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A flamethrower is a mechanical incendiary device designed to project a long, controllable stream of fire. They were first used by the Greeks in the 1st Century AD. In modern times, they were used during World War I, and more widely in World War II. Some flamethrowers project a stream of ignited flammable liquid; some project a long gas flame. Most military flamethrowers use liquids, but commercial flamethrowers tend to use high-pressure propane and natural gas, which is considered safer. They are used by the military and by people needing controlled burning capacity, such as in agriculture (e.g., sugar cane plantations) or other such land management tasks. They can be designed to be either carried by the operator or mounted on a vehicle. == Military flamethrowers == Modern flamethrowers were first used during the trench warfare conditions of World War I; their use greatly increased in World War II. They can be vehicle mounted, as on a tank, or man-portable. The man-portable flamethrower consists of two elements: a backpack and the gun. The backpack element usually consists of two or three cylinders. In a two-cylinder system, one cylinder holds compressed, inert propellant gas (usually nitrogen), and the other holds flammable liquid—typically petrol with some form of fuel thickener added to it. A three-cylinder system often has two outer cylinders of flammable liquid and a central cylinder of propellant gas to maintain the balance of the soldier carrying it. The gas propels the liquid fuel out of the cylinder through a flexible pipe and then into the gun element of the flamethrower system. The gun consists of a small reservoir, a spring-loaded valve, and an ignition system; depressing a trigger opens the valve, allowing pressurized flammable liquid to flow and pass over the igniter and out of the gun nozzle. The igniter can be one of several ignition systems: A simple type is an electrically-heated wire coil; another used a small pilot flame, fueled with pressurized gas from the system. The flamethrower is a potent weapon with great psychological impact upon unprepared soldiers, inflicting a particularly horrific death. This has led to some calls for the weapon to be banned. It is primarily used against battlefield fortifications, bunkers, and other protected emplacements. A flamethrower projects a stream of flammable liquid, rather than flame, which allows bouncing the stream off walls and ceilings to project the fire into blind and unseen spaces, such as inside bunkers or pillboxes. Typically, popular visual media depict the flamethrower as short-ranged and only effective for a few meters (due to the common use of propane gas as the fuel in flamethrowers in movies, for the safety of the actors). Contemporary flamethrowers can incinerate a target some from the gunner; moreover, an unignited stream of flammable liquid can be fired and afterwards ignited, possibly by a lamp or other flame inside the bunker. Flamethrowers pose many risks to the operator. *The first disadvantage was the weapon's weight, which impairs the soldier's mobility. *The weapon is limited to only a few seconds of burn time since it uses fuel very quickly, requiring the operator to be precise and conservative. *The weapon was very visible on the battlefield, which caused operators to become immediately singled out as prominent targets, especially for snipers. *Once targeted (or even exposed to random fire), carrying a thin metal tank of highly flammable fuel on your back is extremely hazardous, as any projectile or fragment can easily puncture the tank and release the fuel, which will often be ignited either by the projectile or other open flame, which will invariably incinerate or severely burn the operator and any other troops in his vicinity. *Flamethrower operators were rarely taken prisoner, especially when their target survived an attack by the weapon; captured flamethrower users were in some cases summarily executed.〔http://usmilitary.about.com/od/armyweapons/a/flamethrower.htm〕 *Finally, the flamethrower's effective range was short in comparison with that of other battlefield weapons of similar size. To be effective, flamethrower soldiers must approach their target, risking exposure to enemy fire. Vehicular flamethrowers also have this problem; they may have considerably greater range than a man-portable flamethrower, but their range is still short compared with that of other infantry weapons. The risk of a flamethrower operator being caught in the explosion of his weapon due to enemy hits on the tanks is exaggerated in Hollywood films. However, there are cases where the pressure tanks have exploded and killed the operator when hit by enemy bullets or grenade shrapnel. In the documentary Vietnam in HD, platoon sergeant Charles Brown tells of how one of his men was killed when his flamethrower was hit by grenade shrapnel during the battle for Hill 875. The best way to minimize the disadvantages of flame weapons was to mount them on armoured vehicles. The Commonwealth and the United States were the most prolific users of vehicle mounted flame weapons; the British and Canadians fielded the "Wasp" (a Universal Carrier fitted with a flamethrower) at infantry battalion level, beginning in mid-1944, and eventually incorporating them into infantry battalions. Early tank-mounted flamethrower vehicles included the 'Badger' (a converted Ram tank) and the 'Oke', used first at Dieppe; the most famous flame tank was the Churchill Crocodile.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「flamethrower」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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