Flame tractors

The three flame tractors, plus two service tractors carrying an air compressor and extra fuel, were loaded in a landing craft, tank, which in turn made the 2,000-mile journey from Guadalcanal to Peleliu on the deck of a landing ship, tank. 

On the day of attack, 15 September 1944, the elaborate plan for using the flame tractors completely broke down. The ist Marine Regiment was stopped by stiff resistance just beyond the beach, and its flame tractor waited five hours for some kind of order. The flame vehicles with the other regiments were told to stand offshore out of danger. When the three flame tractors eventually landed they stood idle on the beaches, a result no doubt of extreme confusion and the unfamiliarity of the marines with the weapon. Inactivity on the second day was caused by the fact that the air compressor had not yet landed. The flame vehicles saw action on the third day, and from then on their commitment was regular. ... 

Flame cultivation was attempted in sugarcane in the 1940s (Conrad and Lucas, 1995), but was soon abandoned. Liquid propane flamers burned broadleaf and grassy weeds as shields partially protected the crop from thermal damage. While flame cultivation was only marginally useful in sugarcane, tractor-mounted weed burners have been important in the transition from dependence on repetitive mechanical cultivation to the concept of chemical energy for weed control. 

Small succulent weeds between rows of taller woodier plants can be removed with a tractor-drawn flamer. The aim is not to burn up the weeds but just to achieve cell rupture. This method has been used to weed alfalfa, maize, cotton, sugarcane, and soybeans. High technology sprayers that determine the precise locations of weeds in soybeans by light and computer chips have been used to reduce the amount of herbicide needed by using only short bursts to spray the weeds.213 If this technique can be adapted to flame spraying or to the use of mechanical cutters, the herbicide can be eliminated. 

Ltr, Adjutant 739th Tank Bn, Special (Mine Exploder) to CmlO Ninth Army, 22 Mar 43, sub Flame Throwers. ARBN-739-0.1 (77S3) History, 739th Tractor Bn, i Mar 43—21 Nov 43. 

There are several tractor-mounted models available (Fig. 11.6). The problem with flame weeding is the high energy consumption and slow work rates, but it can reduce hand-weeding costs by half in some horticultural crops. 

American troops did not see Japanese flame throwing vehicles until they captured eight on Luzon in 1945. The weapons were placed on amphibious tractors, similar to American DUKW s. The Japanese did not have fuel thickeners comparable to American napalm, and had to use mixtures of crude oil, gasoline, and kerosene. Since Japanese troops employed portable flame throwers against Americans from early 1942 onward, it is difficult to explain why they did not use mechanized flame throwers. American troops learned by trial and error of the value of flame tanks, and perhaps the Japanese never threw off their conservatism sufficiently to give the tanks full-scale battle tests. ... 

Household plus irrigation pumping, tractor fuel, flame weeding, chicken brooding, and similar uses also sales of domestic distributors for industrial uses also internal-combustion fuels after 1950. 

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