Ancient Greece The concept of projecting fire as a weapon has existed since ancient times. During the
Peloponnesian War,
Boeotians used some kind of a flamethrower trying to destroy the fortification walls of the
Athenians during the
Battle of Delium. According to
Polybius the ancient
Rhodian admiral
Pausistratus used a device called πυρφόρος (pyrphoros; "fire-bearer") designed to project fire onto enemy ships while keeping it safely distant from the user's own vessel. The apparatus consisted of a funnel-shaped container (scoop or basket) filled with combustible material, suspended from the end of a pole by an iron chain that projected from the prow. These poles were supported by ropes running along the inner sides of the hull, allowing the funnel to extend outward on either side of the bow. Because the funnel was angled away from the ship, fire could be discharged into an enemy vessel during a charge or while passing alongside, without risking accidental ignition of the user's own ship.
Roman Empire In 107 AD the Romans used a flamethrower against the Dacians; the device was similar to the one used at Delium. Later, during the
Byzantine era, sailors used rudimentary hand-pumped flamethrowers on board their naval ships.
Greek fire, extensively used by the
Byzantine Empire, is said to have been invented by
Kallinikos of
Heliopolis, probably about 673 AD. Byzantine texts described weapons, used by Byzantine land forces, which were shooting Greek fire and called cheirosiphona (χειροσίφωνα, meaning hand-held siphons, singular χειροσίφωνο). The flamethrower found its origins in a device consisting of a hand-held pump that shot bursts of Greek fire via a
siphon-hose and a
piston which ignited it with a match, similar to modern versions, as it was ejected. An illustration in
Poliorcetica of
Hero of Byzantium display a soldier with a portable flamethrower. Byzantines also used ceramic hand grenades filled with Greek fire. Greek fire, used primarily at sea, gave the Byzantines a substantial military advantage against enemies such as members of the
Arab Empire (who later adopted the use of Greek fire). An 11th-century illustration of its use survives in the
John Skylitzes manuscript.
China flamethrower from the
Wujing Zongyao manuscript of 1044 AD,
Song dynasty The
Pen Huo Qi ("fire spraying device") was a Chinese piston flamethrower that used a substance similar to petrol or
naphtha, invented around 919 AD during the
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The earliest reference to Greek fire in China was made in 917, written by
Wu Renchen in his
Spring and Autumn Annals of the Ten Kingdoms. In 919, the siphon projector-pump was used to spread the '
fierce fire oil' that could not be doused with water, as recorded by Lin Yu (林禹) in his
Wu-Yue Beishi (吳越備史), hence the first credible Chinese reference to the flamethrower employing the chemical solution of Greek fire. Lin Yu mentioned also that the 'fierce fire oil' derived ultimately from China's contact in the 'southern seas', with
Arabia (大食國
Dashiguo). In the
Battle of Langshan Jiang (Wolf Mountain River) in 919, the naval fleet of the
Wenmu King of
Wuyue defeated the fleet of the
Kingdom of Wu because he had used 'fire oil' to burn his fleet; this signified the first Chinese use of
gunpowder in warfare, since a slow-burning match fuse was required to ignite the flames. The Chinese applied the use of double-
piston bellows to pump petrol out of a single cylinder (with an upstroke and a downstroke), lit at the end by a slow-burning gunpowder match to fire a continuous stream of flame (as referred to in the
Wujing Zongyao manuscript of 1044). Documented also in later Chinese publications, illustrations and descriptions of mobile flamethrowers on four-wheel push carts appear in the
Wujing Zongyao, written in 1044 (its illustration redrawn in 1601 as well). Advances in military technology aided the
Song dynasty in its defense against hostile neighbours to the north, including the
Mongols.
Islamic World Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Khwārazmī in
Mafātīḥ al-
ʿUlūm (“Keys to the Sciences”) ca. 976 AD mentions the
bāb al-midfa and the
bāb al-mustaq which he said were parts of naphtha-throwers and projectors (
al-naffātāt wa al-zarāqāt). Book of Ingenious Mechanical Device (''Kitāb fī ma 'rifat al-ḥiyal al-handasiyya
) of 1206 by Ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari mentioned about ejectors of naphtha (zarāqāt al-naft'').
Siege of Malta During the
Great Siege of Malta the defenders used a type of flamethrower known as Trump, consisting of a tube loaded with sulphur resin and linseed oil. It produced a flame that was several yards long
Vietnam The book Hồ trường khu cơ by
Dao Duy Tu describes a flamethrowing weapon called the fire tiger "The fire-thrower is also called fire-tiger, has a large bulb about one meter long, when in battle it shoots fire, the tube shoots out pine resin, if it hits something, it immediately catches fire...". "Because the fire burns fiercely, it is called fire-tiger". These weapons were later used by the
Tay Son Army.
18th century In 1702, the Prussian Army tested P. Lange's "hose-fire-spray'' (Schlangen-Brand-Spritze) who produced a jet of fire wide and long; two years later it was rejected as useless.
Peter the Great's chief engineer Vasily Dmitrievich Korchmin designed various incendiary weapons, such as incendiary rockets and furnaces for heating cannonball; two Russian ships the “Svyatoy Yakov” and “Landsou” were armed with flamethrower tubes designed by him. He also developed instructions for their use together with the Tsar. In the 1750s a French engineer named Dupre, developed a new flammable mixture; it was tested in LeHavre and set fire to a sloop. During the British shelling of LeHavre in 1759, the French War Minister tried to obtain authorization to use this fuel. Although flamethrowers were never used in the
American Civil War, "Greek Fire" shells were produced and used by Union troops during the
Second Battle of Charleston Harbor. During the 1871 siege of Paris, French chemist
Marcellin Berthelot suggested pumping flaming petroleum at Prussian troops.
Early 20th century During the
siege of Port Arthur, Japanese combat engineers used hand pumps to spray kerosene into Russian trenches. Once the Russians were covered with the flammable liquid, the Japanese would throw bundles of burning rags at them. Before WWI, German pioneers used the Brandröhre M.95 a weapon consisting of a sheet metal tube ( wide and long) filled with an incendiary mixture, and a friction igniter activated by a lanyard. The Brandröhre was designed to be used against enemy casemates; a long pole was used to reach the target and the lanyard was pulled to ignite the fuel; producing a long stream of fire. Those weapons were deployed in six-man teams and were limited by their short range. In theory the Brandröhre was replaced by the flamethrower in 1909 but it was still in use in WWI; it was used during the assaults on Fort du Camp-des-Romains in 1914 and
Fort Vaux in 1916. Bernhard Reddeman, a German military officer and former fireman, converted steam powered fire engines into flamethrowers; his design was demonstrated in 1907. The English word
flamethrower is a
loan-translation of
the German word Flammenwerfer, since the modern flamethrower was invented in Germany. The first flamethrower, in the modern sense, is usually credited to
Richard Fiedler. He submitted evaluation models of his
Flammenwerfer to the
German Army in 1901. The most significant model submitted was a portable device, consisting of a vertical single cylinder long, horizontally divided in two, with pressurized gas in the lower section and flammable oil in the upper section. On depressing a lever the propellant gas forced the flammable oil into and through a rubber tube and over a simple igniting wick device in a steel nozzle. The weapon projected a jet of fire and enormous clouds of smoke some . It was a single-shot weapon—for burst firing, a new igniter section was attached each time. In 1905 Fiedler's flamethrower was demonstrated to the Prussian Committee of Engineers. In 1908 Fiedler started working with Reddeman and made some adjustments to the design; an experimental pioneer company was created to further test the weapon. Despite this, use of fire in a World War I battle predated flamethrower use, with a petrol spray being ignited by an incendiary bomb in the Argonne-Meuse sector in October 1914. The success of the attack prompted the German Army to adopt the device on all fronts. Flamethrowers were used in squads of six during battles, at the start of an attack destroying the enemy and to the preceding the infantry advance. The Germans deployed flamethrowers during the war in more than 650 attacks. German flamethrowers were also used by Bulgarian forces. The British experimented with flamethrowers in the
Battle of the Somme, during which they used experimental weapons called "
Livens Large Gallery Flame Projectors", named for their inventor,
William Howard Livens, a
Royal Engineers officer. This weapon was enormous and completely non-portable. The weapon had an effective range of , which proved effective at clearing trenches, but with no other benefit the project was abandoned. The
French Army deployed the Schilt family of flamethrowers, which were also used by the Italian Army. In 1931 the São Paulo Public Force created an assault car section. The first vehicle to be incorporated was a tank built from a
Caterpillar Twenty Two tractor, featuring a turret mounted flamethrower and four Hotchkiss machineguns on the hull. It was used in combat during the
Constitutionalist Revolution, routing federal troop from a bridge in an engagement in
Cruzeiro. In the interwar period, at least four flamethrowers were used in the
Chaco War by the
Bolivian Army, during the unsuccessful assault on the
Paraguayan
stronghold of Nanawa in 1933. During the
battle of Kilometer 7 to Saavedra, Major Walther Kohn rode in a flamethrower equipped tankette; due to heat he exited the tank to fight on foot and was killed in combat.
World War II The flamethrower was used extensively during
World War II. In 1939, the
Wehrmacht first deployed man-portable flamethrowers
against the Polish Post Office in Danzig. Subsequently, in 1942, the
U.S. Army introduced its own man-portable flamethrower. The vulnerability of infantry carrying backpack flamethrowers and the weapon's short range led to experiments with
tank-mounted flamethrowers (
flame tanks), which were used by many countries.
Axis use Germany File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-299-1808-15A, Nordfrankreich, Soldat mit Flammenwerfer.jpg|A German soldier operating a flamethrower in 1944 File:German soldier with flamethrower c1941.jpg|A German soldier using a flamethrower in Russia The Germans made considerable use of the weapon (
Flammenwerfer 35) during their invasion of the Netherlands and France, against fixed fortifications. World War II German army flamethrowers tended to have one large fuel tank with the pressurizer tank fastened to its back or side. Some German army flamethrowers occupied only the lower part of its wearer's back, leaving the upper part of his back free for an ordinary rucksack. Flamethrowers soon fell into disfavour. Flamethrowers were extensively used by German units in
urban fights in
Poland, both in 1943 in the
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and in 1944 in the
Warsaw Uprising (see the
Stroop Report and the article on the 1943
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising). With the contraction of the Third Reich during the latter half of World War II, a smaller, more compact flamethrower known as the
Einstossflammenwerfer 46 was produced. Germany also used flamethrower vehicles, most of them based on the chassis of the
Sd.Kfz. 251 half track and the
Panzer II and
Panzer III tanks, generally known as
Flammpanzers. The Germans also produced the
Abwehrflammenwerfer 42, a flame-mine or
flame fougasse, based on a Soviet version of the weapon. This was essentially a disposable, single use flamethrower that was buried alongside conventional land mines at key defensive points and triggered by either a trip-wire or a command wire. The weapon contained around of fuel, that was discharged within a second, to a second and a half, producing a flame with a range. Those flamethrowers were not used in the Winter War; but were issued to engineers during the
Continuation War along with captured
ROKS-2 flamethrowers In 1944 they developed and adopted the
Liekinheitin M/44.
Italy Italy employed man-portable flamethrowers and
L3 Lf flame tanks during the
Second Italo-Abyssinian War of 1935 to 1936, during the
Spanish Civil War, and during
World War II. The L3 Lf flame tank was a
CV-33 or
CV-35 tankette with a flamethrower operating from the machine gun mount. In the
Northern Africa Theatre, the L3 Lf flame tank found little to no success. An L6 Lf flametank was also developed using the
L6/40 light tank platform.
Japan Japan used man-portable flamethrowers to clear fortified positions, in the
Battle of Wake Island,
Corregidor,
Battle of the Tenaru on
Guadalcanal and
Battle of Milne Bay.
Romania Flamethrowers were also used by the
Royal Romanian Army. They were also planned to become self-propelled; the
Mareșal tank destroyer was planned to have a command vehicle version armed with machine guns and a flamethrower.
Allies Britain and the Commonwealth File:IWM-H-37975-Flame-thrower-lifebuoy.jpg|A British
World War II–type
"lifebuoy" flamethrower in 1944 File:Flamethrowers in Action, August 1944 TR2313.jpg|A Churchill tank fitted with a Crocodile flamethrower in action. File:Flamethrower Tarakan (108558).jpg|An Australian soldier fires a flamethrower at a Japanese bunker The British World War II army flamethrowers, "Ack Packs", had a doughnut-shaped fuel tank with a small spherical pressurizer gas tank in the middle. As a result, some troops nicknamed them "lifebuoys". It was officially known as
Flamethrower, Portable, No 2. Extensive plans were made in 1940–1941 by the
Petroleum Warfare Department to use
flame fougasse static flame projectors in the event of an invasion, with around 50,000 barrel-based incendiary mines being deployed in 7,000 batteries throughout Southern England. The British hardly used their man-portable systems, relying on
Churchill Crocodile tanks in the European theatre. These tanks proved very effective against German defensive positions, and caused official Axis protests against their use. This flamethrower could produce a jet of flame exceeding . There are documented instances of German units summarily executing any captured British flame-tank crews. In the Pacific theatre, Australian forces used converted
Matilda tanks, known as Matilda
Frogs.
United States File:USm2flamethrower.jpg|A soldier from the
33rd Infantry Division uses an
M2 flamethrower File:Flamethrower at Adelup Point.jpg|Soldiers engaging Japanese positions on
Okinawa with a flamethrower. File:Flame Throwing Tank, Saipan, circa June 1944 (7160583407).jpg|An M3A1 from the USMC 2nd Tank Battalion incinerates Japanese
pillbox on Saipan. File:Flamethrower-iwo-jima-194502.jpg|An American flamethrower operator runs under fire File:Usafl rend.jpg|Front and rear views of a man with an M2A1-7 United States Army flamethrower In the Pacific theatre, the U.S. Army used M-1 and M-2 flamethrowers to clear stubborn Japanese resistance from prepared defenses, caves, and trenches. Starting in New Guinea, through the closing stages on Guadalcanal and during the approach to and reconquest of the Philippines and then through the Okinawa campaign, the Army deployed hand-held, man-portable units. Often flamethrower teams were made up of combat engineer units, later with troops of the chemical warfare service. The Army fielded flamethrower units, and the Army's Chemical Warfare Service pioneered tank mounted flamethrowers on Sherman tanks (CWS-POA H-4). All the flamethrower tanks on Okinawa belonged to the 713th Provisional Tank Battalion, which was tasked with supporting all U.S. Army infantry. All Pacific mechanized flamethrower units were trained by Seabee specialists with Col. Unmacht's
CWS Flamethrower Group in Hawaii. The U.S. Army used flamethrowers in Europe in much smaller numbers, though they were available for special employments. Flamethrowers were deployed during the
Normandy landings in order to clear
Axis fortifications. Also, most boat teams on
Omaha Beach included a two-man flamethrower team. The Army also used the backpack-type
M2A1-7 and
M2-2 flamethrowers, finding them useful in clearing Japanese trench and bunker complexes. The well known use of the man portable flamethrower was against the formidable defenses at Tarawa in November 1943. The Army pioneered the use of Ronson-equipped M-3 Stuart tanks in the Marianas. These were known as flame tanks. Though effective, they lacked the armour to safely engage fortifications and were phased out in favour of the better-armoured M4 Sherman tanks. Flamethrower Shermans were produced at
Schofield Barracks by Seabees attached to the Chemical Warfare Service under Col. Unmacht. CWS designated
M4s with "CWS-POA-H" for "Chemical Warfare Service Pacific Ocean Area, Hawaii" plus a flamethrower number. The Army had deployed large flamethrowers mounted on LVT-4 AMTRACs at Peleliu. Late in the war, both services operated LVT-4 and −5 flametanks in limited numbers. The Army still used their infantry-portable systems, despite the arrival of adapted Sherman tanks with the Ronson system (cf.
flame tanks). In cases where the Japanese were entrenched in deep caves, the flames often consumed the available oxygen, suffocating the occupants. Many Japanese troops interviewed post war said they were terrified more by flamethrowers than any other American weapon. Flamethrower operators were often the first U.S. troops targeted.
Soviet Union The FOG-1 and −2 flamethrowers were stationary devices used in defense. They could also be categorized as a projecting incendiary mine. The FOG had only one cylinder of fuel, which was compressed using an explosive charge and projected through a nozzle. The November 1944 issue of the US War Department
Intelligence Bulletin refers to these "
Fougasse flame throwers" being used in the Soviet defense of Stalingrad. The FOG-1 was directly copied by the Germans as the
Abwehrflammenwerfer 42. Unlike the flamethrowers of the other powers during World War II, the Soviets were the only ones to consciously attempt to
camouflage their infantry flamethrowers. With the
ROKS-2 flamethrower this was done by disguising the flame projector as a standard-issue rifle, such as the
Mosin–Nagant, and the fuel tanks as a standard infantryman's rucksack. This was to try to stop the flamethrower operator from being specifically targeted by enemy fire. This "rifle" had a working action which was used to cycle blank igniter cartridges.
1945–1980 US military shooting ignited
napalm from its mounted flamethrower during the Vietnam war tank of the USMC during the Vietnam War The
United States Marines used flamethrowers in the
Korean and
Vietnam Wars. The
M132 armored flamethrower, an
M113 armored personnel carrier with a mounted flamethrower, was successfully used in the conflict. Flamethrowers have not been in the U.S. arsenal since 1978, when the
Department of Defense unilaterally stopped using them — the last American infantry flamethrower was the Vietnam-era M9-7. They have been deemed of questionable effectiveness in modern combat, though some have made the case for their tactical employment. U.S. army flamethrowers developed up to the
M9 model. In the M9 the propellant tank is a sphere below the left fuel tank and does not project backwards.
Israel Crude homemade flamethrowers were built by Irgun in the late 1940s.
China The PLA adopted the
Type 74 flamethrower, a copy of the Soviet
LPO-50. It was later used in the
Sino-Vietnamese War. and Type 74 flamethrowers were used by NVA forces during the
Vietnam War.
Iraq The Iraqi army used LPO-50 flamethrowers during the
Iran-Iraq War.
Post-1980s Non-flamethrower incendiary weapons remain in modern military arsenals.
Thermobaric weapons may have been fielded in Afghanistan by the United States (2008) and have been used by Russia in Ukraine (2022). The U.S. and U.S.S.R. both developed a rocket launcher specifically for the deployment of incendiary munitions, respectively the
M202 FLASH and the
RPO "Rys" ancestor of the
RPO-A Shmel.
Vietnam The Type 74 is still being used by the Vietnamese Army.
Provisional IRA In 1981 the
FBI foiled an attempt by New York-based
gun runner George Harrison to smuggle an
M2 flamethrower to Ireland for the IRA. In
the Troubles, during the mid-1980s, the
IRA smuggled in Soviet
LPO-50 military flamethrowers (supplied to them by the
Libyan government) into
Northern Ireland. An IRA team riding on an
improvised armoured truck used one of these flamethrowers, among other weapons, to storm a
British Army permanent checkpoint in Derryard, near
Rosslea, on 13 December 1989. Some months later, on 4 March 1990, the IRA attacked an RUC station in
Stewartstown,
County Tyrone, using an improvised flamethrower consisting of a
manure-spreader towed by a tractor to spray of a petrol/diesel mix to engulf the base in flames, and then opened fire with rifles and an anti-tank rocket launcher. Another IRA unit carried two attacks in less than a year with another improvised flamethrower towed by a tractor on a British Army watchtower, the Borucki sangar, in
Crossmaglen,
County Armagh, also in the early 1990s. The first incident occurred on 12 December 1992, when the bunker was manned by
Scots Guards, and the second on 12 November 1993. The device used as launcher was also a manure spreader, which doused the facility with fuel, ignited few seconds later by a small explosion. In the 1993 action, a nine-metre-high fireball engulfed the tower for seven minutes. The four
Grenadier Guards inside the outpost were rescued by a
Saxon armoured vehicle. Incendiary improvised devices were also proven by the republican paramilitaries, such as an IRA grenade attack on a British Army patrol on 4 April 1993 in
Carrickmore, County Tyrone; the device consisted of of
semtex and of petrol; the bomb exploded, but the fuel failed to ignite. A soldier was thrown several metres across the road by the blast.
Brazil As of 2003 the locally made Hydroar T1M1 flamethrower was still being used by the
1º Batalhão de Forças Especiais.
China The Chinese Army still issues the Type 74 flamethrower.
Iraq conflict Captain Shannon Johnson requested Colonel
John A. Toolan to supply his company with flamethrowers during the
Second Battle of Fallujah; however no flamethrowers were issued. The
People's Mujahedin of Iran claimed flamethrowers were used in the
2013 Camp Ashraf massacre.
Italy As of 2012 the locally made T-148/B flamethrower was still being used by the
Italian Army.
Myanmar Flamethrowers have been used by the
Tatmadaw during attacks on
Rohingya villages during the
Rohingya genocide.
Russo-Ukrainian War On 8 February 2017, separatist leader
Mikhail 'Givi' Tolstykh was killed when an
RPO-A Shmel rocket-assisted flamethrower was fired at his office in
Donetsk. On 21 November 2022, nine months into the
Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian sources claim that artillery and "
heavy flamethrowers" were employed against a Ukrainian concentration of troops near
Kupyansk,
Kharkiv Oblast.
Gaza war and its spillovers During the
Gaza war footage was published of
IDF bulldozer fitted with flame throwers burning down buildings in Gaza, in the
2025 Boulder fire attack the Egyptian attacker used a makeshift flamethrower to attack a solidarity walk for
the hostages taken from Israel == International law ==