Some friends and I were discussing military flamethrowers, and everybody was wondering what the propellant was. The flames can go something like 20-100 feet, if I recall my war history footage correctly.
Somebody said it was the chemical reaction between liquids/gases in the two tanks, and others said it was pressurized, which, given the distances, doesn’t make sense to me.
A Wikipedia search didn’t help, and, usually, a Google search turns up some improvised survivalist formula, or else, nothing at all.
Can anybody help?
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
Some Soviet Army flamethrowers had three backpack fuel tanks side by side. Its user could fire three shots, each emptying one of the tanks. The mechanism used to empty the tank was not a pressurized gas cylinder but a black powder cartridge on each fuel cylinder.
[/QUOTE]
I have seen flamethrowers that were powered by (what looked to be) 12 gauge shotgun shells.
This is the kind I’ve seen, the LPO-50. The issue with that model is that you get only three shots, one from each tank. You have to fire the whole tank in that one shot. And you had better be laying down, because the kick is powerful. On the other hand, it has better range than most (70 yards).
Or a fun childhood. We had a mixture of sunscreen, lighter-fluid, and something else that we would create a river with in a trench dug in the ground. We would build bridges and put army men in the river and on the bridges, then set it aflame.
I think you are talking about Dragon’s Breath. These are 12ga incendiary rounds that spray fire for a couple seconds. They are not at all as effective as an actual flame thrower.
