"Flame Throwers: Malta 1565" Topic

Been reading about the siege of Malta in 1565 in Roger Crowley's 'Empires of the Sea' and he makes a number of refrences to 'flame throwers'. These appear to be diffrent from handgrenades, greek fire pots and fire hoops. Anyone know what tey might have looked like or how they workerd? Pictures? Links?

Rich

IIRC, they were basically a squirt gun. Pumping the handle pressurized the chamber and ejected the fuel, which was ignited by a flame near the tip.

I just saw it on a show on…the History channel maybe? Military channel? They suggested that they were normally issued to artillery troops for defense.

What's a Fire Hoop?

Yes, it was History channel, Ancient Discoveries.

On there they had a working reproduction of a Byzantine flamethrower. Here is a link to the thing. link

The weapon used at Malta was not a Byzantine style flamethrower. It was a weapon known as a 'Trump', basicly a tube filled with flamable material on a pole. When the incendary mixture was ignited the flames projected several yards in front of the tube. A very close range weapon which was used to defend breaches.

A fire hoop is just that, an iron ring, say, an old barrel hoop, wrapped with oil or pitch soaked rags, set alight and tossed with the aid of a staff over the wall onto the heads of the assulting masses, where someone would get entangled in it. With or with out attached fish hooks.