Wechselapparat

Wechselapparat
Type	Flamethrower
Place of origin	German Empire
Service history
Used by	German Empire, Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary Captured examples used by Entente forces
Wars	First World War

The Wechselapparat ("Wex") was a World War I German flamethrower introduced in 1916 to replace the earlier Kleif. Developed by Richard Fiedler, as early as 1901. It had a doughnut-shaped backpack fuel container with a spherical propellant container (nitrogen) in the middle that blasted the gasoline. The containers were made of car rims. Wex used a magnesium ignition system. This design was updated before the Second World War to become flamethrower model 35. However, model 35 was considered too fragile so it was soon replaced by the model 41, a simpler construction with smaller, horizontal, cylindrical backpack containers.

The doughnut-shaped container design was copied by the British during World War II as the Flamethrower, Portable, No 2.

"Wechselapparat" is German for "exchange apparatus".

See also[]

• List of flamethrowers

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wechselapparat.

References[]

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (November 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

• Flamethrowers of the German Army 1914-1945 by Fred Koch

External links[]

• "British Soldier with captured Wex". Archived from the original on 2017-03-07.

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