Osprey NV 136 - Churchill Crocodile Flamethrower.pdf

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Churchill Crocodile
Flamethrower
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CHURCHILL CROCODILE
FLAMETHROWER
imagination than it can actually deliver in reality. It exploits our
most primeval fears and, when mounted in a tank, becomes a
formidable psychological threat. This is no new thing; when the Landships
Committee discarded their huge Pedrail machine in 1915 it was handed
over to the Trench Warfare Department at Porton Down, and they planned
to complete it as an armoured flamethrower. In the event nothing came of
this and there is little evidence for interest in flame as a weapon until World
War 11 was imminent.
Even then flame was regarded essentially as a defensive weapon and in
a very short time some 40,000 Flame Fougasse installations were hidden
away in the British countryside, along with Defile Flame Traps and Hedge
Hoppers where appropriate. In addition, the Home Guard had mobile
flamethrower units in the form of trailers carrying drums of petrol and
hand-operated pumps, although these were truly last-ditch weapons.
Winston Churchill questioned the flamethrower's defensive capability: in
a minute to General Ismay in August 1940, he pointed out that in the event
of invasion enemy infantry would not move through disputed territory
without having scouts and flank guards posted, so surprise with flame traps
might not be achieved. Indeed, if the use of flamethrowers in war proved
anything, it was that they were primarily suited to the offensive role.
Reginald P. Fraser's original,
mobile flamethrower on a
Commer lorry chassis. Never
a military vehicle in the official
sense, it was the prototype for
virtually all such equipment in
British service.
3
INTRODUCTION
A s a weapon, the flamethrower exercises far more power over the
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