Meet The German Flamethrower Tanks of WWII

As if Nazi war equipment wasn’t scary enough

World War II saw the rise of the flamethrower tank. Instead of machine guns and cannons, these tanks swapped high explosive ammunition for jets of liquid flames. These tanks would rise in use and popularity throughout WWII and continued into future conflicts.

Unsurprisingly, Germany was one of the first nations to develop and effectively deploy flamethrower tanks.

German engineers toyed with the idea for years. They added flamethrowers to a variety of different kinds of tanks and troop carriers. The flamethrowers were used for clearing trenches, striking fear into partisans, and for anti-infantry patrols.

The modifications turned Panzer tanks into fearsome motorized flamethrowers. The Panzer was already one of the most feared tanks of the war and the addition of pressurized flamethrowers only added to that fear and despair.

The Flammpanzer III was the final iteration of the Nazi flame tank program. It was a successful evolution over the Flammpanzer II (also known as the Flamingo). The Panzer II’s armor was not thick enough to protect the highly volatile payload and all of those shells were recalled from the front and decommissioned.

It turns out, being hit by high explosives when you are loaded down with 1000 liters of flamethrower fuel does not end well for the tank or crew.

Flammpanzer III fixed these issues by increasing the armor load and by rearranging the positioning of the fuel tanks. These modifications turned the widely used Panzer III into an effective flame-mounted weapons platform.

A hundred Flammpanzer IIIs were built and deployed to various Panzer groups throughout the war. They were often used in counterattacks against infantry that had overrun defensive positions. The flamethrowers were perfect at clearing redoubts, trenches, and hardpoints. Even if the heat didn’t kill enemy soldiers, the flames were able to burn the oxygen in…

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