Remote Control Soviet Flamethrower

Matt Book

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Watching "Inside Hitler's Last Days" on Nat Geo and they showed the Soviets attacking Berlin using a flamethrower on wheels via remote control with a fuel tube. Can't find any info on these, anyone seen or heard of these?
IMG_4671[1].jpg
 

lluis61

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It has all the aspect of a soviet fougasse, on wheels, but I doubt it is remote controlled, but remote fired.
 

Matt Book

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Thanks for the insight, I meant remote controlled the way a Goliath is not as in wireless controlled. This looks like it has a fuel tube that always feeds it from an outside tank where as all the fougasse I read were one shot weapons and then the tank had to be filled manually again if reused.
 

R Hooks

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Also called foo gas, like you say almost all ways a one shot remote mine, soviets used a lot of these on the defenses of Stalingrad, they were most effective when used in gullies or other terrain where the flame was confined to the target area. Americans used them in Korea, the British home guard set up thousands of them after Dunkirk, and Germans used a few in Normandy called hedge hoppers that were designed for the blast to carry them over a hedge and then burst into flame. The one in the picture looks like a field modification of an industrial fire extinguisher to me. It could be a hose coming out the back for fuel, but I think it's more likely just to be a pole to brace it when fired.
 
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Rock SgtDan

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"the British home guard set up thousands of them after Dunkirk"
Somewhere I have a link to a web page for a British group that explores old tunnels. They explored a locally known tunnel cut into a chalk cliff on a rather rocky beach, and at the end it has a deep shaft with some kind of tank at the bottom. The entrance was pretty high, but cliff crumbling allows it to be accessed. Horizontal shaft is small, a crawlway, that opens into a bigger space. The operator would have had to shelter inside there, unless there was an exterior bunker now removed or crushed under the cliff debris. Maybe there were parallel tunnels close to the original cliff face with openings every 100 yards to project flame, that are now crumbled away...
 

R Hooks

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Yes beach defenses would be a perfect place to set them up, I'm actually surprised Germans didn't have some at Normandy. Does anyone know if they did use some at other landing sites?
 

von Marwitz

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Yes beach defenses would be a perfect place to set them up, I'm actually surprised Germans didn't have some at Normandy. Does anyone know if they did use some at other landing sites?
My guess would be that the remote mechanism would be deemed to be too suspectible to shelling and bombardment. Surely the Germans knew that there would be plenty of that to expect in case of a landing.

von Marwitz
 

R Hooks

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You maybe correct von Marwitz, but there were plenty of explosive land mines that survived the bombardment, I was thinking it might have been too expensive in terms of fuel setting unused for them to scatter tanks full all over the coasts.
 

Mister T

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Yes beach defenses would be a perfect place to set them up, I'm actually surprised Germans didn't have some at Normandy. Does anyone know if they did use some at other landing sites?
Just next to Omaha beach (eastwards), strongpoint Wn62 had two static FT at its disposal. To my recollection (there's a detailed map on-site), they were placed at the foot of the steep slope overlooking the beach, next to long trenches.
 

Matt Book

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You would think they would just have a marksman put a hole in it and watch it turn into a +3 Terrain Blaze
 
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