Since the thread has digressed anyway, I thought I’d share an anecdote. In the mid-nineties, I was at a gun show and some exhibitors had a Soviet-issue flamethrower on their table. They claimed that it was in working order. The people that they had purchased them from had been contracted to clean up after the Gulf War oil well fires. According to them, there were large, unburned pools of oil all over the place and the best way to get rid of them was simply to burn them off, so they got ahold of 75 Soviet surplus flamethrowers. When the job was done, they were deciding what to do with them and someone came up with the idea of selling them at gun shows. Since they didn’t launch a projectile the weren’t technically guns, so they could sell them to the general public (in Texas anyway - I love Texas). They told me that you filled the tanks with diesel and pressurized them with a 10-gauge shotgun blank. They also said that they were designed to be fired from the prone position and that the pressure would knock you over if you were standing (I don’t know if I believe that). They pointed out that you couldn’t practically fire the thing, but it would be one hell of a conversation piece. They wanted $500. I wanted to be the first on my block to have one, but I didn’t want to part with the cash. I still regret that.
FWIW,
Rob
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