BattleMech flamers fire a burst of extremely hot plasma channeled from the plasma in the 'Mech's own on-board fusion reactor. The amount of plasma is extremely small, but that portion is under such extremes of temperature and pressure that it expands like a cloud of flame, scorching or burning everything in its path. Vehicle-mounted and hand-held flamers use highly volatile chemical mixes which are ignited at the muzzle of the flamer barrel. Flamers are strictly short-ranged weapons descended from the flamethrowers of the mid-20th century. While rarely effective as a primary anti-Mech weapon, they are useful for adding to an enemy MechWarrior's heat build-up problems, and for setting wooded areas or buildings on fire, either to flush enemy infantry or to herd or block enemy 'Mechs. Several 'Mechs, notable the FS9-H Firestarter, do incorporate flamers as primary weapons, though they are best deployed in support of-and supported by-other, more conventional BattleMechs. BattleMech Weapons Crisis of Range and Accuracy Introduction Lasers: The Light Fantastic Particle Projector Cannon: Lightning Made to Order Missiles: Unguided Messengers of Death Autocannon: Machine Guns with a Kick Machine Gun: Ancient Killer on the Battlefield Flamer: Anyone Got a Light? Limited Ranges and the Collapse of Civilization Back to BattleTechnology 3 Table of Contents Back to BattleTechnology List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1988 by Pacific Rim Publishing. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com