Incendiary Weapons

A Flamethrower is a device which projects a jet of fire. While the Flamethrowers have other applications such as defoliation the most well known is as a weapon. Flamethrowers can be very destructive against wooden structures and flood rooms with a lethal inferno. Even so, one of the biggest factors about flamethrowers is psychological. People have a well established aversion to being consumed by fire, both by instinct and because being burned to death is a horrible way to go. Therefore, the mere threat of being burned alive (such as by merely drenching the intended target in unlit fuel) is enough to send people running.

Historic Use

The basic mechanisms of a Flamethrower are pretty simple. All you need is a cistern for fuel, a pump, a nozzle and a pilot light. It's not hard to figure out so long as you have the technology for pumps and access to some kind of Oil. As such there are various interment examples of there use throughout history. The earliest example this editor could find would be in the battle of Delium in 424 BC where the attacking Boeotian's tried to some some kind of flamethrower against the Athenians defenders.

The first perhaps wide spread use of flame throwers though goes to the Byzantines and there "Greek Fire". Greek Fire is some times considered 'the first secret weapon' and alongside roman concrete is one of the earliest trope setters for 'unknown lost technology' that 40k takes and run's with. In any case Greek Fire was a very effective weapon and although land based uses are recorded, as you can imagine in an era of wooden ships (with the cistern and pump being heavy) it was a dangerous weapon on water. As stated we still don't know quite what greek fire was, though we have a few ideas. It alongside most early (and modern) flame throwers were likely used some sort of petroleum derived compound, but if you do a quick eye ball of Byzantines territory in the time Greek Fire was supposedly introduced, not a lot of natural oil fields were left especially easy to get stuff so jury is still out. Other have suspected some kind of quicklime based solution as well.

Meanwhile in Asia the forces of the Song Dynasty also built flamethrowers, multiple types in fact. It's genneral understood (read stolen from wiki) that the Chinese of this time period were were given tributes of petroleum from Vietnam. Called "měng huǒ yóu" in Chinese which translates to "fierce-fire oil" which gave the Chinese fire weapons there heat. One such flamethrower is recorded in the "Wujing Zongyao", a military guide written around 1040-1044.

And of course any discussion of pre modern incendiary would be incomplete without mentioning: Naptha. Naphtha is just a type of petroleum known since ancient times. Nowadays it's pretty broadly used as a name for crude oil or even more refined items like kerosene. But while Napatha is bit boring since it's 'just' patroleum, it's still a name that shows up in both history and fantasy so it's worth going over quickly what it is: just read 'crude oil' and you won't be too far wrong.

Even so, it was in the 20th century in which Flamethrowers really came into their own as man portable units. It started with the Germans who worked out that they could be used to clear out trenches.

Modern Use

At present, flamethrowers in a military context are mainly used against bunkers, pillboxes, and other fortified positions. Since they're throwing flaming liquid, and that liquid can pass around corners, through narrow passages, and over barriers.

There are also valid civilian uses, most notably for starting control fires and melting snow and ice, which is why some variants are actually sold to the general public (and only regulated as fire hazards). Such commercial flamethrowers typically do not have the range of military ones; a WW2 M2 flamethrower has an effective range of about 65ft, well in excess of any civilian application.

Flamethrowers in Fantasy

In Discworld flamethrowers show up on occasion including the Klatchian Fire Engine in Men At Arms and the Deep Downers have some in Thud!

See Also

• Flamer

This article is a stub. You can help 1d4chan by expanding it

Medieval Weaponry
Melee Weapons:	Battleaxe - Dagger - Lance - Mace - Club Pole-arm - Spear - Sword - Warhammer
Ranged Weapons:	Blowgun - Bows and Arrows - Cannon Crossbow - Firearm - Rocket - Shuriken - Sling - Incendiary Weapons - Artillery
Armor:	Armor - Fantasy Armor - Helmet - Pauldron - Shield