Weapons/. Russia

Russia's Devastating Thermobaric Rocket Tanks

In December, Russia created a new heavy weapons regiment based in Nizhniy Novgorod. The regiment has both “TOS-1A Solntsepekflamethrowers and the Shmel-M infantry flamethrowers,” according the Interfax news agency.

The Russian media often refers to the TOS-1A and Shmel-M as flamethrowers, but the term is a bit of a misnomer in English. This hardware has little in common with those rare, flame-spewing weapons.

Instead, these are thermobaric launchers, which propel a fuel-air round.

The round disperses a flammable cloud, which then ignites. The main targets are bunkers, caves and buildings—pretty much any enclosed space. These mixtures can burn, but they mainly kill through blast pressure and sucking out the oxygen from confined areas.