The M202 FLASH is an American rocket launcher, designed to replace the World War II–vintage flamethrowers that remained the military's standard incendiary devices well into the 1960s. The XM202 prototype launcher was tested in the Vietnam War, as part of the XM191 system.
Description
The M202A1 features four tubes that can load 66 mm incendiary rockets. The M74 rockets are equipped with M235 warheads, containing approximately 1.34 pounds of an incendiary agent. The substance, often mistaken for napalm, is in fact TPA. TPA is triethylaluminum thickened with polyisobutylene. TEA, an organometallic compound, is pyrophoric and burns spontaneously at temperatures of 1600 °C when exposed to air. It burns "white hot" because of the aluminum, much hotter than gasoline or napalm. The light and heat emission is very intense and can produceskin burns from some distance without direct contact with the flame, by thermal radiation alone. The M202 was designed to share its 66mm caliber with the contemporary M72 LAW antitank rocket launcher, to allow it to be used as an antitank launcher. While HEAT rounds were trialled with the XM191 launcher under the designation XM78, no HEAT clips were ever manufactured for the M202. Similarly, a crowd control agent round using CS gas, the XM96, was trialled, but never entered service. The weapon is meant to be fired from the right shoulder, and can be fired from either a standing, crouching, or prone position. It is loaded with a clip which holds a set of four rockets together, which is inserted into the rear of the launcher and can be pushed past the launching position to enable the launcher to be carried while loaded more easily. The M202A1 was rated as having a 50% chance of hit against the following targets at the noted ranges, assuming all four rockets were fired at the same time:
The M202A1 was issued as needed, generally one per rifle platoon, although the headquarters of rifle companies were authorized nine M202A1s. As with most RPGs, no dedicated gunners were trained, the weapon instead being carried in addition to the rifleman's standard weapon. While vastly more lightweight than the M2 flamethrower it replaced, the weapon was still bulky to use and the ammunition suffered from reliability problems. As a result, the weapon had mostly been relegated to storage by the mid-1980s, even though it nominally remains a part of the U.S. Army arsenal. The M202A1 has been among weapons listed on the inventory of U.S. units in the War in Afghanistan.
