During Prohibition the rum runners and developed an extremely efficient way of making smoke to conceal their speedboats from the revenuers. This was in the form of a small gasoline engine mounted on the back of their boat. They squirted light oil into the muffler of the engine producing a heavy cloud of white smoke making a very capable smokescreen. After Prohibition the Navy adopted this device for use on small boats. A variation of this device was used by the bootleggers in their cars to lay down a smokescreen behind them. In this case the bootleggers rigged up a device to put a spray of oil into their exhaust pipe. This turned out to be quite effective also.

In many came up with an alternate way of making a smokescreen by adding excess oil to their boilers that caused an extremely heavy black oil smoke to come out of their funnels. This method is still in use today to mask the movement of ships.

Since World War II the military has device many ways of producing smoke that is laser and infrared proved them is also effective in visible light. It is especially useful for screening vehicles from the laser or infrared rangefinders that are in use today. They make use of nano-particles of various substances such as fiberglass, brass, and other compounds. One effective jury rigged infrared proof smokescreen is a dry fire extinguisher.

Most smoke screens that are in use today however are generated by portable devices such as grenades, smudge pots or bombs. They are chemical in nature using a variety of chemicals, oils and dyes. Two of the chemicals commonly used are zinc chloride and titanium tetrachloride. To function properly zinc chloride needs a source of heat whereas titanium tetrachloride will evaporate at room temperature. Both of these compounds will generate a dense white smoke. The amount of smoke generated strictly depends on the size of the generator.

If you want to make colored smoke you have to add dye of the color you want. To make colored smoke requires a chemical reaction that not only produces smoke, it also has to produce heat to vaporize the dye. The smoke makes a substrate for the vaporized dye to cling too causing the smokescreen to assume the color of the dye. The colored smokes are mainly used for signaling rather then for concealment.