June 13, 2020 • 22 mins
Who first decided that it would be a great idea to shoot flame at other people from a distance? Josh and Chuck talk about the (very) early origins, history and technology of the flamethrower in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everybody. Chuck here on a Saturday with my Saturday Selects.
Pick from June three, two ten. I think I picked
this one because I just got done watching What's Upon
a Time in Hollywood once again. Here is our episode
how Flamethrowers Work. Have you seen that movie? You know
what I'm talking about. If you haven't, I hope they
didn't spoil it for you. So learn all about flamethrowers
(00:22):
right now. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production
of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck
Bryant that makes this Stuff you should Know, right, Chuck? Yeah, yeah,
(00:45):
Terry just I love it when like we get last
second instructions. Yeah, and they don't make any sense. Save
it for the show, guys, right, or show that picture
on the podcast the audio podcast. Oh goodness, how are
you sir? I'm fine by all rights Friday, but it's
actually Thursday, but it's almost Memorial Day. Yeah, and we're
(01:06):
not Are you coming in tomorrow at all? No? I'm
not comfortable saying either way. Well, that'll be surprised. I
don't want to get in trouble. Well, I'm not. I'm
still scared of the man. I know you're not, but
you're all like, hey, look at me. I'm forty. I
make my own decisions, not forty. So Chuck, you're George
Carlin fan, right, Yeah, the late George Carlin. Just the
(01:29):
late Alright, we always had the bummer, don't you. The
late George Carlin could be like George Carlin. He's the
greatest stand up comedian ever. When the very the worm
food George Carlin, Yeah, the dearly departed. Yes, I like him. Why,
I have an obscure stand up bit that I'll bet
(01:49):
you haven't heard of that is apropope of our topic today.
So George Carlin um had a bit about flamethrowers. I
never heard that one. He said that the very presence
of flamethrowers, and I'm paraphrasing, the very presence of flamethrowers
means that at some point sometime someone said to himself,
(02:10):
you know, there's a bunch of people over there that
I'd like to set on fire, but they're too far
away from me to get the job done. I wish
there was something that I could use to throw flames
on them, and as a result, we now have the flamethrower,
which is kind of crazy when you think about it
that way. It is pretty interesting, it is, And when
(02:30):
you start to really look into flamethrowers, you realize just
how horrific the acts that humans inflict on other humans
can be. Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty awful stuff. Actually, yeah,
when you I mean actually all kinds of modern weaponry.
And know, my brother in lawson the Marines, he told
me about this. I think it's called a flachette, some
(02:50):
sort of bomb that like explodes above people and sends
thousands of like razor blades shooting out. Yeah. I think
it's mainly of used for clearing like jungle, but um, yeah,
I can't remember jungle of enemy combatants exactly. Yeah, so
some sick I thought that up were like what one
step away from the alien weapons in District nine where
(03:13):
people just blow up in an almost cartoonish fashion. Yeah,
it's coming the atomizer or something they'll call it. Yeah. Um.
What's what's odd is that that person, that first person
that George carlin Um envisions actually lived a lot longer
ago than you would think. I was shocked. I was
(03:33):
well a century BC, fifth century b C. Man, Right,
it wasn't well, it was a flamethrower. It was a
very crude, vulgar if you will, flamethrower. It was a
long tube sort of like a blowgun, and they filled
it with solid stuff like hot coal and sulfur. And yeah,
(03:54):
ideally you don't suck in that would be bad. No,
I was thinking that too, Like you have to suck
in the breath before you put the tube deer and
out through us. You're in big trouble. Oh, that's the
case with any blow blowgun, right, sure, Yeah, did you
ever make those when your kid? No? I never did.
That's too busy burning stuff. You could have done both apparently.
So yeah, they would shoot I guess, um hot coal
(04:15):
or sulfur out at their enemy combatant instead of a
flame per se, Yeah, which I guess Ultimately it would
bounce off of their arm and they'd be like, ah,
that burns, and then they just tussle and leg wrestling, right,
and shake hands afterwards and go eat a bore. That's
that's how that went to enter BC with Josh. But
(04:37):
leave it to the Greeks, who were one of the brainiest,
most um thieving cultures of all time. They probably got
this idea from the Chemites. Frankly, but there's this stuff
called um Greek fire, And actually I can't say that
the Greeks came up with it. It's called Greek fire,
but the Byzantines that what we know is turks um.
(04:59):
We're uh, we're most notorious for using this stuff. Yeah,
and that they think they're not sure because it was
a long time ago. It was a mixture of liquid
petrol and sulfur and like stuff like quicklime. Petrol's British
for gas, Yeah, and UM. They would pump it out
(05:20):
actually from a reservoir through little narrow tubes and like
anything that goes from a big reservoir type system to
a small, thin one, it would create pressure to shoot
it out and then some unlucky guy would be the
lighter at the end of it, and that would be
like a real flamethrower, like dozens of feet. Yeah, as
we're gonna learn, anybody whose job it was to deal
(05:40):
with any aspect of flamethrowing UM was the unlucky guy. Yeah.
One of the more dangerous weapons you can use, UM,
but it was very effective. Number One, since it's oil based. Uh,
it could this, this Greek fire could be used in
naval battles because it would still burn even when it
contacted the water. Um. And so the Byzantines mounted it
(06:02):
on their ships. These flamethrowers um on their ships and
on the city walls around Constantinople and basically just repelled
people out of fear as much as you know, burning
them alive. Yeah, they were. Their enemies were really freaked out.
I imagine when they first saw like fire shooting at them. Yes,
freaked out and intrigued, especially in the case of the Chinese.
(06:23):
See what the Byzantines had was a single action pump.
You just did the foot pump with literally did you
see that? Do you see that? Jerry? Them following your command? Um,
the the Byzantines had a single action bellows pump where
when you pressed down on the down stroke, it would
(06:44):
push the liquid out. Right. Yes, you get like a
burst of fire. And that's it right, because on the
up stroke nothing was happening except with the bellows were
filling back up with air to press down compressed right. Um.
The Chinese said, hey, that's that's really funny because we
have a double simbelows to where you are compressing air
um on the upstroke and the downstroke. So instead of
(07:06):
your stupid little short bursts of Greek fire, we have
one long burst that just cuts you in half. Lead
to the Chinese get all better, the wheelbarrow, the kite,
the hang glider, the flamethrower, gunpowder and actually gunpowder um
equaled the demise of flamethrowers for about a thousand years, right, Yeah,
(07:28):
as soon as gunpowder came along, they were like, yeah,
we're just chumps with fire when we can actually shoot
a gun, That's that's the way of the future, right
And it was, But so is the flamethrower, as it
turns out, yeah, because it lay dormant for about a
thousand years. And then in World War One, actually right
before World War One, the Germans, a very warlike state
(07:50):
at the time, were um, they said, you know what,
exactly can we and our arsenal that is just totally
scary and wildly to instructive. Yes, let's look back through
the annals of of you know, historic weaponry and find something.
And they look through and they said the flamethrower. Yeah.
Richard Fielder is an engineer in nineteen o one. They
(08:12):
credit him with inventing it, but he clearly was using
old technology as the initial idea. At least. It's a
clever design, though, isn't it. Yeah, because this from this
original design. Um, there have been you know, some polishing
moments for the flamethrower over the years, but from that,
from that modern era that the design has remained relatively
(08:35):
the same. Right, it's like a three tank design. Yeah.
The flamin furf is what it's called nice the Germans.
That's what the German uh, and it was, um, well
let's yeah, let's go ahead and explain how it works
with thanks, all right, And this is the handheld flamethrower,
which is the one that's I guess was most readily
(08:55):
used in combat. Yeah, and it's the one you see
like a guy's wearing these tanks on his back and
he's got the rifle. Is just right. So you got
two outer tanks and those are filled with the flammable
fuel oil based petrol if you will, like Greek fire
and um, then there's a center smaller tank which holds
a compressed gas like butane and uh it was. It
(09:19):
would feed the gas through a pressure regulator connected to
the tubes, right, and you can take it from here. Well,
the this is why I think it's very clever. The
butuane served a dual purpose. One that was compressed, so
when you open the valve, it would push the liquid
fuel out of the tanks into the tube and into
ultimately in the reservoir and the gun the pressure regulator. Right,
(09:41):
that is what they would but switch on. There is
another tube that came directly out of the third tank
that held the compressed gas like butane, and this tube
went directly to the ignition valve right right, so it
served as the igniter later on. Right that it was
because it was the but that was actually burning when
(10:02):
you um. When you open the ignition valve, the butu
tane flows to the end, mixes with air the end
of the rifle. Um and then there's like there's two triggers.
There's the fuel released trigger right, yes, and then there's
the ignition trigger. And the ignition trigger is basically you're
operating a battery that operates a spark plug sends the current,
generates heat right nights the but tane. Now you have
(10:24):
that little blue flame on the end. Yeah, that's what
you've seen in movies like if you see them around that, yeah, exactly.
You see the little like three inch flame coming out
in the end, right, that's actually but tane burning. The
fuel hasn't been released, the hell fire has not been
opened yet or released yet. That's when you squeeze what's
the fuel released trigger and then well, yeah, then that
(10:45):
pulls back a little valve plug because you obviously want
it plugged or else you're going to have a big
mess on your hands. You'll be on fire very quickly.
So when you pull the fuel release trigger, it pulls
the little valve plug back, and then all the fuel
supply suddenly rushes through to the tip of the gun
where the flame is in. Boom, there you go. In
(11:26):
nineteen forty two, the Army Chemical Warfare Service, I think
is what it was called. UM, they came up with
a little something called napalm, which is ultimately a gasoline
or petrol in the case of Chuck and our British friends, UM,
a gasoline thickening agent. So with a slightly thickened gas
(11:51):
you have a longer range. It carries further because it
has more mass or girth or whatever. There's less there's
less friction from the ground comeing up right um, and uh,
it also can be concentrated more easily right right. So
basically that was one of those real big polishing moments.
It went from just gas which sprays too thick gas
(12:13):
which sticks burns. It evaporates much less quickly, so it
will burn forever and it's really difficult to put out.
And if you get covered in it, you're entirely in trouble. Yes,
you're out of luck. And they would mount these on
well p t boats for one. Have you ever seen
the videos of those things like cruising down the river
(12:33):
shooting napalm into the forest. Well, I see there's a
picture of it in the article. I've never seen video
of It's pretty wicked. Yeah. And they called them, they
called them zippo flamethrowers, right, because the ignition um system
failed so frequently. It's just like on a gas grill,
what they have to light it with a zippo? With
a zippo, you're kidding? And that's the other unlucky dude,
(12:56):
I guess. Yeah, he'd be like, don't get too close
to it with his hand, right, And so flamethrowers. It
wasn't just some guy you know where. It would be
like a bunch of infantry guys and then some guy
on the end happened to grab the flamethrower that morning
when they went out, and it's just you know, they
were part of a tactical strategy. Yeah, what would happen
was rifleman would lay down cover fire. Let's say you
(13:19):
come to the mouth of a cave and there's a
bunch of enemy combatants in there and they're shooting you,
and they have snipers and you're in big trouble. All
your your rifleman lay down fire on this cave so
those guys can't move, cover fire to allow your flamethrower
man to get close. He was highly susceptible at this
point because of what he's wearing on his back. Yes,
(13:39):
all it takes is one good shot to one of
those tanks and that guy's gone, or a bad shot,
just a shot. Sure, yeah, if you come in contact
with it with the bullet um. But so the flamethrower
guy gets close basically cooks everybody, burns everyone to death
in that cave, right, that's his job. And then after
that the munitions guys come in and explode the cave
(14:04):
so it can never be used again. And that's Sianora
for the cave dwellers. Yes, uh, you know, speaking of
a quick death, I've always heard when I was a kid,
you know that. You know, if you were a flamethrower
in war, your average lifespan is like thirty seconds in combat. Well,
I always heard that, and I'd scoured the internets and
I could not find anything to verify that, but um,
(14:27):
that's what I always heard. I thought that was an
interesting tidbit. I did read that most people who were
flamethrower operators didn't survive. I would imagine it's pretty dangerous
thing to be toting around. Yeah, and they also had assistance,
because the assistance would open and close the valves on
the pack form. That was the whole job. It was
always a two man team, so both of them would
usually not make it. I would if I was the assistant,
(14:50):
I would turn on his little valve and then run
for cover and then run up and turn it off again, right,
And I'd probably pretty unpopular with the flamethrower guy. Probably
then the flamethrower guy was well like because if you
can take out an entire gun nest of people, Yeah.
Then you know everybody's going to applaud you and clap,
and you know, probably not get too close though, because
(15:10):
you're going to die eventually. Yeah, I'd rather be a sniper.
I think that'd be. Like I play Call of Duty.
I got a p S three now, But I tell
you that no, wow, Chuck, it was given to me
by my step step step dad, now father in law.
You did tell me my stepfather in law. And so
I got just a couple of games. I'm not like
a huge gamer at all, Like I think a Nintendo,
(15:31):
like the first Nintendo was the last thing I actually owned.
But um, I play Call of Duty now. I like
a shooter games too. It's pretty fun. But you choose
to be a sniper on that. Well, now there are
just certain levels where you can be a sniper. Like
you'll pick up a sniper gun if you want. And
I was usually kind of just hang back and pick
guys off, especially guys with flamethrowers. Here we go again
(15:51):
to liberal peacenicks like us when it comes to like
this war stuff, we just get all giddy. Well it
is this one. For some reason, I was reading a
message about a flamethrower operator in World War two, who
you know, UM received the Medal of Honor for UM
invading a Japanese they think they're called pillbox. It was
a little gun nest and burning them all and burning
(16:12):
them all alive, and like the the guy wrote UM
that there were some muffled screams and then silence. It's like,
you know, being burned alive is pretty much everybody's worst death,
I would think. So it's up there. Well we had
worst way to die, that's right up there. And I think,
if I remember correctly, burning to death is consistently the
number one and like informal polls, right, imagine it is
(16:33):
pretty painful and it happened a lot in World War
One to Vietnam. Yeah, I imagined Korea. This is a
horrible weapon, absolutely, but you can find uh, civilian applications
for can't you. Yeah, Well, before we move on to that,
we also need to say that they were on tanks
as well, so it wasn't just boats. They used them
(16:54):
on tanks, and uh, the design was basically the same.
You just had a lot more fuel and you had
like piston rotary pumps to get a lot more length
on your shot. And yeah, the backpack mounted ones had
a range of about fifty yards, right, Uh, that's that's
(17:14):
a long way though. Yeah, let's have a football field.
You don't have to get that close. Sure, Yeah, I
wonder the first enemy that was like, he's got a flamethrower,
but we're way too far away. They were within like
forty five exactly. Civilian applications, Um, forced forced fire fighters
(17:55):
forest firefighters? Is that how you say it? I don't know.
They actually use these when they do like the prescribed burning,
like sometimes they'll burn, well, not just the firefighters, they
do prescribe burns anyway, and then sometimes the firefighters do that,
they'll like burn a section to cut it off right there,
and they that's what they do it with flamethrowers, which
actually kind of made me want to go get a
(18:17):
job with the forestry Service so you could burn things
on purpose well with the flamethrower. Yeah. Did you hear
about this car thing in South Africa? Theft deterrent system
that burned you know? Yeah, I don't think it's still around.
This is like twelve years ago, and um, a South
African man invented it was called the blaster and basically
(18:37):
it would shoot a man high fireball, that is what
they called it. What at you if you tried to
break into the car for a mere ran which is
uh and this and that was like six or fifty
bucks and um, it would squirt liquefied gas from a
bottle in the trunk through two nozzles located on the
(19:01):
front door. And the rub is you couldn't turn one
on and turn one off. So if a guy was
breaking into like the driver's side door, it would still
shoot fire out of the passenger side to whomever might
be walking by unluckily on that side. I'd say, yeah,
that's that's an invention that wasn't fully thought through. I
would think so. But apparently he sold a bunch of
(19:22):
him at the time and he said it's non lethal,
but it would definitely blind a person, is what he said,
and keep them from stealing your car. Yeah, because they
can't see cars any longer. That's terrible. Yeah, way to
go South Africa. Um. Lastly, chuck fire breathers their form
of They follow the basic principles of flamethrowing by drinking kerosene. Yeah,
(19:45):
there you go. If you want to learn about fire breathers,
we have an article on them if you want to
learn more about flame throwers, and before you send us
a listener mail, we are aware of flamethrower exhaust systems.
We've both seen Greece before. Um, you can type any
word you want to into the handy search bar how
stuff works dot Com. It'll yield something interesting. I guarantee
(20:08):
you that. Uh so, chuck listener man, I'm gonna call this.
I love this dude. And his name is Guy and
not as in hey guy, his real name is Guy.
Guy from San Francisco says, guys, just listen to the
Art Theft podcast. And by the way, we do know
(20:29):
about the Paris heist that just went down. Pretty cool,
uh very intriguing for future monetary and sent of neither
here nor there. However, I have a little bit a
little habit that I thought I might like to share
that loosely pertains. I have never stolen art knowingly. However,
I do frequently and I'm subjected to I travel frequently,
(20:51):
and I'm subjected to much distasteful art guilty of being
a budget traveler. So there's the rub. But to amuse myself,
I like to take the horrible art off the wall,
take it out of the glass and frame and add
the ever so slightest detail. This guy is wonderful. He
does this in hotels. A chicken in the corner by
the barn, a seagull flying over the crest of a wave,
(21:13):
a beer bottle and fishing pole by the babbling brook.
I do it in every hotel, motel, hotel, hostel, bungalow,
you name it. I will stay there and I will
change the art they have. Art and hostels. Now, yeah,
probably not. It makes me chuckle to think that maybe
one day someone will be staring at an awful hotel
painting and look closely and notice one of the gallant
cowboys has a tin of skull by his left boot heel.
(21:36):
So if you stay in cheap hotels, keep your eyes out.
People you may have stayed where a guy from San
Francisco has stayed. Just don't turn on the black light.
That's all I have to say. That's awesome. That is awesome, man.
I love to hear people doing cool stuff. Vandalism, yeah,
but it's it's vandalism with like an eye towards it's fundalism. Well,
(22:00):
if you're a starving artist who shows your work at
the Airport Hilton conference Room. We want to hear from you.
Just send us an email to Stuff podcast at how
stuff works dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(22:22):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hi, everybody. Chuck here on a Saturday with my Saturday Selects.
Pick from June three, two ten. I think I picked
this one because I just got done watching What's Upon
a Time in Hollywood once again. Here is our episode
how Flamethrowers Work. Have you seen that movie? You know
what I'm talking about. If you haven't, I hope they
didn't spoil it for you. So learn all about flamethrowers
(00:22):
right now. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production
of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck
Bryant that makes this Stuff you should Know, right, Chuck? Yeah, yeah,
(00:45):
Terry just I love it when like we get last
second instructions. Yeah, and they don't make any sense. Save
it for the show, guys, right, or show that picture
on the podcast the audio podcast. Oh goodness, how are
you sir? I'm fine by all rights Friday, but it's
actually Thursday, but it's almost Memorial Day. Yeah, and we're
(01:06):
not Are you coming in tomorrow at all? No? I'm
not comfortable saying either way. Well, that'll be surprised. I
don't want to get in trouble. Well, I'm not. I'm
still scared of the man. I know you're not, but
you're all like, hey, look at me. I'm forty. I
make my own decisions, not forty. So Chuck, you're George
Carlin fan, right, Yeah, the late George Carlin. Just the
(01:29):
late Alright, we always had the bummer, don't you. The
late George Carlin could be like George Carlin. He's the
greatest stand up comedian ever. When the very the worm
food George Carlin, Yeah, the dearly departed. Yes, I like him. Why,
I have an obscure stand up bit that I'll bet
(01:49):
you haven't heard of that is apropope of our topic today.
So George Carlin um had a bit about flamethrowers. I
never heard that one. He said that the very presence
of flamethrowers, and I'm paraphrasing, the very presence of flamethrowers
means that at some point sometime someone said to himself,
(02:10):
you know, there's a bunch of people over there that
I'd like to set on fire, but they're too far
away from me to get the job done. I wish
there was something that I could use to throw flames
on them, and as a result, we now have the flamethrower,
which is kind of crazy when you think about it
that way. It is pretty interesting, it is, And when
(02:30):
you start to really look into flamethrowers, you realize just
how horrific the acts that humans inflict on other humans
can be. Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty awful stuff. Actually, yeah,
when you I mean actually all kinds of modern weaponry.
And know, my brother in lawson the Marines, he told
me about this. I think it's called a flachette, some
(02:50):
sort of bomb that like explodes above people and sends
thousands of like razor blades shooting out. Yeah. I think
it's mainly of used for clearing like jungle, but um, yeah,
I can't remember jungle of enemy combatants exactly. Yeah, so
some sick I thought that up were like what one
step away from the alien weapons in District nine where
(03:13):
people just blow up in an almost cartoonish fashion. Yeah,
it's coming the atomizer or something they'll call it. Yeah. Um.
What's what's odd is that that person, that first person
that George carlin Um envisions actually lived a lot longer
ago than you would think. I was shocked. I was
(03:33):
well a century BC, fifth century b C. Man, Right,
it wasn't well, it was a flamethrower. It was a
very crude, vulgar if you will, flamethrower. It was a
long tube sort of like a blowgun, and they filled
it with solid stuff like hot coal and sulfur. And yeah,
(03:54):
ideally you don't suck in that would be bad. No,
I was thinking that too, Like you have to suck
in the breath before you put the tube deer and
out through us. You're in big trouble. Oh, that's the
case with any blow blowgun, right, sure, Yeah, did you
ever make those when your kid? No? I never did.
That's too busy burning stuff. You could have done both apparently.
So yeah, they would shoot I guess, um hot coal
(04:15):
or sulfur out at their enemy combatant instead of a
flame per se, Yeah, which I guess Ultimately it would
bounce off of their arm and they'd be like, ah,
that burns, and then they just tussle and leg wrestling, right,
and shake hands afterwards and go eat a bore. That's
that's how that went to enter BC with Josh. But
(04:37):
leave it to the Greeks, who were one of the brainiest,
most um thieving cultures of all time. They probably got
this idea from the Chemites. Frankly, but there's this stuff
called um Greek fire, And actually I can't say that
the Greeks came up with it. It's called Greek fire,
but the Byzantines that what we know is turks um.
(04:59):
We're uh, we're most notorious for using this stuff. Yeah,
and that they think they're not sure because it was
a long time ago. It was a mixture of liquid
petrol and sulfur and like stuff like quicklime. Petrol's British
for gas, Yeah, and UM. They would pump it out
(05:20):
actually from a reservoir through little narrow tubes and like
anything that goes from a big reservoir type system to
a small, thin one, it would create pressure to shoot
it out and then some unlucky guy would be the
lighter at the end of it, and that would be
like a real flamethrower, like dozens of feet. Yeah, as
we're gonna learn, anybody whose job it was to deal
(05:40):
with any aspect of flamethrowing UM was the unlucky guy. Yeah.
One of the more dangerous weapons you can use, UM,
but it was very effective. Number One, since it's oil based. Uh,
it could this, this Greek fire could be used in
naval battles because it would still burn even when it
contacted the water. Um. And so the Byzantines mounted it
(06:02):
on their ships. These flamethrowers um on their ships and
on the city walls around Constantinople and basically just repelled
people out of fear as much as you know, burning
them alive. Yeah, they were. Their enemies were really freaked out.
I imagine when they first saw like fire shooting at them. Yes,
freaked out and intrigued, especially in the case of the Chinese.
(06:23):
See what the Byzantines had was a single action pump.
You just did the foot pump with literally did you
see that? Do you see that? Jerry? Them following your command? Um,
the the Byzantines had a single action bellows pump where
when you pressed down on the down stroke, it would
(06:44):
push the liquid out. Right. Yes, you get like a
burst of fire. And that's it right, because on the
up stroke nothing was happening except with the bellows were
filling back up with air to press down compressed right. Um.
The Chinese said, hey, that's that's really funny because we
have a double simbelows to where you are compressing air
um on the upstroke and the downstroke. So instead of
(07:06):
your stupid little short bursts of Greek fire, we have
one long burst that just cuts you in half. Lead
to the Chinese get all better, the wheelbarrow, the kite,
the hang glider, the flamethrower, gunpowder and actually gunpowder um
equaled the demise of flamethrowers for about a thousand years, right, Yeah,
(07:28):
as soon as gunpowder came along, they were like, yeah,
we're just chumps with fire when we can actually shoot
a gun, That's that's the way of the future, right
And it was, But so is the flamethrower, as it
turns out, yeah, because it lay dormant for about a
thousand years. And then in World War One, actually right
before World War One, the Germans, a very warlike state
(07:50):
at the time, were um, they said, you know what,
exactly can we and our arsenal that is just totally
scary and wildly to instructive. Yes, let's look back through
the annals of of you know, historic weaponry and find something.
And they look through and they said the flamethrower. Yeah.
Richard Fielder is an engineer in nineteen o one. They
(08:12):
credit him with inventing it, but he clearly was using
old technology as the initial idea. At least. It's a
clever design, though, isn't it. Yeah, because this from this
original design. Um, there have been you know, some polishing
moments for the flamethrower over the years, but from that,
from that modern era that the design has remained relatively
(08:35):
the same. Right, it's like a three tank design. Yeah.
The flamin furf is what it's called nice the Germans.
That's what the German uh, and it was, um, well
let's yeah, let's go ahead and explain how it works
with thanks, all right, And this is the handheld flamethrower,
which is the one that's I guess was most readily
(08:55):
used in combat. Yeah, and it's the one you see
like a guy's wearing these tanks on his back and
he's got the rifle. Is just right. So you got
two outer tanks and those are filled with the flammable
fuel oil based petrol if you will, like Greek fire
and um, then there's a center smaller tank which holds
a compressed gas like butane and uh it was. It
(09:19):
would feed the gas through a pressure regulator connected to
the tubes, right, and you can take it from here. Well,
the this is why I think it's very clever. The
butuane served a dual purpose. One that was compressed, so
when you open the valve, it would push the liquid
fuel out of the tanks into the tube and into
ultimately in the reservoir and the gun the pressure regulator. Right,
(09:41):
that is what they would but switch on. There is
another tube that came directly out of the third tank
that held the compressed gas like butane, and this tube
went directly to the ignition valve right right, so it
served as the igniter later on. Right that it was
because it was the but that was actually burning when
(10:02):
you um. When you open the ignition valve, the butu
tane flows to the end, mixes with air the end
of the rifle. Um and then there's like there's two triggers.
There's the fuel released trigger right, yes, and then there's
the ignition trigger. And the ignition trigger is basically you're
operating a battery that operates a spark plug sends the current,
generates heat right nights the but tane. Now you have
(10:24):
that little blue flame on the end. Yeah, that's what
you've seen in movies like if you see them around that, yeah, exactly.
You see the little like three inch flame coming out
in the end, right, that's actually but tane burning. The
fuel hasn't been released, the hell fire has not been
opened yet or released yet. That's when you squeeze what's
the fuel released trigger and then well, yeah, then that
(10:45):
pulls back a little valve plug because you obviously want
it plugged or else you're going to have a big
mess on your hands. You'll be on fire very quickly.
So when you pull the fuel release trigger, it pulls
the little valve plug back, and then all the fuel
supply suddenly rushes through to the tip of the gun
where the flame is in. Boom, there you go. In
(11:26):
nineteen forty two, the Army Chemical Warfare Service, I think
is what it was called. UM, they came up with
a little something called napalm, which is ultimately a gasoline
or petrol in the case of Chuck and our British friends, UM,
a gasoline thickening agent. So with a slightly thickened gas
(11:51):
you have a longer range. It carries further because it
has more mass or girth or whatever. There's less there's
less friction from the ground comeing up right um, and uh,
it also can be concentrated more easily right right. So
basically that was one of those real big polishing moments.
It went from just gas which sprays too thick gas
(12:13):
which sticks burns. It evaporates much less quickly, so it
will burn forever and it's really difficult to put out.
And if you get covered in it, you're entirely in trouble. Yes,
you're out of luck. And they would mount these on
well p t boats for one. Have you ever seen
the videos of those things like cruising down the river
(12:33):
shooting napalm into the forest. Well, I see there's a
picture of it in the article. I've never seen video
of It's pretty wicked. Yeah. And they called them, they
called them zippo flamethrowers, right, because the ignition um system
failed so frequently. It's just like on a gas grill,
what they have to light it with a zippo? With
a zippo, you're kidding? And that's the other unlucky dude,
(12:56):
I guess. Yeah, he'd be like, don't get too close
to it with his hand, right, And so flamethrowers. It
wasn't just some guy you know where. It would be
like a bunch of infantry guys and then some guy
on the end happened to grab the flamethrower that morning
when they went out, and it's just you know, they
were part of a tactical strategy. Yeah, what would happen
was rifleman would lay down cover fire. Let's say you
(13:19):
come to the mouth of a cave and there's a
bunch of enemy combatants in there and they're shooting you,
and they have snipers and you're in big trouble. All
your your rifleman lay down fire on this cave so
those guys can't move, cover fire to allow your flamethrower
man to get close. He was highly susceptible at this
point because of what he's wearing on his back. Yes,
(13:39):
all it takes is one good shot to one of
those tanks and that guy's gone, or a bad shot,
just a shot. Sure, yeah, if you come in contact
with it with the bullet um. But so the flamethrower
guy gets close basically cooks everybody, burns everyone to death
in that cave, right, that's his job. And then after
that the munitions guys come in and explode the cave
(14:04):
so it can never be used again. And that's Sianora
for the cave dwellers. Yes, uh, you know, speaking of
a quick death, I've always heard when I was a kid,
you know that. You know, if you were a flamethrower
in war, your average lifespan is like thirty seconds in combat. Well,
I always heard that, and I'd scoured the internets and
I could not find anything to verify that, but um,
(14:27):
that's what I always heard. I thought that was an
interesting tidbit. I did read that most people who were
flamethrower operators didn't survive. I would imagine it's pretty dangerous
thing to be toting around. Yeah, and they also had assistance,
because the assistance would open and close the valves on
the pack form. That was the whole job. It was
always a two man team, so both of them would
usually not make it. I would if I was the assistant,
(14:50):
I would turn on his little valve and then run
for cover and then run up and turn it off again, right,
And I'd probably pretty unpopular with the flamethrower guy. Probably
then the flamethrower guy was well like because if you
can take out an entire gun nest of people, Yeah.
Then you know everybody's going to applaud you and clap,
and you know, probably not get too close though, because
(15:10):
you're going to die eventually. Yeah, I'd rather be a sniper.
I think that'd be. Like I play Call of Duty.
I got a p S three now, But I tell
you that no, wow, Chuck, it was given to me
by my step step step dad, now father in law.
You did tell me my stepfather in law. And so
I got just a couple of games. I'm not like
a huge gamer at all, Like I think a Nintendo,
(15:31):
like the first Nintendo was the last thing I actually owned.
But um, I play Call of Duty now. I like
a shooter games too. It's pretty fun. But you choose
to be a sniper on that. Well, now there are
just certain levels where you can be a sniper. Like
you'll pick up a sniper gun if you want. And
I was usually kind of just hang back and pick
guys off, especially guys with flamethrowers. Here we go again
(15:51):
to liberal peacenicks like us when it comes to like
this war stuff, we just get all giddy. Well it
is this one. For some reason, I was reading a
message about a flamethrower operator in World War two, who
you know, UM received the Medal of Honor for UM
invading a Japanese they think they're called pillbox. It was
a little gun nest and burning them all and burning
(16:12):
them all alive, and like the the guy wrote UM
that there were some muffled screams and then silence. It's like,
you know, being burned alive is pretty much everybody's worst death,
I would think. So it's up there. Well we had
worst way to die, that's right up there. And I think,
if I remember correctly, burning to death is consistently the
number one and like informal polls, right, imagine it is
(16:33):
pretty painful and it happened a lot in World War
One to Vietnam. Yeah, I imagined Korea. This is a
horrible weapon, absolutely, but you can find uh, civilian applications
for can't you. Yeah, Well, before we move on to that,
we also need to say that they were on tanks
as well, so it wasn't just boats. They used them
(16:54):
on tanks, and uh, the design was basically the same.
You just had a lot more fuel and you had
like piston rotary pumps to get a lot more length
on your shot. And yeah, the backpack mounted ones had
a range of about fifty yards, right, Uh, that's that's
(17:14):
a long way though. Yeah, let's have a football field.
You don't have to get that close. Sure, Yeah, I
wonder the first enemy that was like, he's got a flamethrower,
but we're way too far away. They were within like
forty five exactly. Civilian applications, Um, forced forced fire fighters
(17:55):
forest firefighters? Is that how you say it? I don't know.
They actually use these when they do like the prescribed burning,
like sometimes they'll burn, well, not just the firefighters, they
do prescribe burns anyway, and then sometimes the firefighters do that,
they'll like burn a section to cut it off right there,
and they that's what they do it with flamethrowers, which
actually kind of made me want to go get a
(18:17):
job with the forestry Service so you could burn things
on purpose well with the flamethrower. Yeah. Did you hear
about this car thing in South Africa? Theft deterrent system
that burned you know? Yeah, I don't think it's still around.
This is like twelve years ago, and um, a South
African man invented it was called the blaster and basically
(18:37):
it would shoot a man high fireball, that is what
they called it. What at you if you tried to
break into the car for a mere ran which is
uh and this and that was like six or fifty
bucks and um, it would squirt liquefied gas from a
bottle in the trunk through two nozzles located on the
(19:01):
front door. And the rub is you couldn't turn one
on and turn one off. So if a guy was
breaking into like the driver's side door, it would still
shoot fire out of the passenger side to whomever might
be walking by unluckily on that side. I'd say, yeah,
that's that's an invention that wasn't fully thought through. I
would think so. But apparently he sold a bunch of
(19:22):
him at the time and he said it's non lethal,
but it would definitely blind a person, is what he said,
and keep them from stealing your car. Yeah, because they
can't see cars any longer. That's terrible. Yeah, way to
go South Africa. Um. Lastly, chuck fire breathers their form
of They follow the basic principles of flamethrowing by drinking kerosene. Yeah,
(19:45):
there you go. If you want to learn about fire breathers,
we have an article on them if you want to
learn more about flame throwers, and before you send us
a listener mail, we are aware of flamethrower exhaust systems.
We've both seen Greece before. Um, you can type any
word you want to into the handy search bar how
stuff works dot Com. It'll yield something interesting. I guarantee
(20:08):
you that. Uh so, chuck listener man, I'm gonna call this.
I love this dude. And his name is Guy and
not as in hey guy, his real name is Guy.
Guy from San Francisco says, guys, just listen to the
Art Theft podcast. And by the way, we do know
(20:29):
about the Paris heist that just went down. Pretty cool,
uh very intriguing for future monetary and sent of neither
here nor there. However, I have a little bit a
little habit that I thought I might like to share
that loosely pertains. I have never stolen art knowingly. However,
I do frequently and I'm subjected to I travel frequently,
(20:51):
and I'm subjected to much distasteful art guilty of being
a budget traveler. So there's the rub. But to amuse myself,
I like to take the horrible art off the wall,
take it out of the glass and frame and add
the ever so slightest detail. This guy is wonderful. He
does this in hotels. A chicken in the corner by
the barn, a seagull flying over the crest of a wave,
(21:13):
a beer bottle and fishing pole by the babbling brook.
I do it in every hotel, motel, hotel, hostel, bungalow,
you name it. I will stay there and I will
change the art they have. Art and hostels. Now, yeah,
probably not. It makes me chuckle to think that maybe
one day someone will be staring at an awful hotel
painting and look closely and notice one of the gallant
cowboys has a tin of skull by his left boot heel.
(21:36):
So if you stay in cheap hotels, keep your eyes out.
People you may have stayed where a guy from San
Francisco has stayed. Just don't turn on the black light.
That's all I have to say. That's awesome. That is awesome, man.
I love to hear people doing cool stuff. Vandalism, yeah,
but it's it's vandalism with like an eye towards it's fundalism. Well,
(22:00):
if you're a starving artist who shows your work at
the Airport Hilton conference Room. We want to hear from you.
Just send us an email to Stuff podcast at how
stuff works dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(22:22):
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