangle »

russell_h wrote: post #11
namanyayg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why were people even drinking jet fuel? Did it have any psychotropic effects?

I read somewhere that some Soviet jets used huge quantities of alcohol for cooling.

Specifically the Tu-22 is known for this.

Re: Torpedo juice: Legendary, illegal WWII liquor drunk in Alaska and the world

#13

Post by killingtime74 »

ranger207 wrote: post #4

There's a story from the USS Drum (now a museum ship in Mobile, Alabama) that the skipper eventually gave up trying to get his crew to stop drinking the torpedo juice, and just ordered them to leave enough alcohol for a 1,500 yard range (out of 4,500yd or 9,000yd at slower speeds). Their success rate actually went up as a result, because they were making shots from much closer in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZQ-…

That's good leadership

Re: Torpedo juice: Legendary, illegal WWII liquor drunk in Alaska and the world

#14

Post by nicbou »

natmaka wrote: post #7

In France, around 1985, an old man said to me that just after WW2 he was, as a French soldier, working in Germany in some airfield or military site which was then used to host Allied soldiers of various nationalities. They had a problem with Soviet soldiers dying due to some poisonous/toxic substance they consumed. It lasted for days, maybe weeks. Nobody had a clue. Then they realized that some/many Soviet soldiers h…

I read the same story from Anthony Beevor’s book about the battle of Berlin, although I think it was a different chemical. The Red Army seemed to have a drinking problem.

Re: Torpedo juice: Legendary, illegal WWII liquor drunk in Alaska and the world

#15

Post by CoastalCoder »

gadtfly wrote: post #6

See also the Mark 14 torpedo, the primary American torpedo in WWII, which didn't actually work for the first 2 years of the war because they had never bothered to actually test it because it would be too expensive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo

There's a building at NUWC Division Newport that's designed to survive a direct hit from a 500 lb bomb.

The joke is they had to build it to survive attack from Navy crews that were livid about the quality of the torpedoes built there.

Re: Torpedo juice: Legendary, illegal WWII liquor drunk in Alaska and the world

#16

Post by kleton »

cyberax wrote: post #9
m463 wrote: post #3

"American torpedoes utilized 180-proof ethyl alcohol as fuel for the miniature steam engines that drove them toward their targets." I wonder if this was by design ... I think isopropyl alcohol is probably generally available/popular only because it is not drinkable.

Ethyl alcohol is _cheap_. You literally need just a bunch of sugar, yeast, and a still. Straightforward, low-tech, and safe. Isopropyl alcohol needs to be synthesized from acetone, which itself is synthesized.

Acetone–butanol–ethanol fermentation was itself a critical WWI technology, as cordite required acetone. That fermentation process requires only sugars and an acetobutylicum strain. The first president of Israel developed this process.

Re: Torpedo juice: Legendary, illegal WWII liquor drunk in Alaska and the world

#17

Post by rob74 »

TIL:

> Alcohol proof (usually termed simply "proof" in relation to a beverage) is a measure of the content of ethanol (alcohol) in an alcoholic beverage. The term was originally used in England and from 1816 was equal to about 1.75 times the percentage of alcohol by volume (ABV).

(from Wikipedia)

Re: Torpedo juice: Legendary, illegal WWII liquor drunk in Alaska and the world

#18

Post by natmaka »

genocidicbunny wrote: post #10
namanyayg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why were people even drinking jet fuel? Did it have any psychotropic effects?

My guess: jet fuel is commonly kerosene, which if ingested (especially at somewhat palatable dilutions) will majorly fuck you up, but with effects that can somewhat mimic being drunk. That said, it's also going to fry your liver, kidneys, and pretty much anything else, but if you were already a conscript that spent 26 hours a day in a state somewhere between unconscious and drunk, a little kerosene nightcap might be…

Indeed! The man who told me this did not know the reason but his hypothesis was indeed that they wanted to get drunk.

Thank you for the details. I heard about Russian women hiding their perfumes for men not to find (and drink) them...

Re: Torpedo juice: Legendary, illegal WWII liquor drunk in Alaska and the world

#19

Post by rightbyte »

genocidicbunny wrote: post #10
namanyayg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why were people even drinking jet fuel? Did it have any psychotropic effects?

My guess: jet fuel is commonly kerosene, which if ingested (especially at somewhat palatable dilutions) will majorly fuck you up, but with effects that can somewhat mimic being drunk. That said, it's also going to fry your liver, kidneys, and pretty much anything else, but if you were already a conscript that spent 26 hours a day in a state somewhere between unconscious and drunk, a little kerosene nightcap might be…

It is funny how putting on a uniform instantly makes you ... stupid. It is like a part of your brain shuts off. The social behaviour regress to like 5th grade in adult men.

Like of someone tells you you tie your shoes in the wrong way you become a child mentally or something.

Re: Torpedo juice: Legendary, illegal WWII liquor drunk in Alaska and the world

#20

Post by natmaka »

russell_h wrote: post #11
namanyayg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why were people even drinking jet fuel? Did it have any psychotropic effects?

I read somewhere that some Soviet jets used huge quantities of alcohol for cooling.

Some did, however there were no Soviet jets at the time of this story.
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