What ammo does a flamethrower use?

[Witigis]

On the subject of the original question:
I could give you the liters of flammable oil for several types of WWII flamethrowers...
On the subject of reloading I have found an interesting fact about Japanes flamethrowers of the war: They used compressed air for projecting the liquid and distributed a small air compressor (separately packed in a wooden crate) to the troops for this reason. The types of flamethrowers used in that way were type 93 and 100, the air compressor was type 99. Maybe this is of some help. The Facts come from a book in German language, but was written by Chris Bishop (something like Weapons of World War II).

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Witigis

They used compressed air for projecting the liquid and distributed a small air compressor (separately packed in a wooden crate) to the troops for this reason.

This is ... substantially less safe than the compressed nitrogen most nations used, should the flamethrower malfunction or be damaged. However, this was normal for Imperial Japan. Another case was their ship-launched torpedoes, which used oxygen-enriched compressed air, and were thus a considerable fire risk. They simply didn't tell the crews about it.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Witigis

On the subject of the original question:
I could give you the liters of flammable oil for several types of WWII flamethrowers...
.

That's listed in HT already (actually gallons rather than liters but it's there).

Except maybe for the Einstoss. You obviously didn't reload the Einstoss until long after the battle if at all.

[Anders]

Could you use ethanol?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

Could you use ethanol?

Bad choice. It's less dense yet more volatile than even unthickened gasoline. It probably completely aerosolizes when you try and spray it under pressure and makes this huge ball of fire immediately in front of your face.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

It probably completely aerosolizes when you try and spray it under pressure and makes this huge ball of fire immediately in front of your face.

Like any flammable liquid, how far it goes will depend on how much air it's mixed with and how fine the droplets are; I'm sure you could spray it a fair distance. However, it's also low temperature for flame, doesn't stick very well to targets, and can be easily extinguished with water.

[Witigis]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

That's listed in HT already (actually gallons rather than liters but it's there).

Ah okay, never mind, but I think I could provide some more examples, if necessary.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Except maybe for the Einstoss. You obviously didn't reload the Einstoss until long after the battle if at all.

The Einstoss Flammenwerfer was not designed to be reloaded.

On the whole, I wouldn´t care for reloads of a flamethrower (cost and weight), unless it is mandatory for my campaign (i.e. in a WWII military campaign, no, in a post-apocalyptic or mercenary setting, possibly yes).
In the latter case, you could simply assume gasoline as the most propable refill (with the rules on p. HT178). But a little Research on Wikipedia (no offense meant) gives the Information, that WWII alternatives were diesel fuel or domestic fuel oil (which AFAIK is also not menztioned in HT) on their own or mixed with kerosene or gasoline to produce the flammable oil normally used. To take the necessary propellants into account, I would assume a base cost of $2 per gallon, simply multiply that with the number of gallons for the specific kind of flamethrower times 6 lbs. for weight, and there you go.

On the RoF, I think the statements in HT to be very precise and clear, as with the Beattie you get "five 2-second bursts or one 10-second stream" and with the LPO-50 three three-seconds bursts". I read that as absolute, which means you get two options with the Beattie, but only one with the LPO-50.
On further Research, I found an article (sorry, only in German), by a member of the German NVA (Nationale Volksarmee), who was trained on the LPO-50. (http://www.uwe-brodrecht.de/%C3%BCbe...werfer-lpo-50/)
I will sum it up as follows:
A) They made the flamethrower liquid themselves by stirring napalm in big drums until it had the consistency they wanted, filling it in each of the three tanks of the LPO-50.
B) Each aforementioned tank was used up in one of the shots.
C) They had exactly three shots.
So this supports the statement in High-Tech...
This may be a special case, as the LPO-50 used a different system of propelling the fuel: "The mechanism used to empty the tank was not a pressurized gas cylinder but a black powder cartridge on each fuel cylinder."

A completely other matter, which GURPS does not seem to take into account for flamethrowers, is their ability to suffocate troops in enclosed locations (for example Japanes soldiers within caves) by using up the available oxygen. You could use the Suffocation rules on p. 436 of the Basic Set. In THAT case, a prolonged burst would achieve the desired results much better than several small ones....