r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Raul_Rendon • 12h ago

Characters [beloved trope] flamethrower troops

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If man instinctively fears fire, what reaction can be expected from a high-speed jet of flame (whether liquid fuel or gas)? Unfortunately, flamethrowers are impractical—for various reasons—yet they remain impressive nonetheless.

  1. Flamethrower Clone Troopers – Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In addition to their distinctive Geonosian-camouflage armor, flamethrower clone troopers make their debut against a Geonosian colony (with the expected results).

  2. Flamers and melta weapons—Warhammer 40k: to hunt the alien, purge the unclean, and slay the heretic, flamers are a more than acceptable choice—available in all sizes, from hand-held flamers to heavy flamers that spew vast quantities of promethium. And for those requiring greater armor penetration, there are meltaguns—a sort of hybrid between a flamer and a plasma weapon capable of melting through the heaviest armor.

  3. Greek fire—the real life: the ancestor of the flamethrower and one of the secret weapons of the Byzantine Empire—or rather, the Eastern Roman Empire. It was key to maintaining its naval supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean, to the point where its production was a state secret.

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u/TheoAngeldust 12h ago

Real life too: Flamethrower troopers of the First World War (pictured are French soldiers dousing the No Man's Land in flames)

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u/ChancelorReed 11h ago

Yea honestly I was gonna come in here and say a lot of fictional representations don't even do real flamethrowers justice. I mean just look at that shit.

14

u/thissexypoptart 11h ago

Same with shotguns, especially in video games.

In most video games, shotguns suck ass past a very short range. In real life, shotguns will fuck you up to great distances. It just doesn’t play well for game balance.

5

u/RespectfullySir 11h ago

It does, both for shotguns and flamethrowers, as Red Orchestra/Rising Storm series shows. Most devs just hate fun and balance it out of the game.

2

u/MandolinMagi 5h ago

IRL, shotguns are good to like 30-40 yards. Past that the buckshot spreads too much.