Flame tank

Due to their ability to get in range of enemy positions in comparative safety, they were invaluable for rooting out heavy infantry fortifications.

The Shermans were difficult to disable, such that defenders were often compelled to assault them in the open, where they would face the full firepower of marine rifle and machine gun fire.

In many instances, troops surrendered or fled upon seeing a flame tank fire ranging shots, rather than risk being burned alive.

At the start of the Second World War most infantry units had weapons with some effectiveness against armoured targets at ranges of thirty to fifty meters, like anti-tank rifles.

[3] The Canadian and Dutch[citation needed] armies became two of the most active users of the Wasp variant of the universal carrier equipped with a flamethrower.

Indeed, the mechanical flamethrowers, although not impressive by themselves, struck horror into the minds of German troops, who feared them more than any other conventional weapon.

In contrast to man-portable flamethrowers that were vulnerable to bullets and shrapnel, making them extremely dangerous to their operators, flame tanks were extremely difficult to catch on fire or explode unless hit with an armor piercing round or explosive reaching the ammunition and engine fuel inside the tank's main hull.

Nevertheless, British tank crews received sixpence a day extra "danger money" due to the threat of arbitrary execution.

[5] Flame tanks also suffered from the fact, along with flamethrower-armed troops, that all enemy within range would usually fire on them due to the fear of the weapon.

The vehicle was developed by lieutenant Reynaldo Ramos de Saldanha da Gama, with help from the Polytechnic school.

It was built from riveted steel plates, with a rotating flamethrower turret, and four 7mm Hotchkiss machineguns mounted on the hull.

[10] During the battle of Kilometer 7 to Saavedra in the Chaco War, Major Walther Kohn rode in a flamethrower equipped tankette; due to heat he exited the tank to fight on foot and was killed in combat.