The Germans developed the first man-portable flamethrowers and flame warfare tactics, and other nations soon followed suit.
#Dying light weapons flamethrower portable#
While the use of fire in warfare has existed since approximately 424 BC when the Greeks created the first flamethrower, it was not until World War I (WWI) that flame warfare was adapted for use by soldiers in a portable fashion. These studies helped end the notion of flamethrowers as mercy weapons and provided physiologic and toxicologic data on burns, heat exposure thresholds, asphyxiation, inhalational injury from smoke and chemical irritants, and carbon monoxide and dioxide poisoning that remain useful in contemporary military medicine. All these considerations prompted the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS), the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), the Medical Corps, and a host of other private companies and universities to conduct experiments on the toxicology and physiology of flamethrower attacks that better assessed the military utility and killing power of this terrifying weapon. Some went so far as to claim that flamethrowers were “mercy killers,” particularly when compared to bullets and high explosives. chemical soldiers and officers citing not only the effectiveness of the flamethrower on fortified enemy positions but also observations that the weapons seemingly produced instantaneous deaths, even in situations where there was little or no evidence of thermal injury on enemy corpses. military that included first-hand accounts from U.S. Contrasting portrayals were published by the U.S.
Newspapers increasingly referred to flamethrowers as barbarous, inhumane weapons of horror, and the Japanese were described as being terrified of the weapon, with some accounts reporting Japanese soldiers taking their own lives when faced with an imminent flamethrower attack.
Moreover, increased utilization meant increased publicity, and the nature of a flame weapon caused controversy. This required, in part, a better understanding of how the flamethrower produced casualties. ” However, with the increased use of the flamethrower in the Pacific theater, there came a growing interest in developing better tactics to maximize the potential of the weapon. Although flamethrowers grew in popularity in the Pacific, where they were employed against enemy soldiers known to take up strongly fortified and entrenched positions, there seemed to be a lack of scientific interest in studying the weapon, with one Chemical Warfare Bulletin article from 1944 stating, “It was felt that so long as the flamethrower produced death to the enemy, the precise physiological reaction or how soon death supervened were immaterial. military in the Pacific theater during World War II (WWII), there was surprisingly little effort directed at determining details on the lethality, physiological and toxicological effects of these weapons. This article examines how the initial absence of scientific data on the physiologic effects of flamethrowers led to an inaccurate understanding of their lethality, and bizarre claims that one of history’s most horrific instruments of war was considered one of the more “humane” weapons on the battlefield.ĭespite the widespread development, manufacturing, and use of flamethrowers by the U.S.
#Dying light weapons flamethrower series#
It was not until several years after flamethrowers were introduced to the frontlines that the CWS and National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) conducted a series of tests to better understand the physiological and toxicological effects of flamethrowers. As a result, indirect mechanisms such as hypoxia and carbon monoxide poisoning were generally absent from accounts of the flamethrower’s fatal effects. This mischaracterization arose from a series of first-hand accounts describing what were believed to be quick, painless, and unmarred deaths, as well as from a poor and incomplete understanding of flamethrower lethality. However, while most people in modern times would consider immolation by flamethrower to be an unnecessarily painful and inhumane way to inflict casualties, immolation was, at one point during World War II (WWII), referred to as “mercy killing” by the U.S. military ample opportunity to observe the effects of flamethrowers on enemy soldiers. Despite being the last of the major combatants in World War II (WWII) to develop them, the United States military quickly became the most frequent and adept operator of portable flamethrowers. Flamethrowers are widely considered one of warfare’s most controversial weapons and are capable of inflicting gruesome physical injuries and intense psychological trauma.
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