After 1945
The United States Marines used flamethrowers in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The M132 Armored Flamethrower, an M113 armored personnel carrier with a mounted flame thrower was successfully used in the conflict.
Flamethrowers have not been in the U.S. arsenal since 1978, when the Department of Defense unilaterally stopped using them. They have been deemed of questionable effectiveness in modern combat and the use of flame weapons is always a public relations issue due to the horrific death they inflict. They are not banned in any international treaty the U.S. has signed, thus the U.S. decision to remove flamethrowers from its arsenal is entirely voluntary.
Non-flamethrower incendiary weapons remain in modern military arsenals. Thermobaric weapons have been fielded in Afghanistan by the United States. The USSR developed a rocket launcher specifically for the deployment of incendiaries—the ΡΠΟ-80 (RPO) or Rocket-launched Infantry Flamethrower. It has similarities to the famous RPG but the warhead is much bigger (approx. 2–3 liters of napalm), reducing the effective range.
In the last stages of the Troubles, during the mid-80s, the IRA smuggled a number of military flamethrowers (supplied to them by the Libyan government) into Northern Ireland. They used a flamethrower, among other assault weapons, to storm a British Army permanent checkpoint in Derryard, near Rosslea, on 13 December 1989. Another IRA unit attacked a British Army watchtower, the Borucki sangar, with an improvised flamethrower towed by a tractor in Crossmaglen, on 12 November 1992. The device consisted of a manure spreader which doused the facility with fuel, ignited few seconds later by a small explosion. A nine-meter-high fireball engulfed the tower. The four Grenadier Guards inside were rescued by a Saxon armored vehicle.
In 1994, a man attacked school pupils at Sullivan Upper School, just outside Belfast, with a home-made flamethrower.
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