Early History The concept of military smoke screening dates back hundreds of years. One of the earliest documented uses of smoke screen in combat was the burning of green vegetation by the Romans and later the burning of peat moss by the Vikings. In the American Civil War, General Robert Schenck burned wet tree limbs and leaves to create a smoke screen to cover his retreat (click here to see picture)--note:picture is available for purchase at:[insert link here] In all of these early smoke screen attempts, the method employed was direct flame contact with combustible material.   These combustion methods were a bit uncontrollable and had only limited
advantages in combat. Generally, they could only be used to conceal
troop numbers or to cover a retreat but could not effectively be used
in covering troop advances due to the effect of smoke on the advancing
troops. In addition, because smoke is lighter than air, the smoke cover
was only temporary and large volumes of smoke were necessary to create
sufficient cover. Thus a sizable amount of time was required to ignite
and burn the material.WW I During WW I there were two important improvements to the early direct flame methods. One method was the smudge pot which involved the burning of oil by contact with a heated metal plate thus avoiding direct flame contact. This method had numerous advantages over the direct flame methods in that it was more controllable--being a uniform liquid in a specially designed container--and it produced a much thicker smoke than did the burning of peat moss or wood. However its product was still a smoke and thus the smudge pot retains the three disadvantages the direct flame methods: lighter than air, harmful to friendly troops, and taking a fair amount of time to produce. In addition, large amounts of oil were required to make the amount of smoke necessary to cover large troop numbers and thus this method was expensive and involved transport problems. During
the end of WWI, military researchers experimented with naval uses for
this method of smoke generation, and developed apparatuses to fit a
much larger equivalent of the smudge pot to the engines of large naval
ships. These inventions used heavy oil pumped directly into the engines
combustion chambers and created huge columns of thick, black and toxic
smoke that poured out of the ship's smoke stacks. Once again, there
many problems. Hundreds of gallons of heavy oil were necessary to
create a wall of smoke less than a mile long, and the smoke cloud that
was created was lighter than air and dissipated rapidly. Because of this
fact, many ships would be required to make sufficient cover for a
fleet. This type of smoke production saw very limited use in the naval
battles of WWI.Another method that evolved at this time was the chemical smoke bombs. This method produced by the mixing of chemical compounds. The "smoke" produced was therefore not a smoke at all--not being the product of combustion--but was instead a chemical gas. The advantages of this method was that the gas was highly controllable, could be produced in small containers (gas grenades), and could be made heavier than air and thus linger on the ground. Also, some of these gasses especially due to their heavier than air properties could form a thicker screen than the combustion methods. There were several disadvantages to this system, however. First, the chemicals used were generally highly toxic phosphorous compounds, so, like the actual smoke of the other smoke screen methods, this gas was neither useful to advancing troops nor naval vessels. Secondly, the gas could not be produced in mass quantities due to the expense of chemicals involved and was thus generally only usable in small strike operations. Post WW I Sometime shortly after WWI, during the prohibition days, a rum runner, and WWI veteran, named Alonzo Patterson developed an entirely new method superior to all previous ones, but it remained unknown to the millitary until the years just prior to the US involvement in WWII. His invention was to become the first effective large area smoke screen in the history of warfare, and every military smoke screen technology from WWII to the present day would be firmly based on his revolutionary methods. WWII. Before the military discovery of the Patterson methods, early WWII inventions were mere improvements on the smudge pot systems and the chemical smoke screen methods. Near
the end of WWI to the beginning of WWII, leaders of the worlds armies
employed their greatest minds in to develop new and better methods of
making smoke. In fact, the United States employed Thomas Edison as head
of the U.S. Navy consulting Board during WWI to, among other things,
create an effective smoke machine. Later, the Office of Scientific
Research and Development (OSRD) was formed, and one of its first
projects was to discover an effective large area smoke screen.The early research of these organization was on technologies based on the smudge pot and the chemical smoke bomb methods. Numerous improvements were made but even at the the start of WWII, they had not been able to discover an effective large area smoke screen. At one point, the OSRD had almost given up on smoke technologies after numerous experiments with oil and chemical generators in Panama. But when the Patterson system was brought to their attention, their interest in smoke screening was quickly rekindled. Early WW II -- The Patterson System Alonzo Patterson was, during the prohibition days, a well known and highly successful rum runner given the name "Smoky" by the agents who attempted to chase his fleet of ships while being foiled by his smoke screen. Near the end of Prohibition, Patterson became a Customs Agent and gained several contacts in the government. When US involvement WWII seemed imminent, Patterson's contacts in the government, being highly aware of the effectiveness of his smoke screen, asked him to refine his technology for military use. To this end, Patterson employed the help of his chemist friend Harold Levy (the chemist who also invented Cellophane, among other significant chemical inventions), to perfect the chemical formulas already developed by Patterson years ago while Patterson worked on refining the apparatuses necessary to the smoke production system. Within a matter of months, the two had refined the smoke screen system used by Patterson during his rum running days, and the invention was presented to the government during several demonstrations, some of which were accomplished with the help of Andrew Higgins, a close friend and business associate of Patterson who, during prohibition, had built Patterson's rum running fleet according to Patterson's unique designs. In the end, the Navy and the other branches of the military, found the smoke screen to be highly effective and extremely important to combat. Prior to the Patterson system, military smoke screening was, at best, a minimal factor in combat, but with the Patterson system, military strategy was forever changed by the numerous offensive and defensive advantages created by the first ever effective large area smoke screen. View a detailed description of the technology and what makes it so dramatically different from all smoke screening methods that came before it. |
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