They have never been proven to be an effective anti-tank weapon. Incendiary weapons can damage tanks, but it was always done because there was nothing else available, not because it was particularly effective. The famous “molotovs,” for example, was mostly down to the Finnish just lacking heavy weaponry to actually deal with armored vehicles and, for a large part of the Winter War, the Soviets put their armored columns in the Finnish forests with too little infantry cover which allowed for tanks to be swarmed and knocked out with molotovs. However, that effectiveness largely went away in the final stages where the Soviets concentrated on a single push towards Helsinki, whereas previously they had been spreading themselves thin across the entire border. Since the entire tactic relied on first separating the tanks from their infantry support, it became difficult to do once they actually had a suitable amount of it. When heavier weapons became available during the Continuation War, molotovs were largely abandoned as actually suitable anti-tank weapons.
I don’t think there was any instance, at least en masse, of actual flamethrowers being used. Even the vehicle-mounted ones would’ve ran into the problem of just not having the range to deal with tanks at any normal combat distances.
They should be more damaging in-game to certain vehicles, as more modern ones are actually built to prevent liquids and fumes from being sucked into their engine, but there is a bit of overstating in the thread of how effective they were against the crew inside. A buttoned-up tank would not really be affected by it, at least in terms of actually killing the crew. It could suffocate them, but that requires time and for it to somehow leak into the tank which is dependent on the vehicle.
Well actually flamethrowers should be quite effective on these ww2 timed tanks.
Caps beetween hull and turret, Mg ports, and especially engine and airintakes would be quite vulnerable.
If i remember right brits tested flamethrower against some of their own tanks, and it was seen that flames did damage wiring , took engine out for lack of oxygen and even penetrated in crewcompartment trough turretring. So yeah, flamethrowers should make damage on post cold war tanks.
You mean to tell me that the tanks secured against CBNR threats, that can ford rivers with relatively not difficult preparations, many of which are equipped with kits that increase their survival in urban warfare (one place they arguably still can catch molotovs), are vulnerable to flamethrowers.
Not to mention this whole premise hinging on the fact that the flamethrower needs to have enough time to spray the target before any effect takes place, and needs for the target to not react in any capacity whatsoever (such as simply shooting the flamethrower tank).
I would encourage you investigate British studies on the efficacy of flamethrowers on medium cruiser tanks. Flamethrowers proved very effective at disabling the vehicle, and realistically could have contributed to detrimental effects on the crew, but likely not lethal effects.
Real life is not a video game where only eradicating the crew is the mode we define anti armour tactics by. Flamethrowers and molotovs proved able to achieve a mission kill (for a number of reasons, some cases mechanical and some cases morale), not a kill of the crew. Damage from flamethrowers should be increased to reflect this, no one here is saying it should off the crew outside of a few very specific tanks with very specific issues.
Mission kills aren’t a thing in WT. There’s not really much damage they can do against tanks that would actually have an effect in-game, and flamethrowers were still an ineffective weapon against armored vehicles.