Incendiary Weapons
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"Down through the glen came Sellar's men,
Wi' burning brands in their blood stained hands,
They blazed a path through glen and strath,
The factor's Fire Raisers."
- – Jim McLean, The Fire Raisers
Fire. Without question one of the greatest tool in the history of humanity. Its mastery is what separates humans from animals. We mastered fire before almost every tool: before the sharp rock, before farming, before wheels, before Dogs, we had Fire. And against the wild we found in it a weapon that we would inevitable turn on each other.
There is a good reason why animals have a fear of fire, and even with our mastery it takes but a few sparks in the wrong place to remind people why. People have a well established aversion to being consumed by fire, both by instinct and because being burned to death is a horrible way to go. Therefore, the mere threat of being burned alive is enough to send people running... some times over the edge leaping to death rather then be consumed by the flames. As such the question of how to use fire offensively has always been at the forefront of the military mind. Whether it's as simple as running your horses into a town throwing burning brands on the wooden houses or as complicated as the flame thrower. Fire has and general always will be a tool of such complete destruction that the saying "with fire and sword", has a meaning we don't even need to explain.
Types of incendiary weapons
Burning brands
Obviously, the use of fire predates history itself. It is possible early apes that were not yet humans were throwing burning sticks at prey and each other. That may sound outlandish but we point at fire hawks, a group of hawks that carry burning sticks from one wildfire, to start another to flush out prey. There are a few theories that cooking food may have been the evolutionary jump-start to our intelligence so we were cooking and burning for a long, long time. The earliest sign we know for sure as being from a human-controlled fire goes back almost 300 to 400 thousand years ago.
The first flaming weapons, therefore, were also simple, just burning sticks. It may sound unimpressive but to any kind of animal predator, a torch is an easy and effective way to push them back. Additionally, for much of human history, cities were made of wood. A relatively small band of arsonists could destroy even a reasonably sized settlement by indiscriminately throwing burning torches and moving quickly. It is such a burnt in our mental image that the idea of a "medieval raider" often has that burning torch in hand, on horseback. It is such a common tactic that there are literally too many examples in history to mention. From the Greeks to Scots to the English against the Scots and French, to the Mongols, literally burning an enemy land to deny the resources, shelter, and food it might offer, both offensively and even defensively in a "scorched earth campaign", is the most ancient military tactic: it literally predates the creation of steel!
Fire Bombs
Burning brands are an effective means of burning objects but people are fairly fire-resistant. Humans are roughly 60% water by mass which means just being hit with a burning stick will hurt but not set you on fire. Even a blow torch would not be enough. Oh ya, it hurt like hell but it alone will likely not be enough to set you on fire like a log. As such if you want to use incendiary weapons against infantry you have to get a bit creative. Hence the fire bomb, or rather the "Firepot", fire bomb is more a modern term.
At its most simple, you have something like a ceramic jug full of lamp oil with a burning wick. In the middle ages, these were often used against enemy buildings and camps but were relatively rarely used by hand. In medieval battles, they were less effective as they are environmentally sensitive, pricey, and have limited range.
However, as we said Handheld Versions are relatively rare, Siege versions are a whole different story. Often called "carcasses", siege weapons hurling firepots, pitch, tar, or even woven projectiles of straw set alight would be a nightmare against a wooden city or in defending a city from a naval attack. Castles are made of stone but they have enough wooden timbers in that that if you hurl enough fire at them even they will burn since you only need to get lucky once to end them.
Flamethrowers
"I know of very few instances in which the word "flamethrower" could not be preceded by the word "fuckin'"."
- – Zero Punctuation on Alone in the Dark: Illumination
As soon as we started burning each other, everyone asked the next question "this is great, but how can we burn people to death at a distance?" The answer is that horrifying question is: The Flamethrower.
The basic mechanisms of a Flamethrower are pretty simple. All you need is a cistern for fuel, a pump, a nozzle, and a pilot light. It's not hard to figure out so long as you have the technology for pumps and access to some kind of Oil. As such there are various interment examples of their use throughout history. The earliest example this editor could find would be in the battle of Delium in 424 BC where the attacking Boeotians tried to some kind of flamethrower against the Athenian defenders.
The first perhaps widespread use of flame throwers though goes to the Byzantines and their "Greek Fire". Greek Fire is sometimes considered 'the first secret weapon' and alongside Roman concrete is one of the earliest trope setters for 'unknown lost technology' that 40k takes and runs with. In any case, Greek Fire was a very effective weapon and although land-based uses are recorded, as you can imagine in an era of wooden ships (with the cistern and pump being heavy) it was a dangerous weapon on water. As stated we still don't know quite what Greek fire was, though we have a few ideas. It alongside most early (and modern) flamethrowers likely used some sort of petroleum-derived compound, but if you do a quick eyeball of Byzantine territory in the time Greek Fire was supposedly introduced, not a lot of natural oil fields were left especially easy to get stuff so the jury is still out. Others have suspected some kind of quicklime-based solution as well, Roman records mention mulberry resin often serving as a substitute for the petroleum, agitated by a small amount of quicklime (explaining old records of Greek fire being ignited by water) and sulfur.
Meanwhile, in Asia, the forces of the Song Dynasty also built flamethrowers, multiple types in fact. It's generally understood (read: stolen from wiki) that the Chinese of this time period were were given tributes of petroleum from Vietnam. Called "měng huǒ yóu" in Chinese which translates to "fierce-fire oil" which gave the Chinese fire weapons their heat. There was also some evidence of Oil Drilling in China itself during the Northern Song Dynasty. One such flamethrower is recorded in the "Wujing Zongyao", a military guide written around 1040-1044.
And of course, any discussion of pre-modern incendiary would be incomplete without mentioning: Naphtha. Naphtha is just a type of petroleum known since ancient times. Nowadays it's pretty broadly used as a name for crude oil or even more refined items like kerosene. But while Naphtha is a bit boring since it's just petroleum, it's still a name that shows up in both history and fantasy so it's worth going over quickly what it is: just read "crude oil" and you won't be too far wrong.
Even so, it was in the 20th century that Flamethrowers really came into their own as man-portable units. It started with the Germans who worked out that they could be used to clear out trenches and soon enough everyone was using them. In WW2 these were supplemented by Flame Tanks, like the German Flammpanzer III.
White Phosphorus and Other Potential Warcrime-Enabling Substances
For when you want to burn everything in a 20-meter radius, almost nothing beats White Phosphorus, aka Willie Pete. This stuff is the most potent incendiary commonly available, to the point that its use in artillery has rendered flamethrowers militarily obsolescent.
The most notable inflammatory substance, besides WP, napalm, and naphtha, is chlorine trifluoride, ClF3. Most notable, here, because it's so potent that it's a better oxidizer than Oxygen and more difficult to handle than Fluorine gas, which puts it in fairly rarified circles. It will burn things that you previously assumed wouldn't burn, like sand, asbestos, bricks, concrete, and even Carbon Dioxide. It will react violently with raw metals, and only a thin oxidation layer that forms on any metal exposed to it allows it to be stored even somewhat "safely" (for very dubious values of "safety" since that layer breaks down rapidly when heated). Note that it's very unsafe nature means that it only gets brought up in hypothetical situations, such as "what's the most damage you could do with magical alchemy in the real world?".
Modern Use of Flamethrowers
At present, flamethrowers in a military context are... no longer used.
Originally they were mainly used against bunkers, pillboxes, and other fortified positions, since they're throwing flaming liquid, and that liquid can pass around corners, through narrow passages, and over barriers, all things you'd find in fortifications. Additionally the flames would also cause oxygen issues in tight enclosed areas like caves and bunkers again, which are actually the prime purpose of use in combat against fortifications and rarely against vehicles. It's not about burning/injuring/hurting the infantry, but simply suffocating them in seconds and forcing them to move and break cover or simply faint way before they burned to death.
Of course there are two issue with flame throwers. One is that to use them you need to carry the source of fuel around with you meaning you have to basically strap a small bomb's worth of fuel to your self. And two, since nobody likes burning to death or seeing their friends burn to death, EVERYBODY HATES YOU! Being a flame thrower operator is like painting a big "shoot me" sign on your self and even surrendering is likely to have them kill you anyway if they catch you. (On the other hand, flamethrowers were at least not as bad as chemical weapons, the obvious alternative for bunkers and the like.)
More practically, aside from various nations agreeing that being burnt alive is terrible and banning the thing, they're not very useful anymore. Nowadays if you were to find a bunker, you don't send some guys in to clear it by hand, you call in buddies to drop some artillery or air support or even drone strikes on the position. Since the heyday of the flame thrower these weapons have gotten much, much more accurate.
And then there were flamer tanks: modified tanks designed to be flamethrowers. Just as with man-portable ones, they were disliked, and the crews subject to special enemy reprisals if captured. They effectively only existed during WWII, as the need was only noticed during WWII, and said need went away as artillery and air support got good enough that driving in a giant fire-hazard was no longer necessary.
There are also valid civilian uses, most notably for starting control fires (smaller fires intended to stop or prevent larger ones from spreading) and melting snow and ice. Which is why some variants are actually sold to the general public (and only regulated as fire hazards). Such commercial flamethrowers typically do not have the range of military ones; a WW2 M2 flamethrower has an effective range of about 20 meters, well in excess of any civilian application.
Flamethrowers in Fantasy
Flamethrowers are in a sweet spot. On the one hand, they are showy mechanical weapons. On the other hand they are simple enough that you could make one with even bronze age things like wooden barrels, leather pipes and simple iron and brass mechanisms and an alchemist to make the fuel. This last point is not even mandatory if you are near an oil seep. If you want the occasional bit of more "modern" weaponry alongside swordsmen and archers, flamethrowers are pretty good for that.
In Discworld flamethrowers show up on occasion including the Klatchian Fire Engine in Men At Arms and the Deep Down Dwarfs have some in Thud! These weapons are illegal in Anhk Morpork. Swamp Dragons can also be used as impromptu flamethrowers in a pinch, though the Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick Dragons does not approve of this.
In Warhammer Fantasy, the Dwarfs have specialized soldiers called Irondrake armed with flamethrowers. Similarly the Skaven make use of Warpfire Throwers.
Flamethrowers have been used as Dungeon Traps.
Flamethrowers in Science Fiction
In sci-fi flamethrowers are fairly common. First because they are flashy. Second because better fuels means you can make them less cumbersome. Third because out there in a hostile universe there are often just what the doctor ordered. If you want a brute force way of dealing with biohazards, a flamethrower is your guy. At the same time if you are facing a thousand strong swarm of 25cm long murderous craboids in close quarters, a sniper rifle is not optimal.
An upgrade to the Flamethrower is the Plasma Thrower.
See Also
- Flamer, the 40k takes on incendiary weapons. Because of course burning your enemies to death is exactly what this universe needs.
| Medieval Weaponry | |
|---|---|
| Melee Weapons: |
Battleaxe - Dagger - Lance - Mace - Club Pole-arm - Spear - Sword - Warhammer |
| Ranged Weapons: |
Blowgun - Bows and Arrows - Cannon Crossbow - Firearm - Rocket - Shuriken - Sling - Incendiary Weapons - Artillery |
| Armor: | Armor - Fantasy Armor - Helmet - Pauldron - Shield |