A flamethrower is a mechanical device designed to project a long controllable stream of fire. Some flamethrowers project a stream of ignited flammable liquid; some project a long gas flame. Most military flamethrowers use liquids, but commercial flamethrowers tend to use high-pressure propane and natural gas, which is considered safer. They are used by the military and by people needing controlled burning capacity, such as in agriculture (e.g. sugar cane plantations) or other such land management tasks. Modern flamethrowers were first used during the trench warfare conditions of World War I; their use greatly increased in World War II. They can be vehicle mounted, as on a tank, or hand-carried by infantry. The flamethrower consists of two elements: backpack and gun. The backpack element usually consists of two or three cylinders. One cylinder holds compressed, inert propellant gas (usually nitrogen), and the other two hold inflammable liquid - typically petrol with some form of fuel thickener added to it. A three-cylinder system often has two outer cylinders of inflammable liquid and a central cylinder of propellant gas to improve the balance of the soldier who carried it. The gas propels the fuel liquid out of the cylinder through a flexible pipe and then into the gun element of the flamethrower system. The gun consists of a small reservoir, a spring-loaded valve, and an ignition system; depressing a trigger opens the valve, allowing pressurized inflammable liquid to flow and pass over the igniter and out the gun nozzle. The igniter can be one of several ignition systems: A simple type is an electrically-heated wire coil; another used a small pilot flame, fueled with pressurized gas from the system. The flamethrower is a potent weapon with great psychological impact upon unprepared soldiers, inflicting a particularly horrific death i.e. being burnt alive. This has led to some calls for the weapon to be banned. It is primarily used against battlefield fortifications, bunkers, and other protected emplacements. A flamethrower projects a stream of flammable liquid, rather than flame, which allows bouncing the stream off walls and ceilings to project the fire into blind and unseen spaces, such as inside bunkers or pillboxes. Typically, popular visual media depict the flamethrower as short-ranged, of a few effective meters (due to the common use of propane gas as the fuel in flamethrowers in movies, for the safety of the actors), but contemporary flamethrowers can incinerate targets at 50–80 meters (165–270 feet) distance from the gunner; moreover, an unignited stream of flammable liquid can be fired and afterwards ignited, possibly by a lamp or other flame inside the bunker. [READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE]
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