flamethrower

Use of a medieval hand Iphones the Byzantines , the Greek fire verschießt

American soldiers with flamethrowers in World War II

The flamethrower is a weapon of war from the group of incendiary weapons , which is used to spray a long jet of burning liquid under high pressure at a target. The weapon was already used in ancient times .

Structure and principle of operation

Ignition cartridge for flamethrower (match as a size comparison)

World War II Canadian Wasp flamethrower tank

A flamethrower basically consists of two cylindrical tanks, usually carried on the back ; a larger one, in which the flame oil is located, and a smaller one, only about half as large, with the propellant gas . Deviating from this, there are also models with three tanks in which the fuel oil is divided into two containers in order to achieve a more symmetrical weight distribution and a more compact design, but also models in which one tank is spherical and the second is wrapped around the sphere as a tube. With some ignition systems, an additional small gas cylinder (approx. 0.5 l) may be required to feed the pilot flame.

Compressed air , carbon dioxide or nitrogen are usually used as propellants . Flammable gases such as propane and butane are also used, in which case the propellant gas is used at the same time to feed the pilot flame. The use of hydrogen as a propellant gas stated in some places is based on a misunderstanding in connection with the hydrogen ignition system of the standard flamethrower FmW 41 of the German Wehrmacht .

In the simplest case, the flame oil consists of ordinary diesel fuel or light heating oil . Gasoline is unsuitable in its pure state because it burns too quickly. Diesel oil burns longer and hotter, and although this already enables the flamethrower to operate effectively, a further optimized mixture is usually used. For example, gasoline or kerosene are added to lower the relatively high flash point of the diesel or heating oil and thus to ensure reliable ignition even at very low temperatures or in adverse weather conditions. At the same time, thickeners are added to the flame oil in order to prevent premature atomization and thus increase the throwing distance. This also improves the adhesion to armored vehicles . The properties of the fuel liquid approach those of napalm .

A pressure-resistant, mineral oil-resistant rubber hose, which is often covered with a protective metal mesh, connects the tanks with the burner, which is remotely similar to a rifle . In the burner itself there is a self-closing valve , a trigger mechanism and at the end a nozzle with an ignition device.

When the valve is opened by the trigger, the propellant gas pushes the flame oil through the hose into the flame tube, at the end of which it is ignited by the ignition system when it exits the nozzle.

Range and capacity

Flamethrower on a US combat boat ( Zippo Monitor ) in Vietnam

The range of a flamethrower depends on the muzzle velocity of the flame oil, the composition and consistency of the flame oil and the oil throughput of the nozzle. The muzzle velocity depends in turn on the propellant gas pressure in the container and on the length of the hose. Wind direction and speed also have a significant influence on the range.

Flamethrowers from 1915 had an action time of up to three minutes and a range of about 20 m.

The effective firing range of an early one-man knapsack flamethrower is between 20 and 25 m, the maximum range is around 30 m. Knapsack models developed during the Cold War , such as the Soviet LPO-50 , had ranges of up to around 70 m, whereby no propellant gas bottle was used, but the flame material was pressed out of the knapsack by a pyrotechnic gas generator.

The range of larger and heavier models, for example with fixedly installed flamethrowers or flame tanks, can, however, also be up to 100 m.

The capacity of many of the models common in World War II was enough for 2 to 15 throws, depending on the length of each burst of flame.

historical overview

Antiquity

The historian Thucydides reports the first use of a type of flamethrower in connection with the Battle of the Delion in 424 BC. After the battle, the Boiotians built an effective weapon using a forge, bellows, and long iron-sheathed pipe to set the Athenian wooden fortifications on fire from a safe distance (Thucydides, 4,100).

Greek fire

Incendiary weapons were increasingly used in late antiquity, and so the concept was taken up again. The weapon developed world-historical importance through a further development in the 7th century AD in Constantinople. In 678, the Byzantine fleet destroyed the Saracen ships with the " Greek Fire ", a mixture of sulfur , quick lime , petroleum products and other substances such as resins and perhaps potash nitrate , which also burned on the water . Chroniclers unanimously report of low-viscosity mixtures of substances (“liquid fire”), so that petroleum distillates, like petrol, were the basis. The mixture was pumped through copper or bronze pipes with a simple bellows or piston pump and flung burning at the enemy. Due to the strict secrecy, this technological lead secured the Byzantine fleet a supremacy that still existed even when Byzantium itself no longer played an important role. "Liquid fire" was also used in land warfare.

The next technological advance was made by the Chinese with the introduction of a pump with two chambers. This made it possible to suck in one chamber and simultaneously expel it from the other in a single movement. With the backward movement, the chambers then change their function by means of valves, and the now filled chamber was emptied while the other sucked in again. Only then was a continuous, albeit pulsating, jet possible.

Weapons of this type were still used in naval warfare into the 13th century , and their spread ranged from Europe to the Mediterranean region to China.

With the invention and increasing popularity of gunpowder , however, it became increasingly less important and finally came out of use entirely.

There is also an occasional later use of pumps that threw burning kerosene, for example in Havre in 1758 and by the Germans during the siege of Paris in 1870.

The rediscovery

The rediscovery and development of the first flamethrower in the modern sense is generally attributed to the German engineer Richard Fiedler . As early as 1901, he handed over the first models of his flamethrower to the German army for testing. One of his test models was a "portable" device, which consisted of a single, approximately four feet high, cylindrical metal container that was horizontally divided into two parts inside. The upper section was filled with the flame oil, while the pressurized propellant gas was in the lower part of the container. By pressing down a lever, the propellant gas pressed the flame oil through a rubber hose to a steel muzzle with a simple wick as an ignition device. This weapon was able to fire a jet of flame about 18 m wide for two minutes and with enormous development of thick oil smoke. Repeated bursts of fire of shorter duration were not intended, however, since the primitive ignition device had to be completely renewed for each shot.

The German armed forces did not introduce the new weapon to the troops until 1911. A new special regiment with twelve companies was set up and equipped with flame throwers. Major of the Landwehr pioneers and firefighter (fire director in Poznan and Leipzig) Bernhard Reddemann (1870–1938) was also significantly involved in the development of World War I.

In the first World War

German troops in 1917 on the Western Front with flame throwers

Originally, flamethrowers were developed and used in Germany during the First World War as a weapon against fortified positions and bunkers . The enemy should be demoralized, panicked, driven out of positions or burned by the flames by the fear of fire.

A flamethrower attack from the trench in 1918

Flamethrowers were first used by the German army during the fighting in the Argonne during the First World War in 1914 . In the further course of the war, with the start of the trench warfare in the winter of 1914/15, the German army command urgently looked for new ways to bring movement back into the frozen front lines and to end the grueling and extremely loss-making trench warfare . In order to drive the enemy out of their fortified positions, trenches and bunkers, the massive use of flamethrowers in addition to the use of gas seemed very promising for the military.

The first large-scale use of flamethrowers took place on February 26, 1916 by the shock troops of Storm Battalion No. 5 (Rohr) against the French troops in the Battle of Verdun . The next operation took place five months later on the night of July 29th to 30th, 1916 against British positions and trenches around Hooge near Ypres . With only six German flamethrowers, the buried British units of two battalions were forced to flee. After this success, flamethrowers were an integral part of the German attack units' equipment. Overall, however, the fighting for Hooge was a failure from a German perspective. It was not possible to secure the space that the flamethrowers had created with advancing troops, and so the course of the front was almost unchanged by the end of the fighting.

In use, however, the disadvantages of the flamethrowers, which were still in the early stages of their development, quickly became apparent. Although they could be carried, they were too big and heavy to use in the field and difficult to use. There were as yet no self-regulating valves that could keep the pressure constant, so that the valves on the tanks had to be permanently readjusted with handwheels. Up to three men were needed to operate the flamethrower alone, and since they could not use any other weapons, two normal soldiers were put to their side for defense. A squad of flamethrowers with their device was relatively conspicuous and restricted in their mobility - poor conditions for an infantryman to survive.

In addition, the flamethrower itself was also extremely sensitive to fire and fragmentation, with the correspondingly catastrophic consequences for the operating team itself and everyone else in the vicinity. It also occasionally happened that the weapon exploded in the hands of its wearer during the first use for no apparent cause. Flamethrower carriers identified by the enemy often attracted concentrated fire. In addition, flamethrower carriers were rarely captured. To be caught by the enemy who survived the use of the weapon often meant being shot.

So the only relatively safe tactic was to fire the flamethrower from the shelter of your own trenches. This meant that safe use was limited to areas in which the trenches on the other side were within reach, i.e. less than 35 meters - which did not happen often during the course of the war.

The German army continued to use flamethrowers, usually in groups of six, in more than 600 missions throughout the war.

The British and French also tested flamethrower systems during this time, but soon discarded the development.

A special feature of the use of flamethrowers in World War I was the frequent attempt to shoot individual burning soldiers in order to at least partially spare them the agony of death by fire. This was mostly neglected in World War II, unless the enemies on fire represented a danger to their own soldiers or their own soldiers were on fire.

Second World War

German soldier with flamethrower 35 on the Eastern Front

A US soldier with a German flamethrower, probably a defense flamethrower 42

Flamethrowers were in the conflicts from 1918 to 1939 ( Spanish Civil War , unrest in Germany and the former lands of the Kuk rarely used -Monarchie). At the beginning of the Second World War and the war between Japan and China, this weapon was increasingly used. As technological progress made rapid warfare possible, flamethrowers were used in street fights against occupied houses and positions. The immediate distribution of the flame oil in rooms had a devastating effect. A flamethrower was also effective against tanks.

The Wehrmacht initially used the flamethrower 35 , and later replaced it with the revised flamethrower 41 , which was used until the end of the war. In Asia, primarily the Japanese used flamethrowers at first. They proved effective against the lightly built and mostly wooden houses in rural China. In the UK, defensive flamethrowers were experimentally made for the Home Guard , but the results were not very promising and they were never used. The Soviet Army produced a flamethrower whose tank resembled a normal infantry rucksack and whose nozzle was modeled as closely as possible to a normal rifle in order to make the flamethrower look like a normal infantryman, so that he could attract as little attention as possible and take advantage of the surprise effect.

Flamethrowers were also integrated into a tank instead of an on- board cannon . The result was the Flammpanzer III on the German side . However, it turned out that the vehicles were clearly inferior in the fight against other combat vehicles, as they could no longer defend themselves at a distance. The experiments with the Flammpanzer III were stopped after heavy losses in the Citadel company. The Allies also made attempts, which they discontinued after the first unsuccessful results.

Since flamethrowers were particularly suitable for the offensive, these were almost exclusively used by the Allies towards the end of the war. The American marine infantry in particular used the M2 flamethrower at landing companies in Normandy and on the numerous islands in the Pacific. Japanese teams are said to have preferred death in flames to giving up, while flamethrower teams in Normandy became the preferred target of German shooters in the bunkers and thus rarely got within range of them.

Korean War

According to the experience gained in the fight against the Japanese, flamethrowers were used in the trench warfare typical of this conflict as a weapon of attack and destruction for heavily fortified positions. However, they played a minor role here.

Vietnam War

A US Marine Corps M67-A2 tank in Vietnam 1966

In the Vietnam War , the classic one-man flamethrower proved to be unsuitable. In the dense jungle, the flamethrower often had to deal more with the weight and unwieldiness of his weapon than with the enemy. In the thick undergrowth, the flamethrower also had great problems developing its full effect. If a soldier was ambushed with a flamethrower, it would mean his death. The ignition mechanism was also not designed for the generally humid climate. Because of these disadvantages, hardly any flamethrowers were issued to the troops as the war progressed, only a few flame tanks were still used, otherwise napalm bombs took over the role of flamethrowers.

The time until today

General

Two Swiss infantrymen with flamethrowers (1964)

Flamethrowers are no longer relevant in modern warfare, as they were primarily used against soldiers in field bunkers and against tanks, but are now outlawed as incendiary weapons. In Brazil and Taiwan , however, one-man knapsack flamethrowers were still manufactured and exported in 2003.

The fundamental problems and inadequacies with which Fiedler's first models were afflicted could not be resolved. Portability and low weight mean a reduction in the fuel oil supply, but this is countered by the desire for longer and more flame bursts with a greater range - which could only be achieved with a larger fuel oil supply. Even the great sensitivity to bombardment and splinters could not be solved until today. In addition, there is the possibility of self-ignition or explosion of the device due to technical failure or operating errors , even with modern models.

The use of mechanized flame throwers in the form of flame tanks , for example, solves the problem of the short range and quantity of the flame oil and also reduces the sensitivity to fire and fragmentation, but unlike infantrymen on foot, they cannot be used under all environmental conditions. In house-to-house combat in urban surroundings, they are not only poorly or not at all suitable, they are even highly vulnerable themselves.

The logical consequence of these disadvantages was the departure from the classic flamethrower. The Air Force takes on the task of mechanized flamethrowers with incendiary bombs for large-scale use or aerosol or thermobaric warheads, often in combination with steering devices for precision dropping, against hard point targets such as bunkers. Light one-man rocket launchers such as the RPO or M202 Flash replace the flamethrower for infantry operations . Projectiles of this type can be used up to a distance of approx. 50 m with a deviation of only 50 cm from the aimed target against small objects such as openings, screens, viewing slits, periscopes and weapons of bunkers and armored vehicles and thus surpass any flamethrower in accuracy and range. Individual vehicles, trenches, passageways, bunkers, windows and doors can even be fought up to around 200 m with a hit probability of 50 percent. Even mechanized flamethrowers only achieve about half of this range, although effectiveness and accuracy in the area of their maximum range are almost zero. These rocket projectiles can even be used to bombard a larger area, or a gathering of vehicles or people, also with a hit probability of 50 percent, at distances of around 500 to 600 m.

Both the hand-flame cartridge and the blend-fire hand grenade were viewed as an interim solution after the Second World War - these, too , have since been withdrawn from use, as in the Bundeswehr.

United States

Use of a small flamethrower in Iraq to burn down possible coverages

After the further development of flamethrowers of the M2 and M9 series had been discontinued for a long time, the armed forces of the USA put their remaining stocks out of service in the late 1970s to the beginning of the 1980s. The shoulder-supported, reusable 66 mm quadruple rocket launcher M202 Flash ( Fl ame A ssault Sh oulder Weapon , English for shoulder-supported attack incendiary weapon ) was procured as a replacement . The warhead (type M235) of every single rocket (type M74) consists of a sealed container containing about 610 g of gelled flame material ( TPA ) and a small propellant charge that ignites on impact to distribute the incendiary gel is filled over a radius of about 20 m. Triethylaluminum (TEA) is used as a fire gel . This substance burns at a temperature between 760 ° C and 1200 ° C. In terms of its effect, TEA is comparable to napalm .

The M202 (A1) Flash was also decommissioned and stored in the mid-1990s.

Russia

Russia also decommissioned its flamethrowers from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. The shoulder-supported, reusable 122 mm rocket launcher RPO "Rys" (lynx) was developed as a replacement for the LPO-50 flamethrower . From 1984 this was then gradually replaced by its successor, the shoulder-supported 93-mm rocket launcher for single use RPO-A "Shmel" (Hummel), or by the variants of the series (RPO-A / D / Z), their development can be traced back to the findings of the war in Afghanistan.

Both models are referred to as "infantry rocket flamethrowers" by the Russian army.

The RPO has an encapsulated incendiary charge similar to the American M202 "Flash". The spread of the napalm-like substance extends over a strip about 4 m wide and 30 m long

The RPO-A has a thermobaric warhead weighing around 2 kg with an enhanced explosive effect. In addition to the thermal effect, the destructive force of its pressure wave is roughly equivalent to that of a 122 mm HE artillery shell or a 120 mm mortar shell. (See also under aerosol bombs to differentiate between thermobaric and fuel-air-explosive.)

The RPO-D is used to create a 50 to 90 m long smoke wall based on red phosphorus .

The RPO-Z is an area-effective light / incendiary weapon that scatters 20 incendiary pellets after an impact. The pellets ignite anything combustible over an area of four by thirty meters.

These weapons are still in use and are also exported. They were used extensively by the Russian armed forces in Afghanistan , Tajikistan and the Chechnya conflict in both Grozny campaigns . The Russian armed forces also have the TOS-1 Buratino tracked vehicle (Pinocchio) with a 30-round multiple rocket launcher system for launching 220 mm incendiary missiles. With a volley of four TOS-1 systems (120 rockets) an area of 200 × 400 m is suddenly set on fire. The maximum fighting distance is around 5 km.

Australia

Australia led the American flamethrower series. However, since these were neither further developed nor further produced, the remaining stocks were removed from the arsenals in the mid-1990s due to the lack of availability of spare parts. The Australian armed forces did not introduce any replacement for it.

Other use

A civil use of military flamethrowers practically does not take place - apart from a few individual cases.

For example, in Germany during the Second World War, flamethrowers were issued to the police and fire brigade in order to cope with the large number of civilian deaths as a result of the Allied bombing of German cities and to reduce the risk of epidemics. The throwers were used to burn the corpses quickly. Operations of this kind are also known from recent history following devastating environmental disasters with many deaths.

Occasionally, flamethrowers are also said to have been used to set counterfire in fire fighting , against threatening insect pests and for the controlled burning of vegetation in agriculture and forestry. At least its use in agriculture appears questionable, since the soil would be contaminated by incompletely burned flame oil and toxic and carcinogenic combustion residues.

Flamethrowers mounted on drones can be used to remove foreign objects in overhead lines.

In the civil sector, primarily for the destruction of weeds and pests , but also in film productions and at show events, such as B. the fire show at Rhein-Fire games or concerts by the German band Rammstein , always under the control of the fire brigade and trained pyrotechnicians , used flame projectors , use a combustible gas, mostly butane or propane gas, as the flame material . These gas-powered show and garden devices are neither functional nor comparable with the military flamethrower.

On June 11, 1964, the mentally ill early retiree Walter Seifert in Cologne-Volkhoven killed two teachers at a Catholic elementary school with a lance and seriously injured 28 students and 2 teachers with a self-made flamethrower from a weed sprayer. He then killed himself. Eight students died from burn injuries in the following days. See also: Volkhoven assassination .

Private property

Flamethrowers are now subject to the Weapons Act and the War Weapons Control Act in Germany and the associated restrictions:

§ 1 WaffG (excerpt):

"Weapons are [...] portable objects which, by their very nature, are intended to eliminate or reduce the ability of people to attack or defend themselves, in particular cutting and thrusting weapons;"

Attachment 1:

"Portable objects according to Section 1 Paragraph 2 No. 2 Letter a are in particular objects

in which gaseous, liquid or solid substances leave the object in a targeted and burning manner with a flame longer than 20 cm.

in which highly flammable substances are distributed and ignited in such a way that a fire can suddenly start. "

Appendix 2:

"Prohibited weapons
The handling of the following weapons and ammunition is prohibited:
[…]
1.3.4
Objects in which highly flammable substances are distributed and ignited in such a way that a fire can suddenly occur; or in which an explosion can be triggered using explosive or explosive substances "

In the US, private property is not subject to federal law ( federal law ), but the state law , and is therefore states thing. In California , for example, it is only possible to a limited extent.

literature

Bernhard Reddemann: History of the German Flamethrower Troop. Association of former members of the Guard Reserve Pioneer Regiment, Berlin, undated (around 1933), (53 pages)

Ilya Shaydurov: Russian close combat equipment: types, technology, data . 1st edition. Motorbuch, 2017, ISBN 978-3-613-03974-2 , pp. 226 ff .

Thomas Wictor: German Flamethrower Pioneers of World War I. Schiffer Publishing, Atglen 2007, ISBN 978-0-7643-2772-8 .

Joseph Needham : Science and Civilization in China. Volume 5: Chemistry and Chemical Technology. Part 7: Military Technology. The Gunpowder Epic. With the Collaboration of Ho Ping-Yü, Gwei-Djen Lu and Wang Ling. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 1987, ISBN 0-521-30358-3 (on China).

James R. Partington : A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder. Heffer, Cambridge 1960, (1st paperback edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD et al. 1999, ISBN 0-8018-5954-9 ).