Talk:Pencil bomb attacks

Military history: North America / United States / World War I C‑class

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles

C

This article has been rated as C-class on the project's quality scale.

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Associated task forces:
/
	North American military history task force
	United States military history task force
	World War I task force

Terrorism Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Terrorism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles on terrorism, individual terrorists, incidents and related subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.TerrorismWikipedia:WikiProject TerrorismTemplate:WikiProject TerrorismTerrorism articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

A fact from Pencil bomb attacks appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 11 July 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Franz von Rintelen, a German spy living in New York during World War I, used pencil bombs to sabotage Allied shipping?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2009/July.

Wikipedia

Conflicting/wrong info[edit]

Does this thing detonate, or does it just start a fire? The article says one, then says the other.

Is sulphuric acid even "inflammable"? Would another liquid that was merely inflammable be able to eat through the copper disk? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.85.209.143 (talk) 14:46, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Picric acid, the other component, is described as a high explosive; its salts even more so. Sulphuric acid is not. I am not a chemist, but my best guess is that the sulfuric acid was used for two reasons: 1) its reaction with picric acid is exothermic but not sufficient to cause the picric acid to explode, thus causing a hotter and longer lasting fire, and 2) it, too, ate at the copper plug, allowing for finer timing of the bomb. So... my guess is that 'detonate' is close to hyperbole. --2601:1C0:5802:C256:DC21:1920:8E25:D9E0 (talk) 23:21, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]