In the twentieth century, mankind went through two world wars, began to actively create the most effective weapons. And sometimes it turned out to be too powerful to continue to produce and use. A striking example of such weapons was the technology of flamethrower tanks, the destructive power of which made them permanently withdrawn from the armament of all armies on the planet.
The history of this type of military equipment dates back to the First World War, when the first attempts were made to install a flamethrower on tracked vehicles. However, specialists from a number of countries of the world took seriously the development of a full-fledged technology only in the so-called interwar period. For example, in the Soviet Union, the creation of the first flamethrower armored vehicles became part of a large tank program that was deployed back in the twenties of the last century. The corresponding armament could be installed both as the main one and as an auxiliary one.
The impetus for the development of the technology of these armored vehicles was given by the Second World War, where they were also quite often used. But they began to be used as widely as possible already on the fields of numerous armed local conflicts that flared up in a number of corners of the planet during the Cold War. So, their use during the hostilities in Vietnam and Korea became very large-scale. In the second half of the twentieth century, flamethrower tanks were in service with a number of the largest countries in the world, for example, the USSR, USA, Great Britain, Italy.
The principle of operation of a flamethrower tank is that its actual ammunition is napalm - a concentrated fire mixture, which has the ability to easily ignite and hit large areas, and the maximum recorded radius of destruction is 200 meters, and to destroy both equipment and manpower of the enemy. However, its effectiveness often brought problems for those who use it: the whole point is that it is almost impossible to control the effect of the fire mixture, and therefore history has retained a number of cases when the work of a flamethrower tank turned into losses among friendly troops or civilians.
However, these special-purpose tanks did not serve in various armies of the world for so long, as they fell into the category of prohibited equipment. This process did not take place simultaneously: for example, in 1980 the UN member states adopted the "Convention on the Prohibition or Restriction of the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons", which is also known as the "Convention on" Inhumane "Weapons, abbr. CCW. And already within the framework of it, the "Protocol on the Prohibition or Restriction of the Use of Incendiary Weapons" (Protocol III) was written, the effect of which extended, among other things, to equipment where napalm is used as combat power.
For a quarter of a century after the adoption of the Convention, it was signed by almost a hundred states, in particular, the USSR ratified it in 1983. And according to the editors of Novate.ru, to date, 125 countries have already signed it, because this ban is considered one of the key elements of compliance with international humanitarian law. Therefore, flamethrower tanks were removed from the armament of all armies, remaining only in old photographs and newsreels and continuing to amaze the imagination with their power.
Interested in learning more about a weapon as powerful as Concentrated Flame Blend? Then read: Napalm: when did it appear and is it a prohibited weapon