Re: Paul Hovnanian Re: Can we get ....
"..... for the back bumper of a car?" Old family story. Back in 1940, when there was a serious belief that the Germans would try and invade, the UK government spent a lot of time encouraging the men (and women) of the services to come up with homegrown defence weapons. There was a particular interest in anything that could help with airfield defence against paratroops, and an RAF mechanic came up with the idea of putting a homemade flamethrower in the back of a touring car which could then be driven round the airfield to incinerate any Fallschirmjager as they descended. The weapon consisted of a large petrol tank, a pump made from a motorcycle engine to get the requisite and powerful spray, some firehose and a long pipe mounted on a pillar as a projector. At the end of the projector was a service revolver, the idea being this would be fired into the stream of petrol to ignite it. All went well in testing, but when it was time to demonstrate it to the Brass, the only car available that was big enough was the Station CO's. Unfortunately, whilst solid on the test bench, after being hauled around the airfield the system sprang a few leaks, and the demonstration came to a premature end when the the first shot set the car on fire! Surprisingly, despite the Station CO's rage, that wasn't the end of the inventor's career, and he got a job with the Petroleum Warfare Department and later worked on the Churchill Crocodile.