Flamethrower
Flamethrowers are a type of weapon that are designed to, of course, throw flames. These weapons were originally designed for the days of Trench warfare, in which weapons designed to take out large groups of closely positioned units were being created and exploited, or essentially weapons of mass destruction, including various types of toxic gases, machine guns, artillery, high shrapnel munitions, sub-machine guns, and various devices meant to combat these weapons of mass protection, such as shrapnel proofed body armor, tanks, and gas masks.
Trench Warfare was essentially killed by the airplane, which allowed single units the ability to fly over entrenched enemy territories and drop explosives on them from above, a place most trenches were unprotected from, and weapons that could kill large groups of soldiers and destroy heavily entrenched areas.
The flamethrower, which was designed to shoot out large amount of "liquid fire" to essentially flood trenches, was basically removed as a primary weapon after WWI, due to it's ineffectiveness in all forms of combat other than trench warfare, as was the sub-machine gun (which fell from use as a main weapon after WWII).
The flame thrower was temporarily reintroduced as a main weapon during Vietnam, where it saw limited use and was rather ineffective, a phrase often stated that the "combat flamethrower operator had an average life span of 7 and a half minutes". A more favored weapon was the M79, which was much lighter, had a much longer range, was much more powerful, and allowed more ammunition to be carried, despite itself eventually being replaced by an under-barrel variant, making the M79 as a single shot, main weapon, obsolete.
If a flamethrower were to be reintroduced as a main weapon, or even a combat weapon for units, there would have to be several modifications made. Either the weapon would to have the following-
-300 Yard Range
-30 Seconds+ of Fuel
-Maximum weight of 60 pounds
-High degree of accuracy
or...
-75 Yard Range
-10 seconds+ of fuel
-Maximum weight of 12.5 lb
-Ability to Spread flame to a wide area
The flamethrower could either see use as a replacement for a shotgun or other CQB weapon, or for a grenade launcher. For the high degree of cost and engineering issues associated with a flamethrower (A flame suit being required, a person's entire combat pack needing to replaced, and carried by other units of the squad or from some sort of vehicle, heavy weight etc.), the flamethrower would have to be able to provide at least the minimum required objectives, or else it wouldn't provide for it's "cost" compared to other weapons.
If anyone has any ideas of how to make this possible, please feel free to post them.
