Flamethrower

Lore & Background

Most military flamethrowers use liquid fuel, typically either heated oil or diesel, but commercial flamethrowers are generally blowtorches using gaseous fuels such as propane. Gases are safer in peacetime applications because their flames have less mass flow rate and dissipate faster and often are easier to extinguish. Apart from military applications, flamethrowers have peacetime applications where there is a need for controlled burning, such as in sugarcane harvesting and other land-management tasks. Various forms are designed for an operator to carry, while others are mounted on vehicles.

Reader's Guide

The man-portable flamethrower consists of two elements—the backpack and the gun. The backpack element usually consists of two or three cylinders. In a two-cylinder system, one cylinder holds compressed, inert propellant gas (usually nitrogen), and the other holds flammable liquid. A three-cylinder system often has two outer cylinders of flammable liquid and a central cylinder of propellant gas.

The gas propels the liquid fuel out of the cylinder through a flexible pipe and then into the gun element. The gun consists of a small reservoir, a spring-loaded valve, and an ignition system; depressing a trigger opens the valve, allowing pressurized flammable liquid to flow and pass over the igniter and out of the gun nozzle. The igniter can be a simple electrically heated wire coil or a small pilot flame. Flamethrowers were primarily used against battlefield fortifications, bunkers, and other protected emplacements.

A flamethrower projects a stream of flammable liquid, rather than flame, which allows bouncing the stream off walls and ceilings to project the fire into unseen spaces. Contemporary flamethrowers can incinerate a target some 50–100 metres from the operator. Flamethrowers pose many risks to the operator, including weight, limited burn time, visibility on the battlefield, and short effective range. The risk of a flamethrower operator being caught in the explosion of their weapon due to enemy hits on the tanks is exaggerated in films, but in some cases pressure tanks have exploded and killed the operator when hit by bullets or grenade shrapnel.