Einstossflammenwerfer 46

The Einstossflammenwerfer 46 was a handheld, single-shot flamethrower designed in Germany in the second half of the Second World War and introduced in 1944. It was engineered to be cheap and easy to mass-produce, a throwaway weapon that gave one half-second burst of flame reaching about 27 metres before it was discarded, and it was inspired by the Italian Lanciafiamme Mod. 41 d'assalto. It served as a low-cost substitute for the far more effective but expensive Flammenwerfer 35. Because it needed almost no training and was easy to carry, it was issued to the Volkssturm militia and the Werwolf movement and was also used by German paratroopers. Little reliable information survives, but at least 30,700 are believed to have been made. After the war in Europe ended, the United States copied it as the E15 and E16 flamethrowers, which became the M8 flamethrower of 1955 used by American airborne troops.