Flame thrower survives as a viable weapon till now

Yeah, I could pretty much only imagine it being used to clear foliage, or perhaps to destroy camps and supplies.

Provided the user has actual intel that the foliage is being used as camouflage, or if the forest could be, for whatever reason, defined as a military objective (hard to do that). Otherwise you're back to the prohibitions of Protocol III.

Using them atop of drones to clear foliage or other things is probably the most probable.

It would be a largish drone (given the need of a fuel tank) having to fly pretty low. If you really want to burn foliage from the air, a stand-off napalm warhead is much safer for the platform. largish drones are costly, even if unmanned, and you don't want to sacrifice them to just any old shoulder-fired SAM.
You still have to comply with the relevant provisions, too.
 
only if you are a supervillain
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Provided the user has actual intel that the foliage is being used as camouflage, or if the forest could be, for whatever reason, defined as a military objective (hard to do that). Otherwise you're back to the prohibitions of Protocol III.


It would be a largish drone (given the need of a fuel tank) having to fly pretty low. If you really want to burn foliage from the air, a stand-off napalm warhead is much safer for the platform. largish drones are costly, even if unmanned, and you don't want to sacrifice them to just any old shoulder-fired SAM.
You still have to comply with the relevant provisions, too.
I meant a tracked or wheeled drone, also known as a UGV or unmanned ground vehicle.
 
Maybe not man portable ones but mounted on vehicles is I am sure doable I mean look at the Churchill Crocodile in WW2 amazing bit of equipment also add on the fact that the ,aim gun is still usable is a great two for one offer. With armour you can get close and very personal with infantrymen and strong points. I often thought about flame throwers when deployed to sandy places,they could have saved countless man hours clearing areas I mean to say would you stay and fight in a crap house when seeing one let rip. I for one would be engaging reverse gear on my feet and doing and I certainly would be breaking lots of Olympic records.
 
Maybe not man portable ones but mounted on vehicles is I am sure doable I mean look at the Churchill Crocodile in WW2 amazing bit of equipment also add on the fact that the ,aim gun is still usable is a great two for one offer. With armour you can get close and very personal with infantrymen and strong points.

You could. In WWII, and even there, I don't think the Crocodile was such a success in the ETO late war, with all those Panzerfäuste, magnetic mines, and whatnot. On top of that, the average WWII tank couldn't take out a robust strong point from a safe distance anyway.
Today, you don't want to bring your AFVs that close to infantry (as the Israeli learned the last time they did), unless it's the equivalent of Japanese infantry in the Pacific as to man-portable AT capabilities. This happens, in low-intensity conflicts, but then again in low-intensity conflicts a conventional present-day tank can entirely take out your average strong point from a safe distance.
 
Why have a flamethrower when you can burn them from the air?
No but really the only place I see flamethrowers surviving is in close combat for times when your and the enemys troops are too close together to bomb.
 
The closest thing I could see would be flamethrowers mounted on armored personnel carriers (i.e. Strykers) and be used in urban combat situations to attack enemies at close range without infantry having to leave the vehicle.
 
The closest thing I could see would be flamethrowers mounted on armored personnel carriers (i.e. Strykers) and be used in urban combat situations to attack enemies at close range without infantry having to leave the vehicle.

as opposed to putting a mk 19 that is equally effective, has much longer range and can be used against a much broader range of targets and can fire for more than 10 seconds before depleting its ammo and can be resupplied much easier.

Again, there are just so many things that works equally well or better you'd rather put on the vehicle.
 
In my opinion, the flamethrower is a very specialized weapon. Perfect for Urban combat, Mountains (Clearing caves), and most CQB. Other than that however, its limited use guaranteed its phasing out.
 

Kaze

Banned
Go see a cave system in the Hindu Kish. And weep.

They also worked on the Cave systems in Iwo Jima and the Ryukyu cave system which some estimate are larger then the ones in the Hindu Kush - after the war, the cave system in Ryukyu the US found tanks and aircraft inside waiting for their pilots to use. There is a cave in the Vietnam War tunnel system that could hold up to 500 people.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Why have a flamethrower when you can burn them from the air?
No but really the only place I see flamethrowers surviving is in close combat for times when your and the enemys troops are too close together to bomb.
How about giant mortars of 160mm caliber able to launch incendiary fire bombs

Or dropping napalm " barrel bombs" from cargo planes ?

Can that be an extension or evolution of flamethrowers?
 
If by "viable" we're referring to military and paramilitary groups in the third world still using them, possibly. Other than that, some sort of severe regulations on arms development or something else ASB is necessary to keep them alive.
 
I've always favored sticking a flamethrower on a highly mobile armored robotic frame and have it scurry into the cave complex

There's the usual problem with flamethrowers. Typically, only the strongest men were tasked with operating them because the tank is very heavy and bulky. And even so, they could fire only a rather small number of times.
If the robotic frame is small enough to move into tight tunnels like a human, it will probably run out of shots before finishing the job. A sizable thermobaric warhead that goes into an entrance would probably do the job all by itself.
 
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