Flamethrowers vs. Armor

[John Kettler]

Andreas,

The argument was advanced that the soldiers supposed to carry the flamethrowers into battle didn't because they feared drowning while overloaded in deep surf. I merely showed that the argument mounted by you and JasonC was significantly defective, in that I provided two separate examples from D-Day in which assault soldiers went into battle bearing greater burdens than a flamethrower operator would've borne. Neither drowned!

No non sequitur there that I can see. You made an argument based on what you viewed as excessive combat load, and I refuted it. Earlier, I advanced a premise that even though flamethrowers were issued on a scale of one per LCVP, most were left in the boats because the soldiers feared getting hit and set afire. You countered with the weight issue, which I just disproved. That doesn't prove the premise (paraphrased from another site) I advanced, but it seems to narrow the possibilities. Could the men have had an exaggerated fear of drowning while wearing a flamethrower? Yes. Could it also have been a fear of becoming a human torch if hit in vulnerable parts of the flamethrower? Yes.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Andreas]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

No non sequitur there that I can see. You made an argument based on what you viewed as excessive combat load, and I refuted it. Earlier, I advanced a premise that even though flamethrowers were issued on a scale of one per LCVP, most were left in the boats because the soldiers feared getting hit and set afire. You countered with the weight issue, which I just disproved. That doesn't prove the premise (paraphrased from another site) I advanced, but it seems to narrow the possibilities. Could the men have had an exaggerated fear of drowning while wearing a flamethrower? Yes. Could it also have been a fear of becoming a human torch if hit in vulnerable parts of the flamethrower? Yes.

Regards,

John Kettler

You simply don't get it John. Let me make it really simple for you.

Overloading soldiers is a real problem, in the real world, acknowledged by real soldiers, since the time of the Romans I guess.

Flamethrowers blowing up because they take small-calibre hits has so far not been shown to be a real problem, in the real world.

So, Jason and I think of a real problem, in the real world, as an explanation for the fact that the soldiers left the FTs behind.

You however take the fact that they left them behind, and advance it as an argument for your pet theory, for which no proof has been presented thus far, and for which this argument is not proof either.

I hope the difference between our thought processes, and why yours is a rubbish argument, and mine is not, is now clearer.

All the best

Andreas

[Sergei]

Soldiers are as prone to irrational fears as anyone, and even more so because their lives depend on risk minimization. So you have tank crews adding tracks and sandbags for extra protection, despite that in reality these may have improved chances of penetration.

Therefore how soldiers felt about flamethrowers cannot be directly explained by how we know flamethrowers to behave under field conditions.

[Random Generic]

Absolutely.

You can't irrefutably prove by logic alone just WHAT it was that caused those men to eschew those flamethrowers.

Even the men we speak of remember different things...as an example, from Lt John Spalding's DDay Narrative in the National Archives:

"About this time Pfc. Vincent DiGaetano, who was carrying a 72 pound flamethrower, yelled and said, “I’m drowning, what do you want me to do with this flamethrower”. Streczyk told him to drop it, so he did. In addition to the flamethrowers and many personal weapons, we lost our mortar, most of the mortar ammunition, one of our bazookas, much of the bazooka ammunition."

However, the interviewer (who attempted to corraborate the details of the story) added a footnote here:

"According to Vincent DiGaetano, he did carry a flamethrower on D-Day but this incident didn't happen. DiGaetano remembers that the flamethrower had an inflatable life vest and he was able to get it ashore. Exhausted at the water's edge, he staggered to the seawall without the weapon. Streczyk sent him back to get it (which sounds like the sergeant)."

He further added:

"Some details can not corroborated and this may be due to paraphrasing by the historical personnel. It's doubtful, for instance, that any soldier in the history of war ever called out, “I’m drowning! What do you want me to do with [my weapon]?"

72 pounds is a heck of a lot of weight to pick up over personal gear and dive into the surf with. On the other hand, my experience as a firefighter for the Forest Service has shown me that men will bear tremendous burdens through adversity if they believe it has to be done.

Of note is the recollection of the attached safety vest.

No doubt the distinctive silhouette of the flamethrower made the wearer feel like he was carrying a large "shoot me 1st" sign. They didn't need to see it actually happen in action to know that specialist teams were going to be targeted.

And no doubt the fear of immolation to some was simply too much to bear, as irrational and unlikely to occur as it was ...in the "real" world.

Random Generic

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Random Generic:

No doubt the distinctive silhouette of the flamethrower made the wearer feel like he was carrying a large "shoot me 1st" sign. They didn't need to see it actually happen in action to know that specialist teams were going to be targeted.

Apparently the Soviets dried to address this with their ROKS-2 flamethrower.

During Continuation War Finnish troops also captured Soviet ROKS-2 portable flame-throwers, which were then adapted to Finnish use. The speciality of ROKS-2 was that the Soviets had tried to camouflage it as M/91-30 military rifle and backpack. Because of this purpose the barrel was shaped to remind rifle and fuel tanks had been attached to frame made from thin steel plate, which covered them somewhat hiding their structure. The Finns presumably captured ROKS-2 mostly at 1941 and named them as M/41-R. Captured M/41-R flame-throwers remained in battle-use with Finnish Engineer Corps to the end of WW2.

Effectiveness of camouflage used with ROKS-2 in real battles is highly questionable. The nitrogen tank was not covered by steel frame and hose leading from fuel tank to the barrel was still in plain view. And once the flame was ignited the true nature of weapon must have been quite obvious. Like with M/40 also M/41-R demanded crew of two to operate it.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Sergei:

Therefore how soldiers felt about flamethrowers cannot be directly explained by how we know flamethrowers to behave under field conditions.

Yes. I fully agree - that does not mean however that these imaginary fears are proof that they are not imaginary.

All the best

Andreas

[civdiv]

This article talks in generalities, but it mentions both that the tanks could explode if hit, and that they were used on tanks, but admittedly, it doesn't give any specific examples;

http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/flamethrowers.htm

"By the close of the war flamethrower use had been extended to use on tanks, a policy carried forward to World War Two. Flame-throwing equipment, albeit somewhat refined, continues in use to the present day."

and

"Quite aside from the worries of handling the device - it was entirely feasible that the cylinder carrying the fuel might unexpectedly explode - they were marked men..."

[Michael Dorosh]

From my own website, though it is a quote from David Gordon:

However, a Hollywood myth perpetuated by films like Saving Private Ryan bears some scrutiny here:

It should be noted that flame thrower operators did not usually face a fiery death from the slightest spark or even from having their tank hit by a normal bullet as often depicted in modern war films. The Gas Container is filled with a non-flammable gas that is under high pressure. If this tank were ruptured, it might knock the operator forward as it was expended in the same way a pressurized aerosol can bursts outward when punctured. The fuel mixture in the Fuel Containers is difficult to light which is why magnesium filled igniters are required when the weapon is fired. Fire a bullet into a metal can filled with diesel or napalm and it will merely leak out the hole unless the round was an incendiary type that could possibly ignite the mixture inside. This also applies to the flame thrower Fuel Container.(Weapons of the WWII Tommy)

http://www.canadiansoldiers.com/mediawiki-1.5.5/index.php?title=Flamethrower

[civdiv]

This is a good read but doesn't mention either the self-immolation issue or use on tanks. It deals solely with the Pacific.

Portable Flamethrowers:

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/chemsincmbt/ch14.htm

Mounted on vehicles:

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/chemsincmbt/ch15.htm

The latter does mention;

"Tank crews developed a fear of the periscope type after the fuel container of one burst and ignited upon being struck by an enemy shell, burning the tank crew to death."

This site mentions flamethrowers were used against tanks but again gives no specific examples;

http://www.geocities.com/Augusta/8172/panzerfaust11.htm

[ November 11, 2006, 05:19 PM: Message edited by: civdiv ]

[realest]

Originally posted by Andreas:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John Kettler:

Forgot to mention that every U.S. D-Day landing craft landing element was issued a flamethrower, but from what I've read most GIs left the weapon aboard when they debarked? Why? They didn't wish to become human torches if hit while wearing it!

Or maybe they did not want to have a heavy object strapped on their back while making it across the beach and through the water?

Or maybe they did not have their weeties and did not feel like it?

And how would these man have had evidence that it was likely that the FT would explode when fired at? IOW how can a belief that they might become human torches be evidence for your claim? These are the same soldiers who would have us believe that every German tank was a Tiger, and every gun an 88. So even if they believed something, it is as possible to be based on imaginary fears than a realistic appreciation of the situation.

All the best

Andreas </font>

[realest]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Chest high water without the waves, 4 foot surf when 1 foot had been expected, 70 lb metal object strapped to your body that isn't a scuba tank, equals stark raving mad. And no, it wasn't the fire that was scary it was the water.

Not true Jason! LOL, sorry but i've been one of these guys that jumped into 4 foot of water with 70 + lbs of gear (not in the same time period though). Around 90 lbs of gear actually. Water didn't scare me nor anyone else. You dont think they didn't train for the possiblity that they may not be able to make it to the beach, of course they did. But the thoughts of having a flamethrower attached to me and people shooting too, well that SOB would have been lost at sea. LOL.

[realest]

I think your argument, from a payload standpoint, is weak, especially since the flamethrower operator carried only a flamethrower.

Regards,

John Kettler [/QB]

John, FYI as this is something you may not have thought of. From my own personal experience when one of my buddies was toting things like Mortar baseplates etc the rest of the squad chipped in and carried his excess gear. That man still needs his rifle, pack, and assorted gear that is issued. For instance tent halves. Every man carries a tent half. If you don't have one, then it's the stars for you, that alone would suck, then think if you didn't have a sleeping bag too.

So these flamethrower guys on D-day likely left the FT either out of real concern for their safety or more likely in reality they feared loss of their equipment by their buddies so kept their gear and gave an ole "gee boss can't take that, too dangerous for us lowly fellows". In their circumstances nothing serious would come of disobeying the order to pick up the FT if they lived.

P.S. I agree with you that weight loads weren't the issue. I think they were scared of them either out of seeing defects or falling victim to military gossip.

[ November 11, 2006, 06:42 PM: Message edited by: realest ]

[John Kettler]

Andreas,

I understand your joint point just fine. I clearly stated that fear of drowning COULD explain

observed behavior by D-Day soldiers vis a vis flamethrowers, but that it could also be according to the borrowed premise I presented. Thus I'm acknowledging that your argument MAY be correct, while you pooh-pooh and lampoon mine.

"Absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence."

As applied to this matter, it means that there's an inherent problem in distinguishing among a unit hit by a shell explosion, a unit hit by a shell explosion during which a flamethrower explodes, and a unit hit by small arms and/or shell fragments, causing the flamethrower to explode and taking out those nearby. Even so, the Marine quoted in A LONG ROAD TO WAR seems perfectly sure that it was flame, not HE, which killed all those men. Since determined digging has found zero evidence of any Japanese flame attack with results so terrible at this stage of the war, the preponderance of evidence would seem to point right at the conclusion that small arms and/or a shell fragment/s set off the flamethrower/s in the hapless platoon, causing cascading devastation to all in the immediate vicinity.

Random Generic,

Nice bit of research! BTW, on the American side at least, SOFAIK the combat load was the flamethrower, not the flamethrower plus pack and web gear. No way to carry them together!

Sergei,

I tried very hard while CMBB was in development to get some modifier put in to make Russian flamethrower teams harder to spot because of the ROKS-2's rifle mimicking design and semiconcealing backpack.

Regarding perceived threats to soldiers and their responses, when body armor started to be issued to Army Air Corps flight crews, the issuing authorities were shocked to find aircrew sitting on their flak jackets and even helmets, rather than wearing them as designed. Why? The men were really uptight about being shot from directly below and were very concerned about the family jewels! That was the real threat as far as they were concerned. The same thing occurred with helicopter crews during the Vietnam War.

civdiv,

Helpful, but I believe you've misconstrued the meaning of the first quote. My read is that it refers to mounting flamethrowers on tanks, not using flamethrowers against tanks.

Michael Dorosh,

I cited that portion earlier via link, but would add that MG ammo typically has a tracer every seventh round or so, and a white to red hot shell fragment ought to be enough to set ablaze a highly pressurized fuel system once it's been penetrated and exposed to the air. I again note for the record that the annals of combat clearly record that Zippos, matches, even burning paper sufficed to set U.S. napalm fuel ablaze in the event of igniter failure.

realest,

I wish you well with the argument, but since I first mentioned it, I fear it's now damned in their eyes.

All,

Did you find the Russian analysis of U.S. flame attacks from the Korean War of interest?

Regards,

John Kettler

[civdiv]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

civdiv,

Helpful, but I believe you've misconstrued the meaning of the first quote. My read is that it refers to mounting flamethrowers on tanks, not using flamethrowers against tanks.

I completely understand it was a tank mounted flamethrower. In my mind;

1. It was a big tank, like the thing carried on the back of a flame thrower guy.

2. It is filled with the same stuff.

3. It got hit and exploded.

4. Immolating the crew.

So, in at least one case, a flamethrower exploded when hit. Plus, is roasted the crew. I'm not sure if the tank is under armor or not, anybody know?.

Now, before I get flamed, I understand this is a tank that contains at least 20 times what a personnal flamethrower contains, that it could be under armor (hence in the tank with them), and that obviously this is roughly equivelent to the fuel tanks exploding. Probably even worse since the crew may not be seperated from the flamethrower fuel by a bulkhead. I am not equating 200 gallons of napalm exploding possibly INSIDE a tank with some infantryman with his face buried in the mud squirting 5 gallons of fuel on a tank 20 meters away.

[realest]

Originally posted by JasonC:

There is no chance in hell a mere backpack FT with 4 gallons of gas firing for less than 10 seconds in aggregate can heat any appreciable portion of a 30 ton tank. It is pure physics, the joules of heat energy just aren't there. Welding focuses a lot of energy on a tiny area, an FT billows it over an area larger than the tank itself.

As for molotovs, they were not very effective by all accounts ...

If you had ever even read in any passage of an operational history of FTs being used with tactical effect on tanks, you could cite the elements I asked for...

I therefore have definite evidence and reasons for my opinion. From you I see absolutely none. Of course you can have an opinion without evidence, but if you know you have no evidence it is something less than reasonable to be convinced about it.

Jason, my point about the welding is that it was a new technique with real problems at the time. Look at the liberty ships, Kaisers Coffins they were nicknamed. They had a habit of literally breaking in the weld seams on the murmansk convoy. This is water that is in the 40 degree mark and it cause steel to shatter and break. What do you think heat would do????

Now, the heat issue is that this is referred to as annealing. Heating a steel up changes it and can alter it's chemical and physical properties. Cooling times and methods of cooling have serious effects on the physical property. I don't think i'm getting you to understand what i'm concerned about here. I'm not talking about huge steel pieces getting to hot, i'm concerned about smaller connection pieces. Those are the ones that i believe would be most vulnerable becuase they will undergo a longer process to nail down the exact Rockwell factor they are looking for.

The question is how long did this fuel burn?? Granted 4-8 gallons of FT fuel doesn't seem to be alot, but how long could it apply heat for???? What was the burn time?? If this stuff stuck and would burn for 10 minutes on a track then yes, you may have been able to weaken a member to fail.

Not all tanks or AFV's are equal. Some were better built than others.

I agree that molotovs weren't overly great. Nothing i've seen says "man what a tank killer" it was far more psychological to me.

You also cannot base your evidence on "Operational Records", none of them are complete. Not every incident can be recorded due to any number of reasons during war. The losing side will definately lose alot of records, you know this.

I do have reason and evidence for my views, perhaps i'm not able to convey my point well though. At any rate, top of the evening to you!

[John Kettler]

realest,

I totally grok your point about weld failures and point to analyses showing evidence of similar failures in the rivets of the R.M.S. Titanic, apparently from too much carbon in the metal mix.

Don't know whether it was true in the case of a napalm hit or similar, but the general rule for tank repairability during WW II was that if the tank burned, it was unrepairable, precisely because the heating destroyed the protective properties of the armor envelope.

Oh, and for all the screaming from frustrated Russian side CMBB players, molotov cocktails were still in use in the 1990s in Grozny, in the hands of very effective Chechen tank hunter teams. See item 37 here.

http://urbanoperations.8media.org/chech1.htm

For the napalm case, at least, flame dwell times were enough to set rubber road wheel rims on fire,

as detailed in the previously given Russian study of incendiary and flame attack during the Korean War.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Andreas]

Originally posted by realest:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Andreas:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John Kettler:

Forgot to mention that every U.S. D-Day landing craft landing element was issued a flamethrower, but from what I've read most GIs left the weapon aboard when they debarked? Why? They didn't wish to become human torches if hit while wearing it!

Or maybe they did not want to have a heavy object strapped on their back while making it across the beach and through the water?

Or maybe they did not have their weeties and did not feel like it?

And how would these man have had evidence that it was likely that the FT would explode when fired at? IOW how can a belief that they might become human torches be evidence for your claim? These are the same soldiers who would have us believe that every German tank was a Tiger, and every gun an 88. So even if they believed something, it is as possible to be based on imaginary fears than a realistic appreciation of the situation.

All the best

Andreas </font>

[Andreas]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Even so, the Marine quoted in A LONG ROAD TO WAR seems perfectly sure that it was flame, not HE, which killed all those men.

Lots of soldiers were perfectly sure that they were assaulted by Tigers, when all they met were Panzer IV. They were perfectly sure that they were fired at by 88s, when all they got was a rain of 105s. They were perfectly sure that their Shermans were much more prone to go up in flames than the German tanks, when the Panther was about equally flammable.

Originally posted by John Kettler:

[QB] Since determined digging has found zero evidence of any Japanese flame attack with results so terrible at this stage of the war, the preponderance of evidence would seem to point right at the conclusion that small arms and/or a shell fragment/s set off the flamethrower/s in the hapless platoon, causing cascading devastation to all in the immediate vicinity.

That's the 'determined digging' that John Salt exposed a few pages ago, right? That 'preponderance of evidence' is just the total absence of any other evidence than a bunch of dead marines, right? In your view, the absence of any further mention of Japanese flamethrower use with serious consequences is evidence that there was none?

That's a mighty argument you've got there.

All the best

Andreas

[John Kettler]

Andreas,

The digging in question was done AFTER John D Salt produced a late war report of Japanese flamethrower use. I spent hours using all sorts of search phrases trying to find not only more such late war incidents, but one which produced the heavy casualties described by the Marine in his A LONG ROAD TO WAR. I failed completely on both counts.

If you can produce such evidence, I'll be happy to peruse it.

Here is a Big Red One vet's account of the planned assault concept from the LCVPs.

http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent1/?file=dday_0026p1

Contrast the self-contained D-Day assault packages with the Marines and what happened when things went wrong during the run in. See paragraph 3.

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/III/USMC-III-II-3.html

This confirms the concentration, for a time at least, of available flamethrowers in only one unit (see paragraph below Tom Lea's Blockhouse painting).

http://www.ww2gyrene.org/weapons_flamethrower.htm

This should put paid to the flamethrower sinking its bearer by its weight. As clearly shown here,

the flamethrower operator DiGaetano was nearly drowned because he inflated his life vest, which was attached to the flamethrower on his back and pushed him facedown in the water. Once out of it, by sawing through the straps with his knife, it floated to the surface, where he used it as a raft

to help a nearly drowned man get ashore! He dumped the flamethrower at the water's edge, but was made to go back and get it. His flamethrower was useful in the one attack it did deliver, in the course of which he exhausted the entire fuel load.

http://www.warchronicle.com/16th_infantry/historiantales_wwii/Till_Victory.htm

Regards,

John Kettler

[ November 12, 2006, 06:28 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[JasonC]

realest thinks FTs will slice bread because "The question is how long did this fuel burn". But the answer is "less than 10 seconds, even with the whole load shot at once". Which won't do anything.

The only chance for lasting damage to a vehicle is if those few seconds ignite something flamable that supplies its own fuel. As already mentioned about a hundred times, the only way to do that is to soak the engine deck with most of the fuel in an unignited shot, then fire again ignited, and hope you start a fire to rubber hoses etc and that oil will feed that fire and make lots of smoke. Which then does not a darn thing to any steel or welds, it just smokes out the crew.

While that is what it would take to use an FT effectively against a tank - mimicking the behavior inherent in molotovs incidentally - it does not mean it every actually happened. The size of the war being what it was and well over 100,000 man pack FTs being fielded, it probably did happen a handful of times from one end of the war to another. But nobody has established even that much. The average fielded manpack FT had a snowball's chance in hell of KOing a tank before lost or discarded. More tanks were probably struck by lightning, and I mean that literally.

We have gone from everyone pretending if an FT touches a tank the tank explodes like a bomb, to the useful revelation that if you put a lifevest on an FT it might float.

FTs are ineffective AT weapons. They have neither the range nor the lethality nor the portability of real AT weapons, even infantry AT weapons, which are already desparation ones. They weren't used to kill tanks because they were hard to use even for the right targets and they didn't kill tanks. I am sure more tanks were KOed by molotovs alone than by pack FTs, but precious few were, and infantry with nothing but either facing tanks was infantry about to die (or give up).

Every effective AT weapon appears in combat narratives. FTs appear in combat narratives, as bunker busters (above all, Pacific especially), house clearers, cave and cellar finishers, deep woods and night attack weapons. They don't appear as effective AT weapons because they weren't.

Pure speculation to the contrary is just that, pure speculation.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Contrast the self-contained D-Day assault packages with the Marines and what happened when things went wrong during the run in. See paragraph 3.

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/III/USMC-III-II-3.html

So, how many Marine flamethrower operators in this operation died because their flamethrowers blew up when hit by small-arms fire?

All the best

Andreas

[JasonC]

I've done some further searching for FT vs tank real world stuff. First thing to point out is that 99 out of 100 things you find are from games, not reality. And easily 90 percent of the remainder are theoretical or technical description, not anything about actual experience in real combat.

I've found two mentions beyond those categories. One comes from WW II use lessons and tactics pamphlets, where the subject is dealing with Tigers. It says that while the flame will not penetrate the vehicle, it is possible to soot up the sights and vision ports (!) Would they be talking about that if it routinely just KOed the vehicle? Nooo.

The second source is from Korea not WW II, and addresses air dropped napalm not man packed FT. It is communist side - a Russian advisor telling lessons learned, passed on by the NK and Chinese etc. Here are the relevant bits -

"When it struck the road wheels of the T-34 tanks and SU-76 SP guns, napalm burned off the rubber tires. Tanks and SP guns deployed in place and lacking an ability to combat the fire in place were found stuck where their rubber was burned away. During dry weather, when moving a tank that had its rubber tire burned off but had the next wheel remaining intact tended to throw that track. But at the same time, a small number of vehicles suffered no major damage to their road wheels due to the short duration of the burning time of napalm or the fact that its flames soaked into the ground and were run over by the tracks."

"When it fell inside the tank, and when no timely counteraction was taken, the napalm started fires inside the tank, and on occasion caused the ammunition load to detonate."

"When napalm struck a tank, frequently the engine shut down due to oxygen starvation, but on the other hand once the fire was put out it usually restarted."

"Trucks and simpler unarmored transport means struck by napalm simply burned up."

"For protection of tank crews and armored vehicles, it was recommended that they cover all openings in the hull of the combat vehicle with fire-resistant material and exit the area covered by the flames."

"The clay soil upon which the burning napalm splattered was a good basis for storing weapons components and reliably isolated the flames from air to feed upon. By covering things with a layer of clay it prevented the napalm from burning them. When napalm struck the road wheels, track run and other parts of the tank, the crew could throw clay (earth) from the rice fields on it with their hands, using it to cover the burning napalm and for that reason snuff out the flames."

"It was more difficult to extinguish a napalm fire with sand, as the sand dissipated and would not always cover the surface; therefore, it was not a reliable way to isolate the napalm from the surrounding air."

"Each tank in a combat assignment was fitted with two 5-kilogram buckets of clay for extinguishing fires inside and outside of the vehicle."

This is a real world behavior for a real world effective threat. But that threat came from *a third* of all USAF munitions expended in Korea being napalm, dropped in 150 gallon drop tanks or 100 lb bombs, with splash areas of 20 meters for the smallest and more like 30 by 60 meters for the largest types. Not from 4-5 gallons for 8-10 second - half or more of it burning in the air long before it reached the target - from a manpack FT brought within 50m.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

[snips]

Thus I'm acknowledging that your argument MAY be correct, while you pooh-pooh and lampoon mine.

Well, apart from the complete lack of evidence, your argument suffers from being inconsistent, and so ill-formed. As Wolfgang Pauli would have put it, it's not even false.

Originally posted by John Kettler:

"Absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence."

OK, fine. This is the standard excuse for not being able to produce any evidence, and gives you a free pass to believe in exploding flamethrowers, UFOs, the Laffer curve, Raelianism and the tooth fairy. But let's consider it legitimate, just this once, for the sake of argument.

Originally posted by John Kettler:

[snips]

Since determined digging has found zero evidence of any Japanese flame attack with results so terrible at this stage of the war, the preponderance of evidence would seem to point right at the conclusion that small arms and/or a shell fragment/s set off the flamethrower/s in the hapless platoon, causing cascading devastation to all in the immediate vicinity.

Here you are clearly taking absence of evidence [but see footnote 1] to be evidence of absence.

Now, either you can take the position that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, or you can reject that position. What you cannot do, and still have a well-formed argument, is to take both the position and its contrary. But that's what you've just done. KABOOSH! Your argument explodes with a blinding flash, leaving you sizzling in a fiery mess of broken logic.

All the best,

John.

Footnote 1: Of course this "absence of evidence" only appears to be so because you have moved the goalposts about what you wanted evidence of. Your initial position was that there were no Japanese flamethrower attacks against Marines at this time. It took a few minutes to google up a counter-example. You then switched the criterion to be flamethrower attacks "with results so terrible". Exactly why the original incident can be taken as evidence of an exploding flamethrower (of which no other incidents have yet been reported) instead of a Japanese flamethrower attack (of which other incidents have been reported) is not explained. But let's not get into questions of Bayesian priors before you have mastered the principle of non-contradicton.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

Your argument explodes with a blinding flash, leaving you sizzling in a fiery mess of broken logic.

I am quite convinced that the risk of this happening is the reason why US Marines did not take arguments along when they landed on Tarawa.

It appears that flamethrowers were okay though.

All the best

Andreas

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by JasonC:

I've done some further searching for FT vs tank real world stuff. First thing to point out is that 99 out of 100 things you find are from games, not reality. And easily 90 percent of the remainder are theoretical or technical description, not anything about actual experience in real combat.

Yup. And I notice that the challenge to produce a single account of an FT tank kill has still not been answered, just like the challenge to produce an instance of an FT exploding when struck by a bullet.

Still, to add to the steadily-growing pile of evidence about the ineffectiveness of flame attacks against tanks, consider the following from John Weeks' excellent "Men Against Tanks", pp. 42-43, discussing anti-tank methods proposed during the invasion scare. We start with the four-man tank-burning team:

"Optimism was paramount in this method of attack, but it was later expanded into a proper drill using a team of four men, two holding the metal bar, one carrying a bucket of petrol, and the last one having either a Very pistol or fusee matches. As the tank passed, numbers one and two pushed the bar into the tracks to stop it; number three threw petrol on to the side, in some cases adding a blanket to soak up the petrol and keep it in one place; and number four came up and ignited the vehicle. The tank was then supposed to blaze merrily and the crew would be shot as they tried to get out."

Fortunately, this method was never tried for real. I think "optimism was paramount in this method of attack" is a nice piece of English understatement. The idea of shoving metal bars into tank suspensions to stop them gives a good idea of the level of practicality involved.

The next paragraph on p. 43 begins:

"Flame recurs frequently in the Home Guard manuals of this time, although Tom Wintringham was not enthusiastic about Molotov Cocktails saying that they were overrated and claiming that 10 per cent of the men using them ended up with serious burns."

Tom Wintringham had combat experience as CO of the "English Battalion" at the battle of Jarama (recounted in his book "English Captain") and was in charge of the Home Guard anti-tank school at Osterley Park. His thoughts on tank fighting are contained in his "New Ways of War" -- he prefers big lumps of HE, and I think he's right.

Moving on to pp. 46-50:

"Finally there was flame. Although petrol stocks were not large in 1940, there was far more petroleum than there was explosive or guns and several minds bent themselves to the task of determining how best to use fire as a deterrent to armoured vehicles. The best and simnplest way was not to try to ignite the tank because it was known that that was difficult -- despite what the Home Guard were being taught -- it was better to surround the vehicle with a sea of fire and literally starve it of oxygen. Oxygen for the engine and oxygen for the crew were both needed in large quantities and a big enough fire would use up all that was in and around the tank. It took less than six seconds to stop a 1940 tank through oxygen starvation and the planning was based on this figure. Obviously it was difficult to provide for mobile flame projectors that could throw as much fuel as would be needed for six seconds of burning time, so most of the devices were static and intended to be pure ambush weapons. In the main there were four types:

Static Flame Traps

Flame Fougasses, Demi-Gasses and Hedge-Hoppers

Beach Flame Barrages

Home Guard Flame Throwers

The Static Flame Traps were self-explanatory. They were some system of projecting fuel on to a road or track and igniting it. Most of them consisted of large drums of fuel dug into hillsides about 200ft from the track with pipes leading to the verges. Nearly all were gravity fed, but there were a few which needed pumps to force the fuel to the jets. The fuel was 25 per cent petrol and 75 per cent gas oil. Ignition was by using a Very pistol or a Molotov Cocktail, and to cover 60ft of road 30 gallons of fuel was needed every minute. By June 1941 there were 168 of these traps up and down the length of Britain, some of which had enough fuel for twenty minutes burning.

Fougasses were a variation on the flame trap in which the fuel was projected by explosive. A Fougasse was generally made by burying a 40-gallon oil drum into a road bank and installing a pound or two of guncotton behind it, together with some incendiary mixture. On firing, a sheet of flame 10ft wide and 30yd long was fired across the road. A Demi-Gasse was the same as a Fougasse but was sited in the open without the advantage of the cover of the bank. On firing the barrel was blown apart and flame spread for an area of 36 sq yd. It was less efficient that the proper Fougasse, but useful in confined spaces. The Hedge-Hopper was a barrel standing on end with a charge placed off-centre beneath it. When fired, the barrel jumped 10ft into the air and travelled 7yd horizontally, flooding its landing area with blazing fuel.

These unpleasant devices would obviously not work well against moving tanks and for success it was intended that the enemy vehicles would have to be halted by other means, such as the famous soup plates in the road, or a mine in the tracks of the leader, or a barrier of some sort. The Fougasse would then be sprung and before the hapless enemy could back away, the fatal six seconds would have elapsed and the engines would stop. Whether it would always have worked so well is highly problematical, but the psychological impact of sheets of flame pouring around the tank would probably have been good enough.

[snips]

The fourth and final flame weapon was the Home Guard Flame Thrower. This was not quite what its name might lead one to believe. It was both crude, simple and probably dangerous; it was made with the available stores by the Petroleum Warfare Department and issued by them direct to Home Guard units. It consisted of a 65-gallon barrel containing 40/60 petrol/diesel mixture, a semi-rotary hand pump, and 100ft of hose all mounted on a two-wheeled barrow or trolley. It was designed to be used for the static defence of a strong point or road block and its mobility was limited to a movement of a few yards pulled or pushed by its team of four or five Home Guard operators. The range was about 15yd and the flame could be kept going for two minutes or so. In use the jet at the end of the hose was connected to a stand pipe or similar support and ignition was by lighting a piece of oily rag or by throwing an Allbright and Wilson bomb. It was a clumsy and inefficient weapon which could only be justified by the urgent need to give the Home Guard something with which to meet the expected armoured invasion. Only 250 were issued and these were withdrawn by the end of 1942."

None of these weapons ever got any tank kills, because, thank goodness, they were never used. The people who planned to use them were not lacking in either courage or ingenuity, but it should be obvious from the foregoing that their effectiveness would have been marginal at best. Yet, note that these desperate improvisations typically use about ten times as much fuel as the full load of a manpack flamethrower. Nor, despite the degree to which "optimism is paramount", does there seem to be any mention of flame being able to crack welds or damage fasteners, or roast the crew, or any other such exotic kill mechanisms.

All the best,

John.