The developer of the first flamethrower was Richard Fielder. The first flamethrower was tested in 1900 but not completely developed until 1911. In the images above you see the metal cylinder tanks that hold the fuel. There is a long hose-like tube and a trigger. When you hold the trigger a shot of flame comes out of the front. The flamethrowers main use was obvious, to burn things down, and that's exactly what it was used for, burning down buildings was a big use but another big use was to break through enemy lines. A short line of flamethrowers placed in the front line could shoot out a line of flame pushing the enemies back and making it easier to invade the territory.
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Impacts/Consequences of the Flamethrower
The overall impact of the Flamethrower was pretty significant. The soldiers standing front line with flamethrowers were used to push the enemy lines back. But in theory, almost absolutely defenseless against long range shooters. Civilians anywhere near the attacking front lines were completely terrorized. A brand new weapon never seen before capable of setting things on fire was extremely scary to civilians at this time in the war. This didn't stop Wilhelm II from deploying it to his troops in 1911. One bad thing about the Flamethrower is that from far range it is basically useless. Another defect was that if overheated or shot, the fuel cylinder would most likely explode, killing its carrier. A good thing about this was that it could be planted on tanks and shot fire twice as far. The flamethrower was a big impact, in favor of the Germans, for World War 1.
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Connections to Today
The first flamethrowers built for the Germans came in two different forms. The first form is a single person flamethrower called the Kleinflammenwerfer. It was mounted on the soldiers back with straps, it was easy to carry an light and shot flames up to 18 meters. This was opposite of the Grossflammenwerfer which was a much bigger two person flamethrower which was mounted on a tank usually or on the ground. it was much harder to control but shot flames up to 40 feet. This made breaking through enemy lines a lot easier. Both of these were much modified greatly but the Grossflammenwerfer was stopped once they decided to put guns on top instead. However the Kleinflammenwerfer, now called the simple Flamethrower is the same idea with cylinders of fuel on back and a hose with a trigger to shoot flame. The new flamethrower shoots flame up to 100 meters and easily completely incinerates targets in seconds. But, Like the previous flamethrower the cylinder tanks on the soldiers back would still burst or blow up if overheated or shot at. This made the extremely dangerous to soldiers. Because of this, the modern flamethrower was stopped use by the U.S. army in 1978.