United States Naval Construction Battalion flame thrower tanks
The Navy deemed them "unsuitable" due to their weight and turned the over to the Army's Chemical Warfare Service.
With a war to wage field modification was much quicker than going through official military procurement channels.
As Satans were produced Colonel Unmacht had the Seabees conduct a comprehensive series of 40-hour classes on flame tank operation with first and second eschelon maintenance.
[10][8] The Satans had a range of 40–80 yd (37–73 m) and were the first tanks to have the main armament swapped for flame throwers.
[8] Mid-September the Army decided to officially form a CWS "Flame Thrower Group" with Col Unmacht requesting 56 additional Seabees.
Operation Detachment was next and Col Unmacht's group located eight M4A3 Sherman medium tanks for it.
Installation required 150 lbs of welding rod, 1100 electrical connections, and cost between $20,000-25,000 per tank[7](adj.
[9] In November 1944, prior to the rave USMC reviews of Iwo Jima, the Fleet Marine Force had requested 54 mechanized flame throwers, nine for each of the Marine Corps divisions[12] On Iwo the tanks all landed D-day and went into action on D+2, sparingly at first.
As the battle progressed, portable flame units sustained casualty rates up to 92%, leaving few troops trained to use the weapon.
machine gun coaxial to the flamethrower as well as 4 in (100 mm) concrete armor to counter placement of magnetic charges.
[4] For Okinawa the 10th Army decided that the entire 713th Tank Battalion would provisionally convert to flame.
This caused Under Secretary of War Robert Patterson to place an expedite on Col. Unmacht's production of flame tanks.
[15] The military did not have uniform terminology for referencing mechanized flamethrowers so there is some wording variation in documents.
The Seabees produced 11 different models of flame throwing tanks off three basic variations identified with a POA-CWS-H number[9] "Primary" where the main armament was removed and replaced.
Eighteen of the first generation model were on the way to the 10th Army on Okinawa, but the island was taken before they arrived, so they were given to the 3rd Marine Division tank battalion on Guam.
The flame thrower was mounted through the assistant driver's hatch alongside their tank periscope which meant that the bow machine gun could be retained.
