Accuracy of flame tanks

[Narwan]

Accuracy 20 is not the highest in the game. A quick scan through the weapon list in the german OB for example shows quite a few weapons with 20+ cores (lmg, mmg, hmg, cmg, bmg's especially). One german flamethrower has the 20 accuracy, another 30. Higher still are the 'rottkapchen' (35) and naval artillery (60).

Flamethrowers basically have a similar accuracy as machineguns. Both are also foremost area effect weapons. The big difference is range. Flamethrowers have a range of only 1 or 2 while mg's an fire much further. So whenever an mg fires at more than range 2 it'll show a much smaller hit chance. You'll also tend to be firing it at soft targets like infantry which is much smaller and harder to hit than a tank for example. So when you fire at a tank with a flamethrower from range 1 you'll probably hit it. Fire at that same tank with a machinegun from range 1 and you'll have a similar chance of hitting it. The flamethrower will APPEAR to be much more accurate due to it's range limitation.

Flamethrowers are much more likely to hit a unit in their 'splash' area as a secondary effect. So the hits you may see are probably often secondary in nature.
They are more effective because the weapon doesn't rely on kinetic energy for it's effect. So there is much less loss of effectiveness (compared to the blast area and secondary effects of other weapons). The primairy way a flamethrower does damage (to a vehicle) is by disrupting vital systems onboard, the most common being motoric failures due to oxygen starvation for the engine. Many tanks had (small) leaks, fume build ups, small pools of spilled fuel, etc which could all start off a fire on board.

Narwan