
It would fry electrical and communications wires and destroy weapons and ordnance stored in a bunker position. The flame burned at over 1,200 degrees Celsius and could destabilize concrete and brickwork. Flamethrowers not only killed the troops in these bunkers but would often completely destroy them. They were more effective at clearing these emplacements than machine guns and even rocket launchers and grenades. They were an infantryman’s tool that could clear out pill boxes and bunkers, caves, and destroy improvised bunkers. Why the Dress Upįlamethrowers were very valuable weapons. No one wants to be immolated or asphyxiated by the dragon’s breath worth fo fire the ROKS-2 generated. The ROKS-2 granted the common Soviet soldier an anti-bunker weapon that was incredibly capable in urban combat. Nitrogen propelled the fuel, and a pyrotechnic cartridge ignited the fuel. The wielder could shoot flames about 35 meters toward Nazi scum but had only six to eight seconds of burn time. The ROKS-2 weighed 55 pounds and carried 9 liters of fuel.

If you look at packs from the era, it certainly resembles the design. A false pouch was even added to the pack to give it that backpack look and feel. They used sheet metal to encase the tanks to make the pack appear flat and like a backpack of Soviet design rather than a tank fuel of flammable hatred. The tanks also were designed to resemble the Russian backpack of the era. Up close, it is easy to see that it’s not a Mosin, but at distances as far as 50 to 100 yards, it’s likely tough to tell what you are looking at. The weapon features a wood stock and rifle-like appearance and even the Mosin stock. The flame projector was designed and built to look like a Mosin Nagant rifle.

The Russians designed the ROKS-2 specifically to disguise the fact that it was a flamethrower. The ROKS-2 is of particular interest to me. The Russians wisely adopted their own series of flamethrowers with the ROKS-2 and ROKS-3. Flamethrowers proved to be very tactically capable tools and could flush out troops in pillboxes, bunkers, and caves. If you sit and think about a flamethrower, you realize it’s a special kind of crazy, a sure sign that society failed by inventing such a way to kill another person. World War 1 established the modern flamethrower, and the German’s use of this device told modern armies they’d need one for the foreseeable future.
