Flamethrowers and the inhumane warfare

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Kimmo Huosionmaa

Flamethrowers are classified as the "inhumane weapon", and they are prohibited to use in war since World War I when they made the most terrifying injuries for the troops in both sides. But the fire is one of the most effective weapons in the world because of humans afraid fire naturally, and this makes this horrifying weapon one of the most effective weapons in history.  Big size heavy flamethrowers were in the key role in the defense and offense in many battles in the WWI.  The weapon was prohibited in the same contract with the chemical weapons.

But this contract was the "dead letter", and in the WWII both axis and allies used flamethrowers in their campaigns, and especially Germans published many pictures about men who were used this weapon. And United States army used that weapon against Japanese in the Pacific campaign. Flamethrowers played a big role in the battle of Iwo Jima and also Germans used that weapon in the Eastern front. German assault engineers got success in battles and the users of the flamethrowers got extra allowances for using that weapon. That weapon was effective against fortresses because the flames kept persons out of the shooting holes and burned the oxygen from the inside when the flames were targeted to bunkers.

Flamethrowers were installed in the Bren or Universal carrier wagons, what called as "Wasp-wagons" and Sherman tanks. Also, Soviet troops equipped their T-34 tanks with flamethrowers.  Originally those weapons used petroleum and diesel oil for making the fire. Those hydrocarbons were sometimes boosted with alcohol or potassium nitrate, and those boosters increased the effect of that weapon by increasing burning temperature.

But after the WWII flamethrowers were strictly prohibited because they were meant for killing people, and the user of that device was not wanted to tell that at home. But both sides used that equipment in Korea, also French and other Europeans have used flamethrowers in the colony wars because those military actions classified as the "police operations", and Indo-China was far away from the Paris. One of the reason, for prohibiting this weapon once again the cisterns, what the user of flamethrower carried in the back was the attractive target for enemy snipers.

This is why that weapon wanted to make safer for the user. The two tanks were used because of the safety of the user, and in another tank would be pure oxygen, what makes almost every material burning, and another was filled normal food oil, what started to burn in pure oxygen. This structure was meant for making flamethrowers safer for their users, who were not very popular but effective part of the military.  In that time those weapons used napalm, and the injuries, what this hydrocarbon made was terrible. So because of psychological reasons this weapon removed from the military arsenal.

But the small number of those weapons remained in operational use against some biological weapons, and flamethrowers seemed an effective way to sterilizing large areas. After that Edgewood arsenal started to create a new type of flamethrowers, what was "marketed" as the "anti-tank weapon". This kind of flamethrowers is using normally acetylene and oxygen combination, what creates the temperature, what is over 3500 degrees Celsius. That temperature melts the tank immediately, and the targeted persons transfer to ash. This kind of weapons is extremely dangerous because they can burn material and cause injuries in the very long range away from home.

Picture I

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