Patran Flame Thrower Coming Up
I am currently working on a Patran Flame thrower.
I was inspired by the ancient Greek and Byzantine Greek Fire flame throwers. The Greeks and Byzantines used their napalm-like inflammable substance in large devices on ships and fortifications. Smaller handheld devices were also used. The flames even continued to burn on water, Urine was one of the few things that would douse it!
Flame throwers were terror weapons in WW1 and WW2. In fact most deaths connected to their use in WW1 were when terrified troops fled their trenches and were mown down by enemy gunfire. Imagine how effective such devices would be against close ancient or medieval ranks!
I found a few references to it but the way the handheld devices worked is not clear and the users don't appear to have a back tank like modern flame throwers. I'm going to assume that they had a limited number of times they could be used before using up the fuel.
I got these two pictures off the net and can't remember where but they are not my toy soldiers.
The first picture looks like the fuel might be in the top section. The way the weapon is held lends itself to being converted from 20th century submachinegun soldiers. The mechanism appears to be a syphon.
These weapons could easily be made from lengths of tube and wire.
Anyhow, I eventually decided to not worry, for my first conversion, about having it look completely historical as my nation of Patra is fictitious. I am converting a German WW2 flame thrower by splicing him with an ancient Greek! Patra is behind the rest of the world in not yet having gunpowder but they do have Greek fire! This could thoroughly demoralise the Fezians!
More cool pics off the Internet:
Modern flamer
I was inspired by the ancient Greek and Byzantine Greek Fire flame throwers. The Greeks and Byzantines used their napalm-like inflammable substance in large devices on ships and fortifications. Smaller handheld devices were also used. The flames even continued to burn on water, Urine was one of the few things that would douse it!
Flame throwers were terror weapons in WW1 and WW2. In fact most deaths connected to their use in WW1 were when terrified troops fled their trenches and were mown down by enemy gunfire. Imagine how effective such devices would be against close ancient or medieval ranks!
I found a few references to it but the way the handheld devices worked is not clear and the users don't appear to have a back tank like modern flame throwers. I'm going to assume that they had a limited number of times they could be used before using up the fuel.
I got these two pictures off the net and can't remember where but they are not my toy soldiers.
The first picture looks like the fuel might be in the top section. The way the weapon is held lends itself to being converted from 20th century submachinegun soldiers. The mechanism appears to be a syphon.
These weapons could easily be made from lengths of tube and wire.
Anyhow, I eventually decided to not worry, for my first conversion, about having it look completely historical as my nation of Patra is fictitious. I am converting a German WW2 flame thrower by splicing him with an ancient Greek! Patra is behind the rest of the world in not yet having gunpowder but they do have Greek fire! This could thoroughly demoralise the Fezians!
More cool pics off the Internet:
Hello James. I added some (expandable) pics from a childhood book article of Greek Fire to the Little Wars Revisited Forum thread
ReplyDeletehttps://littlewarsrevisited.boards.net/thread/490/greek-fire?page=1&scrollTo=3866
I have always thought these Roman marines (??) had bought a time travelling Army surplus job lot of German Army WW2 helmets.