Where have all the flamethrowers gone?

[Jammersix]

I don't accept that the statement "in certain times and places" as true, because the place doesn't have anything to do with it-- it was the time, and the time alone. That was my point. (And I didn't do a very good job of explaining it. Sorry.)

I won't go back to revolvers, let alone single action revolvers or percussion cap weapons. Because their time is over, and even an old semi-auto is a better choice.

I think we agree, but I can't get the damn words in the right order.

[Anthony P.]

The place definitely matters, at least in reference to e.g. a Japanese bunker or cave system.

Revolvers have no advantage over modern pistols. A flamethrower that can clear out a cave in seconds at no loss of (friendly) lives obviously offers some very distinct advantages.

[Jammersix]

Then we better fire those suckers up, we have caves in Afghanistan!

Oh, wait, no, the time is wrong. The time has changed, and we have much better gear, now.

[Sublime]

Well I never said they were war winning weapons and this doesnt apply to flamethrowers - however according to tables and stuff kicked around here napalm did account for the lions share of anti armor kills for Korea.  Clusterbombs atgms and precision fires makes napalm pointless and a political disaster now nevertheless.

How can we really say one weapon did or did not really get the job done in Korea unless it can be shown to be so utterly useless soldiers just discarded them or didnt use them? After all something compelled veterans to not say stuff when the flamethrower operator got killed and someone else got thrown into the job.  It was very common in late WW2, Korea, and Vietnam for US forces to use so much so I think that while the outcomes wouldnt have changed the stories do.

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

5 hours ago, Anthony P. said:

The place definitely matters, at least in reference to e.g. a Japanese bunker or cave system.

Revolvers have no advantage over modern pistols. A flamethrower that can clear out a cave in seconds at no loss of (friendly) lives obviously offers some very distinct advantages.

As Jammersix has pointed out, there's other safer ways to get the job done, between infantry launched thermobaric weapons, or just the fact we can land large warheads within 1-2 meters of point of aim.  Flamethrowers made sense in a time that lacked precision weapons, or advanced infantry rocket launchers, and while I'll contend flamethrowers had some use past World War Two (see things like the flamethrower equipped M113 or PBR), it was an increasingly niche weapon system.

 

 

1 hour ago, Sublime said:

Well I never said they were war winning weapons and this doesnt apply to flamethrowers - however according to tables and stuff kicked around here napalm did account for the lions share of anti armor kills for Korea.  Clusterbombs atgms and precision fires makes napalm pointless and a political disaster now nevertheless.

How can we really say one weapon did or did not really get the job done in Korea unless it can be shown to be so utterly useless soldiers just discarded them or didnt use them? After all something compelled veterans to not say stuff when the flamethrower operator got killed and someone else got thrown into the job.  It was very common in late WW2, Korea, and Vietnam for US forces to use so much so I think that while the outcomes wouldnt have changed the stories do.

I'd like to see those tables for armor kills.  Most of the ones I've seen for Korea put US tanks as the primary killer of North Korean tanks.

[MikeyD]

People don't seem to be aware that flamethrowers have been banned as a weapon of war for years and years now. I forget what big international accord did that but it was a long time ago. I (vaguely) recall in the same accord they had also sought to outlaw combat shotguns but the US fought them tooth-and-nail on that particular issue.

[A Canadian Cat]

I cannot find a ban anywhere.  Google turns up many references to things like "many thing it should banned" or  "many think it is banned but it is not".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamethrower

" Flamethrowers have not been in the U.S. arsenal since 1978, when the Department of Defense unilaterally stopped using them. They have been deemed of questionable effectiveness in modern combat and the use of flame weapons is always a public relations issue due to the horrific death they inflict. Despite some assertions, they are not generally banned, but are banned for use against civilians, or against military targets in a concentration of civilians under some circumstances. "

Several articles I found talked about the US army's decision to stop using them as one of optics and a feeling that they are not necessary on a modern battles field.  But those same articles also talked about the equipment as being explosive and dangerous so big grain of salt there.

[Sublime]

2 hours ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

As Jammersix has pointed out, there's other safer ways to get the job done, between infantry launched thermobaric weapons, or just the fact we can land large warheads within 1-2 meters of point of aim.  Flamethrowers made sense in a time that lacked precision weapons, or advanced infantry rocket launchers, and while I'll contend flamethrowers had some use past World War Two (see things like the flamethrower equipped M113 or PBR), it was an increasingly niche weapon system.

 

 

I'd like to see those tables for armor kills.  Most of the ones I've seen for Korea put US tanks as the primary killer of North Korean tanks.

Ill dig around.* No im pretty sure youre a 100 percent right and I should have worded it differently. I meant that as far as ordnance from the air napalm was the only thing that genuinely seemed to KO armor late WW2 and Korea.

 

*meh i dont care enough to dig. The tables been on this board more than once i think it was in a discussion you were in, Pz. However i should have said it was most effective  air dropped at ordinance.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Sublime

[Sublime]

Ian i thought the 1899 Hague Convention banned shotguns but the US either wasnt a signatory or ignored that in WW1 etc.

 

Hmm reading a Wiki about it and it doesnt mention shotguns. But its a summary not the treaty. I think I may be misremembering.

Edited June 24, 2016 by Sublime

[A Canadian Cat]

I didn't look for a shot gun ban just a flame thrower one...

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

8 hours ago, Sublime said:

Ill dig around.* No im pretty sure youre a 100 percent right and I should have worded it differently. I meant that as far as ordnance from the air napalm was the only thing that genuinely seemed to KO armor late WW2 and Korea.

 

*meh i dont care enough to dig. The tables been on this board more than once i think it was in a discussion you were in, Pz. However i should have said it was most effective  air dropped at ordinance.

Hah.  Those would be the tables I posted.  You are indeed correct, napalm was about the only thing coming off of US aviation that reliably killed tanks (the 29 confirmed claims by aircraft with other weapons must be set against the several hundred attacked and claimed destroyed of course) Here's it again for posterity:

"Re: Korea

Here's what Zaloga says, which is from the official post conflict BDA on NKPA tank losses.  It's based entirely on recovered hulls which is important given some of the cray-cray USAF claims of destroying several hundred tanks.  The NKPA also lacked meaningful recovery assets, so generally if something was "killed" it wasn't going anywhere.  All claims are T-34/85s to the best of my understanding (the only other NKPA armor being the SU-76).  Additionally it's on target analysis vs crew claims:

Total Kills by tanks: 89+8 Damaged (but recovered by UN forces)

   M24: 1

   M26: 29+3

   M4A3E8: 41+4

   M46: 18+1

Artillery: 20+8

Bazooka (both M20 and M9): 11+11

Recoilless rifle: 9+4

Land Mines: 1

Grenades: 3

Aircraft: 27+2

Naval Gunfire: 12

"Unconfirmed" 63

 

Unconfirmed includes anything that was difficult to identify beyond reasonable measures.  This includes likely napalm kills, vehicles that catastrophically blew up to the degree where finding a clear cause was simply impractical, but enough pieces could be found to rule out it being a collection of T-34 parts vs a full wreck.

 

From that even if all unconfirmed kills were from aviation, US armor was still the most lethal thing on the battlefield vs the T-34/85.  The M4A3E8 did quite well, but this likely stems from it being more common."

[Sublime]

Absolutely agree. I missposted* and yeah i wasnt sure but remembered the point you made in the thread prominently about napalm... i basically recycled your argument from the thread.

 *misposted as in i should have clarified.  Naturally I agree with the table and also the fact that armor - especially circa ww2 and korea - is the best killer of armor.  Now a days Id still contend that armor is veeeeerrrrry important though of course javelins and air strikes can kill armor very reliably now. But air power cannot sit there all day and theres no way men could haul around the equivalent destructive power in numbers javelin missiles that one abrams would have in its on board ammo load.

Also ya absolutely agree that it was because the m4a3e8 was just so common.  I wonder did British tanks account for any NKPA armor? I know the tanks featured prominently in the Imjin stand but ISTR that it was thousands and thousands of Chinese and their army which wasnt using armor there (or anywhere else in Korea at the time? Ive never really seen mention of enemy armor after Summer 1950?) that the Brit tanks and troops faced in that epic stand..

Edited June 25, 2016 by Sublime

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

Re: British Armour 

It wasn't a factor in tank on tank.  Basically you have for lack of a way that amuses me as much, a "hunting season" in which the DPRK was deploying armor in number but by November 1950 North Korean tanks in South Korea had been effectively hunted to extinction (the numbers I cited amount to just two tanks short of the entire North Korean tank starting strength at the beginning of the war).  

The first British tanks arrived in theater just a little too late and were on South Korean soil in November.  The only tank on tank action I know of involving the British was when they had to knock out a Cromwell that had been captured by the Chinese.  
 

[Sublime]

Well your own amusement is something you definitely take seriously..  your epic dive head first into the forum cosigns my point

Its as good as reason as any and i wont debate it

[Apocal]

On 6/20/2016 at 1:50 AM, General Melchid said:

 I find it perplexing that modern armies do not appear to field flamethrowers, either personal or vehicle mounted.

Can anyone tell me why not; seems like a useful weapon to have available in some circumstances eg house/bunker clearing.

We can just explode their innards with thermobaric weapons.

And when it comes time to burning people out of fortified buildings, Marines just went with the field expedient solutions of stuff like det cord wrapped around an 81mm WP or a propane tank.

[Sublime]

Wouldnt shooting det cord out of a mortar barrel be a serious risk of a detonation either in or right out of the barrel?

[Erwin]

Surely he meant use the combo as a satchel charge.  (Can't shoot a propane tank out of a 81mm barrel can you?)

[General Melchid]

I do wish that the thermobaric warheads were better portrayed in game , both visually and effect wise.

Currently they look and feel like HE (weak HE at that).

[Apocal]

10 hours ago, Sublime said:

Wouldnt shooting det cord out of a mortar barrel be a serious risk of a detonation either in or right out of the barrel?

 

8 hours ago, Erwin said:

Surely he meant use the combo as a satchel charge.  (Can't shoot a propane tank out of a 81mm barrel can you?)

 

Yeah, the infantrymen carry the 81mm WP round with det cord wrapped around it. They throw it into the building themselves, not fire it out of the mortar tube, lol.

[Sublime]

Lol hey I dont know man I never said I was a real life soldier

[Kinophile]

1 hour ago, Sublime said:

Lol hey I dont know man I never said I was a real life soldier

Luckily for you and anyone neat you,  I'd say!

[Sublime]

Haha yeah fair to say and you havent evem fought a battle against me its an ever stronger argument against me in an command capacity.

Im good at what I do though, over and under the table  

[LUCASWILLEN05]

On 6/20/2016 at 1:06 PM, Sublime said:

I do wonder about napalm though.

Of course we have better air to ground AT weapons now but for something that was pretty much the only truly effective US tank killer from planes..  I think its a combination of public revulsion and holdover feelings from the Vietnam era and of course what Jammer said about there simply being better ways for our military kill.

Thermobaric weapons accomplish pretty much the same effect