A flamethrower is a ranged incendiary device designed to project a controllable jet of fire. First deployed by the Byzantine Empire in the 7th century AD, flamethrowers saw use in modern times during World War I, and more widely in World War II as a tactical weapon against fortifications.
Technology during World War I (1914–1918) reflected a trend toward industrialism and the application of mass-production methods to weapons and to the technology of warfare in general. This trend began at least fifty years prior to World War I during the American Civil War of 1861–1865, and continued through many smaller conflicts in which soldiers and strategists tested new weapons.
A flame tank is a type of tank equipped with a flamethrower, most commonly used to supplement combined arms attacks against fortifications, confined spaces, or other obstacles. The type only reached significant use in the Second World War, during which the United States, Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom all produced flamethrower-equipped tanks.
The M2 flamethrower was an American, man-portable, backpack flamethrower that was used in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The M2 was the successor to the M1 and M1A1 flamethrowers. Although its burn time was around 7 seconds long, and the flames were effective around 20–40 meters, it was still a useful weapon. With the arrival of flamethrower tanks, the need for flamethrower-carrying infantrymen to expose themselves to enemy fire had been greatly reduced.
Richard Fiedler was a German scientist who invented the modern flamethrower. This is a weapon that projects a stream of nitrogen. He submitted evaluation models of his Flammenwerfer to the German Army in 1901. The most significant model submitted was a man-portable device, consisting of a vertical single cylinder 4 feet 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. It was a single-shot weapon - for burst firing, a new igniter section was attached each time it was used for battle or other uses of any sorts. It was first used on the western front both by the Central Powers and the Entente.
A self-sealing fuel tank (SSFT) is a type of fuel tank, typically used in aircraft fuel tanks or fuel bladders, that prevents them from leaking fuel and igniting after being damaged.
The Type 93 and Type 100 flamethrowers were flamethrowers used by the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy's SNLF during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II.
The Flamethrower, Portable, No 2, also known as the Ack Pack, was a British design of flamethrower for infantry use in the Second World War.
The Churchill Crocodile was a British flame-throwing tank of late Second World War. It was a variant of the Tank, Infantry, Mk IV (A22) Churchill Mark VII, although the Churchill Mark IV was initially chosen to be the base vehicle.
The Fierce-fire Oil Cabinet was a double-piston pump naphtha flamethrower first recorded to have been used in 919 AD in China, during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.
The first series of German man-portable flamethrower was called the Kleinflammenwerfer or Kleif. Fuel oil was stored in a large vertical, cylindrical backpack container. High-pressure propellant was typically stored in another, smaller container within the fuel tank or attached externally depending on model. Most iterations of the Kleinflammenwerfer used a long hose which was covered in linen and corrugated by steel wire to prevent kinks and punctures. The hose connected to the fuel tank and fed into a lance tube with an igniting device at the nozzle. With the turn of a valve at the tank, the propellant forced the fuel through the hose and towards the lance. When the lance operator was ready, a second "firing" valve was opened, sending the fuel oil to the igniting device at the nozzle and propelling the burning fuel oil outward. The flamethrower was operated by two soldiers, one carrying the fuel and propellant tanks, another wielding the lance. Contrary to popular culture, the Kleinflammenwerfer was too unwieldy to be used effectively by a single operator. The Wechselapparat, a smaller and more refined replacement for the Kleif, was introduced in May 1917. The Kleif would see service until the end of World War I.
The Grossflammenwerfer or Grof is a large flamethrower, designed to be used from the trenches. In addition to man-portable units, the Germans designed heavy flamethrowers before and during the First World War. The fuel and propellant containers were too large and heavy for mobility, but the hose could be long enough to be carried out of the trenches closer to the enemy. Multiple propellant and fuel containers could be connected together to improve range and usage time.
The 21st Reserve Division was a unit of the Imperial German Army in World War I. The division was formed on mobilization of the German Army in August 1914 as part of XVIII Reserve Corps. The division was disbanded in 1919 during the demobilization of the German Army after World War I. The division was raised primarily in the Prussian Province of Hesse-Nassau, but one battalion of the 88th Reserve Infantry Regiment came from the Grand Duchy of Hesse and some other troops of the division came from Westphalia and the Rhine Province.
The K pattern flamethrower was a man-portable backpack flamethrower, produced in occupied Poland during World War II for the underground Home Army. These flamethrowers were used in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.
The Flammenwerfer M.16. was a German man-portable backpack flamethrower that was used in World War I in trench warfare by the Germans. It was the first flamethrower ever used in combat, in 1916 at Verdun by the Germans. It was also used in 1918 in the battle of Argonne Forest in France against Allied forces by Germans, as featured in the 2001 film The Lost Battalion where the main character fights German, although an account in a 1917 issue of The Living Age suggests eyewitness accounts of it being used at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 by Germans.
The M1 and M1A1 were portable flamethrowers developed by the United States during World War II. The M1 weighed 72 lb, had a range of 15 meters, and had a fuel tank capacity of five gallons. The improved M1A1 weighed less, at 65 lb, had a much longer range of 45 meters, had the same fuel tank capacity, and fired thickened fuel (napalm).
The Petroleum Warfare Department (PWD) was a government department established in Britain in 1940 in response to the invasion crisis during World War II, when Germany apparently would invade the country. The department was initially tasked with developing the uses of petroleum as a weapon of war, and it oversaw the introduction of a wide range of flame warfare weapons. Later in the war, the department was instrumental in the creation of the Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operation that cleared runways of fog allowing the landing of aircraft returning from bombing raids over Germany in poor visibility, and Operation Pluto, which installed prefabricated fuel pipelines between England and France soon after the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944.
The Lanciafiamme Spalleggiato Modello 35, also known as the Model 35, was a flamethrower issued to the Royal Italian Army in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. In 1940 it was replaced by the Lanciafiamme Spalleggiato Modello 40, which used a different ignition system.
The M9 flamethrower, officially designated: Flame Thrower, Portable, M9-7, was an American man-portable flamethrower that essentially replaced the earlier M2 flamethrower variants. The set consisted of the M9 backpack, the M8 quick-connect hose, and the newer M7 gun group. The M9-7 solved many of the problems associated with the M1 and M2 variants by reducing the overall mass and featuring a shorter gun group. It was the last flamethrower in U.S. service and was replaced with the M202 FLASH rocket-based incendiary system.
The M8 flamethrower, officially designated: Flame Thrower Portable One-Shot, M8, was a single-shot flamethrower briefly adopted into U.S. service by airborne troops, but was never mass produced.
