Landships II

James H · Legend

TV Doco on British "Secret Weapon".

Rectalgia · Legend

Excellent. Good to see an interest being taken in it.

My take on it is this. The Livens Large Gallery Flame Projector is not entirely unknown but unlike many of Livens' inventions it was neither simple nor cheap and it hadn't the advantage of "redundancy" - those things were massive, complex, vulnerable to disruption and of short range - taken in combination, the seeds of its obscurity.

"The weapons were the 56ft long, weighed 2.5 tonnes,took 300 men to assemble and were operated by a crew of eight." They were easily destroyed and they were static - and like any "shock and awe" device (and/or tactic) they only work once when deployed against seasoned troops.

Boffins keep forgetting how resilient people (opposition) can be when they are not instantly annihilated or grievously incapacitated and are left with options. But they are adorable when they persist in looking for comparatively non-lethal solutions. There's more than 600 million years worth of selection and evolution backing up the resilience of the fighting man (or "person" as I suppose one should say these days), a few centuries (or even millennia) of "civilisation" and soft living count for somewhere between nothing and little in comparison.

But the projector was terribly impressive in operation by all accounts and was suitably scary and worked well enough be worth trying - and the lessons learned defined and focussed the development of more effective and deadly weapons and tactics. I'm looking forward very much to the resurrection of this important (and doubtlessly very photogenic) precursor device.

James H · Legend

Well, it was . . . .OK.

LincolnTanker · Commander in Chief

James H wrote:
Well, it was . . . .OK.

�Yes it was OK,� but a rather odd�dig.�

Gwyn Evans · Legend

I enjoyed it very much. Something I knew nothing about and I thought the programme a very good introduction. Doubtless there's lots more to know but only so much you can put in one programme. The fact they found some substantial parts, and the demonstration of what a replica could do, made this a worthwhile programme IMHO.

Gwyn

Paul Bonnett · Hero

I second your comments Gwyn and would add that one more of the " Lost" was given his deserved resting place.
Paul

Rectalgia · Legend

No sign of the programme airing in Oz yet, but looking forward to seeing it "sometime". Apparently there was a German equivalent, the "Grof" (Grossflammenwerfer) for use in the WW1 trenches - I can't recall any detail of its deployment in action and don't know if it came before or after Livens' device. The fantastic South African "Blaster" vehicle anti-carjack device is a spiritual descendent but, sadly, its use has not caught on, even in South Africa, though some may remain fitted to cars in the republic according to Wiki. It never seems to have caught on for the defence of fixed fortifications - I suppose the vulnerability and hazard of the pressurised fuel supply negated the close-in protective capability. Ballistic weapons and protective mine emplacements held/hold sway. Mobile flame throwers are another matter but even those seem to be eschewed these days (certainly there's a more "caring" sort of bellicosity about and abroad)

Ah yes - http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?aBID=63528&p=3&topicID=20041197, previous discussion on Grossflammenwerfer and deployment. Seems it was a more modest implementation than the British.

-- Edited by Rectalgia on Tuesday 19th of April 2011 08:41:14 AM

Gwyn Evans · Legend

Paul Bonnett wrote:
I second your comments Gwyn and would add that one more of the " Lost" was given his deserved resting place.
Paul

I understand that two bodies were found during the dig, both French, and now reburied with full military honours.

Apparently a longer version of the programme is to be shown in the History channel in November.

Gwyn

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