The Gun Counter

https://youtu.be/aPQYK5ZMbWY
Cool beans, actually used in WWII, Korean War, and the Viet Nam war. Ingenious ignition system.

Yes, I am subscribed and addicted to Ian's YouTube channel. He is extremely knowledgeable and the depth of his commentary about the history and development keeps me coming back for more. I watched this video yesterday when I saw it come up, there aren't many opportunities to see a flame thrower in operation, let alone be able to fire one with that kind of history.

We got issued one for a daylight patrol. Heavy ass piece of shit. New platoon sgt with us, first week. We found a tunnel system and McCloud ordered the flame thrower used. Damn igniter wouldn't work so McCloud grabbed it, sprayed the jellied gas down the hole for about 5 of the 8 or 10 second load. He then took a book of C-Rat matches, lit the whole book, looked down and tossed it in the hole. He was pretty much engulfed in a wave of flames that died down rapidly and lost all his facial hair and ended up with blisters over most of his face. We called urgent medivac and he was airlifted out. Sgt. McCloud was never seen in the battalion again.

I always thought of flame throwers as a bad weapon idea, ranking somewhere between the M65 Atomic Cannon and the "Davey Crockett".

D5CAV wrote:I always thought of flame throwers as a bad weapon idea, ranking somewhere between the M65 Atomic Cannon and the "Davey Crockett".

They do have an enormous psychological effect on the enemy, and were one of the few good weapons we had to clear out the tunnels and pillboxes on Iwo Jima. Fire has been used as a weapon throughout the history of conflict, so I doubt it will go away anytime soon. It probably isn't any more dangerous than carrying grenades on your person, although it does make you the primary target the first time you light it off.

Air delivery of napalm is a much more effective solution than a single infantryman with a backpack, although slightly less precise, tends to make up for it with volume.

In the Viet Nam war the US Army started using a rocket delivery system It was a 4 pack of 66 mm rockets. Had a real nasty payload of stuff that burned at 1200 degrees. You could fire one at a time or all four. I think it was called the 2020 Flash or something?
I think they are looking at a fuel air system now. Some of the rounds will fit a 40MM grenade launcher. Some outfit named Talley is working with the military last I heard.

JustinR wrote:It probably isn't any more dangerous than carrying grenades on your person

Disagree.

I like grenades. I never felt unsafe carrying grenades. I suppose a stray round could possibly hit a grenade and make it go off, but I never heard of that happening. Lots of bad things happen to soldiers carrying flamethrowers.

Grenades solve a lot of problems. You can keep the happy-switch for my M16, but I really miss my M67 grenades. If the ATF gave me a choice between being able to buy grenades or buy belt feds, I'd pick grenades.

Grenades have about the same range as a flamethrower, at least if the combatant is your average male recruit. If you add a grenade launcher and start throwing M406 grenades, the range extends to a couple of hundred meters, but nothing beats being able to pull a pin and know that something is going to go boom in a few seconds - even if it's just dropping it down a hole.

In Rod's example, that problem could have been solved a lot easier with a couple of grenades dropped down the hole.

Going on a patrol with a 5 gallon gas can strapped to someone's back (not mine!) on the off-chance that some accelerant might come in handy is a bad idea in my book.

JustinR wrote:It probably isn't any more dangerous than carrying grenades on your person, although it does make you the primary target the first time you light it off.

The safety issue with flamethrowers under incoming fire, IIRC, isn't the Hollywood-style explosion one would expect from them being shot, similar to the whole "Mythbusters vs gas tank" thing. But it is "contents under pressure" which means that the tank could blow out, potentially causing injury and soaking the operator in fuel.

If you shoot a grenade, you will most likely just break it. Most modern explosives are hard to set off accidentally, outside of very specific circumstances. They're meant for teenagers to use, after all.

Problem with grenades, is you can only reach just so far with them, and basically around one corner at a time. The whole point of the flamethrower is that it can flood an entire tunnel/bunker complex with carbon monoxide, which is the primary way it kills. If you'd watched Ian's videos you would know this.

Back in my day, if you couldn't throw a grenade to the range of a flamethrower, you didn't pass basic. The blast radius of a grenade is almost the range of a flamethrower. It is considered very bad manners to throw a grenade inside its blast radius. However, I understand that they are having problems with this now that women are in combat arms.

I wouldn't want a 5 gal can of gasoline strapped to someone's back in my squad. A 5 gallon can of gasoline pressurized to 400psi? NFW

But, hey, if you want to volunteer ...