Flamethrower

Boeotian flame thrower (model), Thessaloniki Science Center and Technology Museum

The concept of throwing fire as a weapon has existed since ancient times. During the Peloponnesian War, Boeotians used some kind of a flamethrower trying to destroy the fortification walls of the Athenians during the Battle of Delium.[5]

In 107 AD the Romans used a flamethrower against the Dacians; the device was similar to the one used at Delium.[6]

Later, during the Byzantine era, sailors used rudimentary hand-pumped flamethrowers on board their naval ships. Greek fire, extensively used by the Byzantine Empire, is said to have been invented by Kallinikos of Heliopolis, probably about 673. Byzantine texts described weapons, used by Byzantine land forces, which were shooting Greek fire and called cheirosiphona (χειροσίφωνα, meaning hand-held siphons, singular χειροσίφωνο).[7][8] The flamethrower found its origins in a device consisting of a hand-held pump that shot bursts of Greek fire via a siphon-hose and a piston which ignited it with a match, similar to modern versions, as it was ejected.[9] An illustration in Poliorcetica of Hero of Byzantium display a soldier with a portable flamethrower.[10][11] Greek fire, used primarily at sea, gave the Byzantines a substantial military advantage against enemies such as members of the Arab Empire (who later adopted the use of Greek fire). An 11th-century illustration of its use survives in the John Skylitzes manuscript.

A Chinese flamethrower from the Wujing Zongyao manuscript of 1044 AD, Song dynasty

The Pen Huo Qi ("fire spraying device") was a Chinese piston flamethrower that used a substance similar to petrol or naphtha, invented around 919 AD during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The earliest reference to Greek fire in China was made in 917 AD, written by Wu Renchen in his Spring and Autumn Annals of the Ten Kingdoms.[12] In 919 CE, the siphon projector-pump was used to spread the 'fierce fire oil' that could not be doused with water, as recorded by Lin Yu (林禹) in his Wu-Yue Beishi (吳越備史), hence the first credible Chinese reference to the flamethrower employing the chemical solution of Greek fire.[13] Lin Yu mentioned also that the 'fierce fire oil' derived ultimately from China's contact in the 'southern seas', with Arabia (大食國 Dashiguo).[14] In the Battle of Langshan Jiang (Wolf Mountain River) in 919, the naval fleet of the Wenmu King of Wuyue defeated the fleet of the Kingdom of Wu because he had used 'fire oil' to burn his fleet; this signified the first Chinese use of gunpowder in warfare, since a slow-burning match fuse was required to ignite the flames.[15] The Chinese applied the use of double-piston bellows to pump petrol out of a single cylinder (with an upstroke and a downstroke), lit at the end by a slow-burning gunpowder match to fire a continuous stream of flame (as referred to in the Wujing Zongyao manuscript of 1044 AD).[14] In the suppression of the Southern Tang state by 976 AD, early Song naval forces confronted them on the Yangtze River in 975 AD. Southern Tang forces attempted to use flamethrowers against the Song navy, but were accidentally consumed by their own fire when violent winds swept in their direction.[16] Documented also in later Chinese publications, illustrations and descriptions of mobile flamethrowers on four-wheel push carts appear in the Wujing Zongyao, written in 1044 AD (its illustration redrawn in 1601 as well).[17] Advances in military technology aided the Song dynasty in its defense against hostile neighbours to the north, including the Mongols.

Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Khwārazmī in Mafātīḥ al-ʿUlūm (“Keys to the Sciences”) ca. 976 AD mentions the bāb al-midfa and the bāb al-mustaq which he said were parts of naphtha-throwers and projectors (al-naffātāt wa al-zarāqāt). Book of Ingenious Mechanical Device (Kitāb fī ma 'rifat al-ḥiyal al-handasiyya) of 1206 AD by Ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari mentioned about ejectors of naphtha (zarāqāt al-naft).[18]^: 582

Although flamethrowers were never used in the American Civil War, "Greek Fire" shells were produced and used by Union troops during the Second Battle of Charleston Harbor,[19][20] and flamethrowers have been in use in most modern conflicts ever since.

During the siege of Port Arthur, Japanese combat engineers used hand pumps to spray kerosene into Russian trenches. Once the Russians were covered with the flammable liquid, the Japanese would throw bundles of burning rags at them.[21]

The English word flamethrower is a loan-translation of the German word Flammenwerfer, since the modern flamethrower was invented in Germany. The first flamethrower, in the modern sense, is usually credited to Richard Fiedler. He submitted evaluation models of his Flammenwerfer to the German Army in 1901. The most significant model submitted was a portable device, consisting of a vertical single cylinder 4 feet (1.2 m) long, horizontally divided in two, with pressurized gas in the lower section and flammable oil in the upper section. On depressing a lever the propellant gas forced the flammable oil into and through a rubber tube and over a simple igniting wick device in a steel nozzle. The weapon projected a jet of fire and enormous clouds of smoke some 20 yards (18 m). It was a single-shot weapon—for burst firing, a new igniter section was attached each time.

German flamethrowers during the First World War on the Western Front, 1917

Hungarian Gábor Szakáts invented the flamethrower which was first used by the German army in WWI. Szakáts was the only Hungarian on the list of war criminals assembled by France after the war due to the invention of the flamethrower.[22] Even his birthplace Budapest refused to bury Szakáts because of his invention.[23] It was not until 1911 that the German Army accepted their first real flamethrowing device, creating a specialist regiment of twelve companies equipped with Flammenwerfer Apparent.[24] Despite this, use of fire in a World War I battle predated flamethrower use, with a petrol spray being ignited by an incendiary bomb in the Argonne-Meuse sector in October 1914.[25]

The flamethrower was first used in World War I on 26 February 1915 when it was briefly used against the French outside Verdun.[26] On 30 July 1915 it was first used in a concerted action, against British trenches at Hooge, where the lines were 4.5 m (4.9 yd) apart—even there, the casualties were caused mainly by soldiers being flushed into the open and then shot rather than from the fire itself.[25] After two days of fighting the British had suffered casualties of 31 officers and 751 other ranks.[27]

The success of the attack prompted the German Army to adopt the device on all fronts. Flamethrowers were used in squads of six during battles, at the start of an attack destroying the enemy and to the preceding the infantry advance.[27]

The flamethrower was useful at short distances[27] but had other limitations: it was cumbersome and difficult to operate and could only be safely fired from a trench, which limited its use to areas where the opposing trenches were less than the maximum range of the weapon, namely 18 m (20 yd) apart—which was not a common situation; the fuel would also only last for about two minutes.[25]

The German deployed flamethrowers during the war in more than 650 attacks.[27]

The British experimented with flamethrowers in the Battle of the Somme, during which they used experimental weapons called "Livens Large Gallery Flame Projectors", named for their inventor, William Howard Livens, a Royal Engineers officer.[28] This weapon was enormous and completely non-portable. The weapon had an effective range of 90 yards, which proved effective at clearing trenches, but with no other benefit the project was abandoned.[27]

Two Morriss static flamethrowers were mounted in HMS Vindictive and several Hay portable flamethrowers were deployed by the Royal Navy during the Zeebrugge Raid on 23 April 1918. A British newspaper report of the action referred to the British flamethrowers only as flammenwerfer, using the German word.[29]

The French Army deployed the Schilt family of flamethrowers, which were also used by the Italian Army.[30]

In 1931 the São Paulo Public Force created an assault car section. The first vehicle to be incorporated was a tank built from a Caterpillar Twenty Two tractor, featuring a turret mounted flamethrower and four Hotchkiss machineguns on the hull. It was used in combat during the Constitutionalist Revolution, routing federal troop from a bridge in an engagement in Cruzeiro.[31]

In the interwar period, at least four flamethrowers were used in the Chaco War by the Bolivian Army, during the unsuccessful assault on the Paraguayan stronghold of Nanawa in 1933.[32] During the battle of Kilometer 7 to Saavedra, Major Walther Kohn rode in a flamethrower equipped tankette; due to heat he exited the tank to fight on foot and was killed in combat.[33]

The flamethrower was used extensively during World War II. In 1939, the Wehrmacht first deployed man-portable flamethrowers against the Polish Post Office in Danzig. Subsequently, in 1942, the U.S. Army introduced its own man-portable flamethrower. The vulnerability of infantry carrying backpack flamethrowers and the weapon's short range led to experiments with tank-mounted flamethrowers (flame tanks), which were used by many countries.

• 
  A German soldier operating a flamethrower in 1944
• 
  A German soldier using a flamethrower in Russia
• 
  Belgian soldier wounded by a flamethrower (World War I)

The Germans made considerable use of the weapon (Flammenwerfer 35) during their invasion of the Netherlands and France, against fixed fortifications. World War II German army flamethrowers tended to have one large fuel tank with the pressurizer tank fastened to its back or side. Some German army flamethrowers occupied only the lower part of its wearer's back, leaving the upper part of his back free for an ordinary rucksack.

Flamethrowers soon fell into disfavour. Flamethrowers were extensively used by German units in urban fights in Poland, both in 1943 in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and in 1944 in the Warsaw Uprising (see the Stroop Report and the article on the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising). With the contraction of the Third Reich during the latter half of World War II, a smaller, more compact flamethrower known as the Einstossflammenwerfer 46 was produced.

Germany also used flamethrower vehicles, most of them based on the chassis of the Sd.Kfz. 251 half track and the Panzer II and Panzer III tanks, generally known as Flammpanzers.

The Germans also produced the Abwehrflammenwerfer 42, a flame-mine or flame fougasse, based on a Soviet version of the weapon.[34] This was essentially a disposable, single use flamethrower that was buried alongside conventional land mines at key defensive points and triggered by either a trip-wire or a command wire. The weapon contained around 8 US gallons (30 L) of fuel, that was discharged within a second, to a second and a half, producing a flame with a 15-yard (14 m) range.[34] One defensive installation found in Italy included seven of the weapons, carefully concealed and wired to a central control point.[34]

Italy employed man-portable flamethrowers and L3 Lf flame tanks during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War of 1935 to 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, and during World War II. The L3 Lf flame tank was a CV-33 or CV-35 tankette with a flamethrower operating from the machine gun mount. In the Northern Africa Theatre, the L3 Lf flame tank found little to no success.[35] An L6 Lf flametank was also developed using the L6/40 light tank platform.

A Japanese soldier firing a Type 93 flamethrower

Japan used man-portable flamethrowers to clear fortified positions, in the Battle of Wake Island,[36] Corregidor,[37] Battle of the Tenaru on Guadalcanal[38] and Battle of Milne Bay.[39]

Flamethrowers were also used by the Royal Romanian Army. They were also planned to become self-propelled; the Mareșal tank destroyer was planned to have a command vehicle version armed with machine guns and a flamethrower.[40]

• 
  A British World War II–type "lifebuoy" flamethrower in 1944
• 
  A Churchill tank fitted with a Crocodile flamethrower in action.
• 
  An Australian soldier fires a flamethrower at a Japanese bunker

The British World War II army flamethrowers, "Ack Packs", had a doughnut-shaped fuel tank with a small spherical pressurizer gas tank in the middle. As a result, some troops nicknamed them "lifebuoys". It was officially known as Flamethrower, Portable, No 2.

Extensive plans were made in 1940–1941 by the Petroleum Warfare Department to use flame fougasse static flame projectors in the event of an invasion, with around 50,000 barrel-based incendiary mines being deployed in 7,000 batteries throughout Southern England.

The British hardly used their man-portable systems, relying on Churchill Crocodile tanks in the European theatre. These tanks proved very effective against German defensive positions, and caused official Axis protests against their use. This flamethrower could produce a jet of flame exceeding 140 metres (150 yd). There are documented instances of German units summarily executing any captured British flame-tank crews.[41]

In the Pacific theatre, Australian forces used converted Matilda tanks, known as Matilda Frogs.

• 
  A soldier from the 33rd Infantry Division uses an M2 flamethrower
• 
  Marines engaging Japanese positions on Guam with a flamethrower.
• 
  2nd Marine tank Battalion "Satan" incinerates Japanese pillbox on Saipan
• 
  An American flamethrower operator runs under fire
• 
  Front and rear views of a man with an M2A1-7 United States Army flamethrower

In the Pacific theatre, the U.S. Army used M-1 and M-2 flamethrowers to clear stubborn Japanese resistance from prepared defenses, caves, and trenches. Starting in New Guinea, through the closing stages on Guadalcanal and during the approach to and reconquest of the Philippines and then through the Okinawa campaign, the Army deployed hand-held, man-portable units.

Often flamethrower teams were made up of combat engineer units, later with troops of the chemical warfare service. The Army fielded more flamethrower units than the Marine Corps, and the Army's Chemical Warfare Service pioneered tank mounted flamethrowers on Sherman tanks (CWS-POA H-4). All the flamethrower tanks on Okinawa belonged to the 713th Provisional Tank Battalion. It was tasked with supporting all U.S. Army and Marine infantry. All Pacific mechanized flamethrower units were trained by Seabee specialists with Col. Unmacht's CWS Flamethrower Group in Hawaii.

The U.S. Army used flamethrowers in Europe in much smaller numbers, though they were available for special employments. Flamethrowers were deployed during the Normandy landings in order to clear Axis fortifications.[42][43] Also, most boat teams on Omaha Beach included a two-man flamethrower team.[44]

The Marine Corps used the backpack-type M2A1-7 and M2-2 flamethrowers, finding them useful in clearing Japanese trench and bunker complexes. The first known USMC use of the man portable flamethrower was against the formidable defenses at Tarawa in November 1943. The Marines pioneered the use of Ronson-equipped M-3 Stuart tanks in the Marianas. These were known as SATAN flame tanks. Though effective, they lacked the armour to safely engage fortifications and were phased out in favour of the better-armoured M4 Sherman tanks. USMC Flamethrower Shermans were produced at Schofield Barracks by Seabees attached to the Chemical Warfare Service under Col. Unmacht. CWS designated M4s with "CWS-POA-H" for "Chemical Warfare Service Pacific Ocean Area, Hawaii" plus a flamethrower number. The Marines had previously deployed large Navy flamethrowers mounted on LVT-4 AMTRACs at Peleliu. Late in the war, both services operated LVT-4 and −5 amphibious flametanks in limited numbers. Both the Army and the Marines still used their infantry-portable systems, despite the arrival of adapted Sherman tanks with the Ronson system (cf. flame tanks).

In cases where the Japanese were entrenched in deep caves, the flames often consumed the available oxygen, suffocating the occupants. Many Japanese troops interviewed post war said they were terrified more by flamethrowers than any other American weapon. Flamethrower operators were often the first U.S. troops targeted.

A Finnish soldier with a captured Soviet ROKS-3 flamethrower, June 1943. The flame projector has been designed to resemble a standard infantry rifle.

The FOG-1 and −2 flamethrowers were stationary devices used in defense. They could also be categorized as a projecting incendiary mine. The FOG had only one cylinder of fuel, which was compressed using an explosive charge and projected through a nozzle. The November 1944 issue of the US War Department Intelligence Bulletin refers to these "Fougasse flame throwers" being used in the Soviet defense of Stalingrad. The FOG-1 was directly copied by the Germans as the Abwehrflammenwerfer 42.

Unlike the flamethrowers of the other powers during World War II, the Soviets were the only ones to consciously attempt to camouflage their infantry flamethrowers. With the ROKS-2 flamethrower this was done by disguising the flame projector as a standard issue rifle, such as the Mosin–Nagant, and the fuel tanks as a standard infantryman's rucksack. This was to try to stop the flamethrower operator from being specifically targeted by enemy fire.[45] This "rifle" had a working action which was used to cycle blank igniter cartridges.

A riverboat of the U.S. Brownwater Navy shooting ignited napalm from its mounted flamethrower during the Vietnam war

An M67 "Zippo" tank of the USMC during the Vietnam War

The United States Marines used flamethrowers in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The M132 armoured flamethrower, an M113 armored personnel carrier with a mounted flamethrower, was successfully used in the conflict.[46]

Flamethrowers have not been in the U.S. arsenal since 1978, when the Department of Defense unilaterally stopped using them ⁠— ⁠the last American infantry flamethrower was the Vietnam-era M9-7. They have been deemed of questionable effectiveness in modern combat, though some have made the case for their tactical employment. [47] Despite some assertions, they are not generally banned, but as incendiary weapons they are subject to the usage prohibitions described under Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

USA army flamethrowers developed up to the M9 model. In the M9 the propellant tank is a sphere below the left fuel tank and does not project backwards.

Crude homemade flamethrowers were built by Irgun in the late 1940s.[48]

The PLA adopted the Type 74 flamethrower, a copy of the Soviet LPO-50. It was later used in the Sino-Vietnamese War.[49][50]

LPO-50[51] and Type 74 flamethrowers were used by NVA forces during the Vietnam War.[50]

The Iraqi army used LPO-50 flamethrowers during the Iran-Iraq War.[52]

Non-flamethrower incendiary weapons remain in modern military arsenals. Thermobaric weapons may have been fielded in Afghanistan by the United States (2008)[53][54] and have been used by Russia in Ukraine (2022).[55] The USA and USSR both developed a rocket launcher specifically for the deployment of incendiary munitions, respectively the M202 FLASH and the RPO "Rys" ancestor of the RPO-A Shmel.

The Type 74 is still being used by the Vietnamese Army.[50]

On 22 April 1988, Kanak rebels took 36 French hostages in Ouvéa island, New Caledonia, most of them gendarms and military personnel. On 5 May, after weeks of fruitless negotiations, a team of gendarms and paratroopers from the French Army launched a rescue operation. During the assault, a rebel machine gun position was neutralized using a flamethrower. All hostages were eventually set free.[56]

In 1981 the FBI foiled an attempt by New York-based gun runner George Harrison to smuggle an M2 flamethrower to Ireland for the IRA.[57][58] In the last stages of the Troubles, during the mid-1980s, the IRA smuggled in Soviet LPO-50 military flamethrowers (supplied to them by the Libyan government) into Northern Ireland.[59] An IRA team riding on an improvised armoured truck used one of these flamethrowers, among other weapons, to storm a British Army permanent checkpoint in Derryard, near Rosslea, on 13 December 1989.[60] Some months later, on 4 March 1990, the IRA attacked an RUC station in Stewartstown, County Tyrone, using an improvised flamethrower consisting of a manure-spreader towed by a tractor to spray 600 imperial gallons (2,700 L) of a petrol/diesel mix to engulf the base in flames, and then opened fire with rifles and an anti-tank rocket launcher.[61][62][63][64] Another IRA unit carried two attacks in less than a year with another improvised flamethrower towed by a tractor on a British Army watchtower, the Borucki sangar, in Crossmaglen, County Armagh, also in the early 1990s. The first incident occurred on 12 December 1992,[65] when the bunker was manned by Scots Guards, and the second on 12 November 1993. The device used as launcher was also a manure spreader, which doused the facility with fuel, ignited few seconds later by a small explosion. In the 1993 action, a nine-metre-high fireball engulfed the tower for seven minutes. The four Grenadier Guards inside the outpost were rescued by a Saxon armoured vehicle.[66] Incendiary improvised devices were also proven by the republican paramilitaries, like in an IRA grenade attack on a British Army patrol on 4 April 1993 in Carrickmore, County Tyrone; the device consisted of 2 lb (0.91 kg) of semtex and 5 imperial gallons (22.5 L) of petrol; the bomb exploded, but the fuel failed to ignite. A soldier was thrown several meters across the road by the blast.[67]

As of 2003 the locally made Hydroar T1M1 flamethrower was still being used by the 1º Batalhão de Forças Especiais.[68]

The Chinese Army still issues the Type 74 flamethrower.[50]

During the 2015 Aksu colliery attack, after using tear gas and flash grenades to no avail, the People's Liberation Army resorted to flamethrowers to root out suspected militants who were hiding in a cave.[69][70]

Flamethrowers have been used by the Tatmadaw during attacks on Rohingya villages during the Rohingya genocide.[71][72]

On 8 February 2017, separatist leader Mikhail 'Givi' Tolstykh was killed when an RPO-A Shmel rocket-assisted flamethrower was fired at his office in Donetsk.[73]

On 21 November 2022, nine months into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian sources claim that artillery and "heavy flamethrowers" were employed against a Ukrainian concentration of troops near Kupyansk, Kharkiv Oblast.[74] Russian sources use the term "heavy flamethrowers" to describe TOS-1 multiple thermobaric rocket launchers.[75]