FLAMETHROWERS!!!

[SlowShootinPete]

Take it from personal experience - there isn't anything quite so haunting as the shriek of a person burning to death and the smell is something you will never forget.

One of my friends was doing a tour of duty in the Air Force or something once and he saw a tank that had been hit with some kind of missile. When the missile hit, it shot a stream of molten metal through the tank's armor and incinerated everything in the cabin, and then it kept going out the other side. Everyone inside it was blown through that tiny hole and sprayed across the sand.

He says he can't eat pork anymore. The smell makes him sick.

Why risk dozens of bombers and destroy a huge swath of land when a single bomb on target is all you really want?

You want to know how the US annihilated a numerically superior force in both Desert Storm and the "Global War on Terror" operations? I'll give you a hint - guided weapons helped a LOT.

I was being sarcastic...

 

[Agayek]

Why did we stop using flamethrowers? They were developed to fight against opponents what were rooted in caves, it would seem to me that they would be perfectly suited for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fellow Escapists, do you have any explanations?

It's called the Geneva Convention. The convention outlawed weapons like flamethrowers and mustard gas from use on the battlefield.

Not to mention anyone carrying a flamethrower may as well hold a sign over their head, with "PLEASE SHOOT ME, I WILL EXPLODE" written on it in big neon letters.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I still can't figure out why we stopped using nerve gas.

And blowing someone head off from 700 yards with a bullet the size of a hamster isn't?

Most of the people who have their head blown off by a Barrett don't notice.

It doesn't take a Barrett to remove someone's capacity to perform high level thinking at 700 yards - an M24 will do the job just fine, and it's in a package that's far easier to maneuver and manage. The M95 is, in spite of the regular instance of video games to the contrary, an anti-material rifle. It's design, and common deployment profile does not have it placed on the battlefield to deal with infantry - there are better weapons for the job. It exists to destroy equipment. The simple fact that the round punches through an inch of steel at 200 meters means no armor a human can hope to carry will save a target, causing some to argue that said round must be excellent for killing troops (and make no mistake, it is fantastically lethal), but that doesn't stop it from being deployed almost exclusively in the anti-material role.

 

[SlowShootinPete]

TIt doesn't take a Barrett to remove someone's capacity to perform high level thinking at 700 yards - an M24 will do the job just fine, and it's in a package that's far easier to maneuver and manage. The M95 is, in spite of the regular instance of video games to the contrary, an anti-material rifle.

Yeah, it's probably second only to the Desert Eagle in how ridiculously inappropriate its reputation is.

I assumed he meant a Barret though because of the hamster-sized bullet comment.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

TIt doesn't take a Barrett to remove someone's capacity to perform high level thinking at 700 yards - an M24 will do the job just fine, and it's in a package that's far easier to maneuver and manage. The M95 is, in spite of the regular instance of video games to the contrary, an anti-material rifle.

Yeah, it's probably second only to the Desert Eagle in how ridiculously inappropriate its reputation is.

I assumed he meant a Barret though because of the hamster-sized bullet comment.

People who play (and often make) video games seem to have no idea how much the weight and size of a weapon play into how it's used. A modern US soldier is already guarnteed to be wearing 20 (or more) pounds of armor, and this rifle weighs in at another 30 on top of that. Combine that with the gear it takes to survive alone in the field for a few days and your combat load starts edging awfully close to 100 lbs. The weapon is HUGE, making it difficult to maneuver (and you can FORGET about firing it in any position save prone unless you affix it to a tripod or mounting system that hasn't been made yet). Worse still, the weapon has a terrible blowback from the muzzle brake (an attempt to offset the brutal recoil), which means the instant you fire, there is a VERY good chance people can figure out where the shot came from and start shooting back.

And, to be fair, I'd hardly consider a slug a few inches long and a mere half inch in diameter that weighs in at around 2 ounces hampster sized (maybe in terms of mass). To get to hamster size, you have to move in the 40 - 60 mm range, and the former is a common caliber for greande launchers (Both the M203 and the MK. 19 use 40mm HEDP rounds in combat (with a few other specialty rounds) and 60mm is generally relegated to light mortars. At this point you aren't just capable of killing one guy - you're working with a significant area of effect.

 

[SlowShootinPete]

People who play (and often make) video games seem to have no idea how much the weight and size of a weapon play into how it's used.

Especially how they think the weapon you're holding in your hands is the sole factor in how fast you can run. Once I put the monster gun on my back and pull out my knife, I'm as light and free as a bird.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

People who play (and often make) video games seem to have no idea how much the weight and size of a weapon play into how it's used.

Especially how they think the weapon you're holding in your hands is the sole factor in how fast you can run. Once I put the monster gun on my back and pull out my knife, I'm as light and free as a bird.

Having an M249 (which is half the size of the M95) on your back and trying to sprint is an invitation for rapid onset of deep tissue bruising and chipped bones.

 

[Mad World]

And i was supporting that point with my sarcastic remark, if you didn't notice.

***

Does anybody find it disturbing that here on the Escapist, sarcastic replies like "No, we're too kewl and edgy to just shoot someone to death" or "I still can't figure out why we stopped using nerve gas" are taken at face value in this kind of thread?

Sorry - my mistake; at times, sarcasm is a bit more difficult to notice with text.

 

[wootsniper]

(opposed to a just a couple of quick bullets)

Quick bullets are rare. People don't give the human body enough credit.

head shots? a couple through the chest. i.e. heart, pretty sure that will stop you from living pretty quickly.

Being shot trought the brains doens't necessarily kill you

 

[TheComedown]

(opposed to a just a couple of quick bullets)

Quick bullets are rare. People don't give the human body enough credit.

head shots? a couple through the chest. i.e. heart, pretty sure that will stop you from living pretty quickly.

Being shot trought the brains doens't necessarily kill you

Do you want to see if you'd survive a bullet to the head? Compare the number of cases where people survive to the millions that don't, for the purposes of this discussion we are ignoring the vastly insignificant amount of survivors and focusing on the millions that don't/wont survive a bullet through the head

 

[sms_117b]

Gas then Napalm the tunnels, that'll clear them out.

I think Flamethrowers have somewhat restrictive range, and are somewhat prone to combustion, not good when H&S wants to prevent every soldier from dieing on either side from anything.

 

[Demons_Bane]

umm aren't bullets good enough anymore?

 

[AWDMANOUT]

It's a public relations issue.

Besides making them illegal, the US simply voluntarily stopped using them. They just aren't always that effective (unlike in CoD WaW XD).

 

[Ph33nix]

you get 20 seconds of flame and it weighs 100+ pounds with a range of a little over 20 yards you can;t get close enough with it and you can use it for long enough to justify the weight and expense.

 

[Ninjamedic]

we need more fire in FPS's. Lots of fire.

 

[Ithera]

I believe the Geneva convention has something to say about flamethrowers. And they are not very practical. Flamethrowers have no place in modern warfare, they are a throwback to a meaner more inhumane type of warfare.

 

[Magnalian]

They're also so inhumane, so I'm glad that we no longer use them.

Because perforating people with rounds that tears and shreds them from the inside is much more 'humane'.

It's a lot less painful than getting burned alive, I imagine.

 

[Threx]

Why use a flamethrower when a bullet is much more efficient and shoots a hell of a lot further. Also there highly unreliable and give you limited visibility of where the enemy actually is, let alone a stray grenade.

 

[Danpascooch]

Seriously? Do you realize how impractical that would be?