"Greek fire projectors" Topic

Did any Roman warships during any period of Roman history use any Greek Fire projectors? If so, how were they set up on the ship? Thanks for your help.

I'm no expert either, but Terrement, your response is obnoxious. The Romans were renowned for making use of technology, engineering and science they came across from conquered lands. Further, the name is just that. Greek fire was used by the Byzantines (Eastern Romans?)and in all likelihood once discovered, distributed throughout the military in whatever the empire was at the time.

My understanding is that by the part Greek fire was developed, only the eastern part of the Roman Empire remained anymore.

cncbump & Gattamalata.

Good grief, guys, it was clearly a joke. Did you SEE the ?

Of course, the timing of the joke should have come AFTER a few serious answers IMHO, but I don't think he meant any harm by it. Just choose to laugh it off; it's only an Internet forum.

if he had nothing useful to say, he should not said squat and moved on. That would have been the smart thing to do.

I have nothing useful to say regarding the OP.

But the dogpiling going on over what was clearly in jest… I love free speech.

Terrement may rub a lot of y'all the wrong way, but he's always there for me when I need someone.

Greek fire was invented around 700 AD during one of the Arab sieges of Constantinople. It's believed to have been petroleum based. So it needed special chemicals to put it out. One possibility was urine. This, folks, provides an opportunity lots of slightly off color jokes.
Grelber

Rather silly to take umbrage over simple jesting.

Nobody's ever cracked jokes while sitting at a wargames table?

Getting back to the OP…

The Wikipedia article on Greek Fire is a pretty good read, and contains a lot of citations if you want to do more research.

Elaborating on what Grelber said: Greek Fire got its name because it was invented by the Byzantines, and used exclusively by them. If you consider the Byzantine Empire to be "Romans", then yes, the Romans had it, but the Western Roman Empire never had access to it, and was defunct before its invention. The mixture was kept so secret that it was lost with the demise of the Eastern Roman Empire and is now unknown. I'm pretty sure we don't know even how the Byzantine Greek Fire projectors worked.

Having said all that, the term "Greek Fire" refers to a very particular type of flame projection weapon for spraying a naptha mixture through a tube. The Romans most certainly did use fire in naval warfare, as did most Mediterranean navies from at least the age of the polyreme. Other types of fire projection (e.g. flaming arrows and catapult ammo) were common before the Pax Romana.

- Ix

From the Wikipedia article:

As Constantine Porphyrogennetos' warnings show, the ingredients and the processes of manufacture and deployment of Greek fire were carefully guarded military secrets. So strict was the secrecy that the composition of Greek fire was lost forever and remains a source of speculation. Consequently, the "mystery" of the formula has long dominated the research into Greek fire. Despite this almost exclusive focus, however, Greek fire is best understood as a complete weapon system of many components, all of which were needed to operate together to render it effective. This comprised not only the formula of its composition, but also the specialized dromon ships that carried it into battle, the device used to prepare the substance by heating and pressurizing it, the siphōn projecting it; and the special training of the siphōnarioi who used it. Knowledge of the whole system was highly compartmentalised, with operators and technicians aware of the secrets of only one component, ensuring that no enemy could gain knowledge of it in its entirety. This accounts for the fact that when the Bulgarians took Mesembria and Debeltos in 814, they captured 36 siphōns and even quantities of the substance itself, but were unable to make any use of them.

- Ix

From p.39 Byzantine Armies 886-1118 by Ian Heath & Angus McBride

'Greek Fire', or Sea Fire (pyr thalassion) as the Byzantines themselves called it, had been invented in Constantinople c. 673. Throughout its history, however, it appears to have been used entirely in naval and siege warfare. It was fired from siphons by heating or by a jet of water (opinions differ) and was extremely difficult to extinguish. One of the advances made during this era was the invention of 'hand syringes' (mikroi siphones) in Leo VI's reign, these being fired from behind iron shields. The picture here, from the Madrid Scylitzes, shows the more conventional shipboard use, with the Fire being fired from copper, bronze or iron-covered tubes. (Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid)

Druzhina
Byzantine Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers