The Commander Series Forum

Hi Pete,

on Page 34 of the rule book it says that engineers have flamethrowers built into their assault stats. Just noticed that the British and British Airborne Assault Pioneers only have a CA score of 3! Most countries have a value of 8, so is this an oversight, or am I missing something really obvious?

cheers

John

This is correct - British pioneers weren't as heavily equipped, so no flamethrowers.

Pioneers are basically road laying, position preparing, trench digging guys with spades. Lots and lots of spades...

Ok, thanks chaps.

There is a pretty big difference in the role and equipment of British engineers compared to most other nations in ww2.

The british army considered their engineers first and foremost as valuable highly trained specialist troops, to be used in the lowest numbers practical for the job and then withdrawn.
They were armed with the usual rifles, brens and piats as standard with anything heavier like flamethrowers held in reserve in fairly limited numbers for specific tasks.

The germans, on the other hand, generally considered their engineers to be assault troops and they were armed not only with rifles, lmgs, etc but also hmgs and flamethrowers as a matter of course.

Each nations training also reflected this difference in role.

If any thing I would give the british engineers an "engineering bonus" of some description due to all the specialist engineering gear they typically had available.

Stevus' comments are correct. But they could have flame throwers - it's important not to confuse the RE bridge builders with the poineer/enginner platoons in an infantry battalions support company.

the bayonetstrength site says:
"The renamed Assault Pioneer Platoon deployed two Assault Sections and one Pioneer Section under an Officer and Pioneer Sergeant... The Assault Sections provided specialist men and equipment for the disposal of mines and breaching obstacles. The British Army was not really keen on flamethrowers, but if issued the Pioneers would no doubt have deployed them."

Don't forget the use of flamethrowers at the Arnhem road bridge - although it's in the film it did really happen!

I'd be inclined to allow them as an "upgrade". For my Brits I have duplicate engineer platoons - some without flamethrowers, some with.

Dr Dave, that sounds about right to me, an upgrade to allow issue of flamethrowers sparingly, the 1st Airborne paratrooper assault pioneers at Arnhem did indeed use them - blew up a pill box on the bridge approaches, if I remember correctly, as depicted in the film. I don't remember any reference to 6th Airborne using them on D-day though and don't know if they were used in the Rhine crossings. Might that be a divisional issue, with the 1st having them and the 6th not?

Most other references to flame attacks by British units seem to be to Crocodiles or Wasps, so although British scruples frowned on man pack flame weapons, mechanised and armoured flamers seem to have been embraced with open arms. I also notice that engineers are equiped with man pack flamethrowers in the British Far East list, perhaps implying that it was beyond the pale to use flame weapons up close and personal on the Germans, but open season on the Japanese! Seriously though, I think the distinction between assault pioneers with- and pioneers/engineers without- is spot on. I guess if using points, just pay for the flamethrower to upgrade the exosting stats.

"The British Army was not really keen on flamethrowers, but if issued the Pioneers would no doubt have deployed them."

I guess with lots of Wasps at Battalion level plus support from Crocodiles man pack flamethrowers weren't really needed so much

From a book I have on 79th AD (Hobo's Funnies) describing an attack that uses Crocodiles:

"The ojective was captured with negligible casualties, the highlight being the remark of a captured German officer who said that he did not think that English troops would stoop to use such an un-British weapon as a flame gun!"

Intersting about the 6th AB Div. I'd have thought that using them at Merville would have been ideal - but then that was such a poor drop - and an outstanding assault! I'll go and read up if they were used!

The fire and fury site suggests a parachute engineer field park sqdn has two platoons without, and one with a man pack flamethrower. Air landing engineer squadrons have two without, and two with. Engineer sqdns with regular infantry don't seem to have any man pack flamers, although one assault pioneer platoon with flamer in place of a regular infantry platoon, per comapny, is allowed for D-day assault infantry batts.

Don't know if the missing info re 6th airborne use of flamers is real or a feature of gaps in my reading or just that the flamer armed units were scattered in the drop! Nice to know if anyone has any more detailed info as Merville would have been the place to use them. I guess the regular infantry could have made use of them at Hillman, etc. as well.

All I can find ref Merville Battery and flamethrowers is that there were meant to be some - in the Horsas scheduled to land ON the battery. So no one will be fielding them!