Several hypothesis are existing to explain the motivations that pushed the Captain Livens to develop high lethality incendiary weapons with such creativity and enthusiasm from 1915, but the most succesful of them certainly has been the 'Livens Projector'.

It was a simple steel tube 5 mm thick and 215 mm inner diameter, and closed at its base by a hemispheric bottom. It had to be half buried in the ground with a 45 degrees angle, and was made to throw big cylindric tanks (11 litres / 14 kg capacity) filled with flammable liquid (oil) or chemical agent (chlorine or phosgen) and equipped with a simple fuze on the enemy. The range was set by the use of tubes of different lengths (from 71 cm to 126 cm). The firing of the propulsive charge was obtained by an electric starter.

This weapon was vso simple it was built in huge numbers (more than 140.000) and some hundreds sold to the French Army. Used in batteries since the Battle of the Somme in 1916, it was able to saturate a limited sector with a hell of flames or gas. It was still in dotation at the beginning of WW2. Germans copied the design and improved it to create their 18 cm Gaswerfer 17 and 18.

The prolific imagination of Captaine Livens is at the origin of many other letal inventions, including the famous and suge Livens flame projector ('The Somme Dragon') of which one device has been discovered in the Somme in 2010 or incendiary mines used for the British coasts defence in 1940, but also some more peaceful creations such aa dish washer prototype in 1924... !

Main characteristics :

• Weight in firing position : unknown
• Calibre : 21.5 mm ( in)
• Tube length : 710, 840, 950 or 1260 mm
• Projectile weight : 26.5 kg including 14 kg of chemical agent or flammable liquid
• Initial velocity : unknown
• Maximum range : 1500 m (cylindric projectile) - 2000 m (fin-tailed projectile)
• Direction range : -
• Elevation range : fixed 45 degrees