Molotov cocktail

[blazingPanzer]

Has anyone ever manged to destroy a tank with one of these?  When I've used them they seem to just scorch the paintwork and occasionally damage vehicle components even when thrown directly onto the engine deck;  from what I understand of their use landing one here should ignite various flammable items such as fuel/lubricants and cause an irrecoverable vehicle fire.  Is this behavior modeled in GTOS?

[FB_AGA]

Yes, sometimes it can ignite a tank, but it is a rare case, approx. 1 out of 10.

In the real life, when it was introduced in the Red Army in July 41 it main purpose was to blind the crew, made the temperature inside very high and hard to breath, so the crew had to leave the tank. The ignition of the tank was not guaranteed as almost all of them were protected from this weapon, the mane cause of the tank fire was thought to be a heat, but not a flame, so in theory you had to use a lot of bottles.

[Tanker]

You would expect them to be more effective if the movement of the tank was restricted, such as urban fighting with rubble in the streets.  In the field it would be much more difficult to target a tank with mutiple hits I would think.

[Dane49]

I actually destroyed a Tiger tank once with a Russian AT squad and 1 infantry squad and 1 HQ squad defending a 2 storey stone building in Taranovka. The AT squad immobilised the tank and the infantry squad pelted it with like 10 bottles of the improved Russian version of the molotov.

I'm still surprised the Germans have no weapons like this in the game that are fairly easy to make and I'm sure they captured some of the improved versions also since they are effective weapons against infantry, light tanks and APCs.

[Tanker]

I think until descriptions of the use of this weapon by German troops in the area covered by the game are found in creditable sources, that the developers won't include them. 

It is logical however that any troops would adapt and adopt any weapon they could, especially if they were without the use of dedicated anti-tank weapons.

[Dane49]

You won't really find very many personal memoirs from soldiers at the sharp end of the stick that aren't discounted by historians for being politically incorrect, imbellished or the soldier may have been suffering PTSD and/or under educated.
Couple that with the fact that most veterans were trying to forget their experiences and not relive them after the war,which would account for the lack of any true understanding of what they did or didn't do as a field expedient to counter any enemy threats.

[andrey12345]

I'm still surprised the Germans have no weapons like this in the game that are fairly easy to make and I'm sure they captured some of the improved versions also since they are effective weapons against infantry, light tanks and APCs.

Any effective types of this weapons not easy to make. KS bottle (automatic fuse and high reliability + high combustion temperature) made in the factory conditions but not handmade.

[FB_AGA]

Yeah, Germans should have "brandflaschen". There were both industry and hand made. Currently, I am not sure about a panzer division, I've found bottles only in their pioneer platoons. But, it was an ordinary weapon of an infantry division at least since late autumn'41 till late 43.

[fmj]

In the real life, when it was introduced in the Red Army in July 41 it main purpose was to blind the crew...

Many people mistakenly believe the m.c. originated as a Russian invented weapon.

 -The name "Molotov cocktail" was coined by the Finns during the Winter War. The name is an insulting reference to Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, who was responsible for the setting of "spheres of interest" in Eastern Europe under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939. The pact with the Nazis bearing Molotov's name was widely mocked by the Finns, as was much of the propaganda Molotov produced to accompany the pact, including his declaration on Soviet state radio that bombing missions over Finland were actually airborne humanitarian food deliveries for their starving neighbors. The Finns sarcastically dubbed the Soviet cluster bombs "Molotov bread baskets" in reference to Molotov's propaganda broadcasts. When the hand-held bottle firebomb was developed to attack Soviet tanks, the Finns called it the "Molotov cocktail", as "a drink to go with the food". Molotov himself despised the name, particularly as the term became ubiquitous and generalized as Soviets faced increasing numbers of cocktail-throwing protesters in the Eastern Bloc in the years after World War II.

-Improvised incendiary devices were used for the first time in the Spanish Civil War between July 1936 and April 1939, before they became known as "Molotov cocktails".
-The Battle of Khalkhin Gol, a border conflict of 1939 ostensibly between Mongolia and Manchukuo, saw heavy fighting between Japanese and Soviet forces. Short of anti-tank equipment, Japanese infantry attacked Soviet tanks with gasoline-filled bottles. Japanese infantrymen claimed that several hundred Soviet tanks had been destroyed this way, though Soviet loss records do not support this assessment.
-On 30 November 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Finland, starting what came to be known as the Winter War. The Finnish Army faced large numbers of Red Army tanks. Being short on anti-tank guns, they improvised incendiary devices to use against them.
-Molotov cocktails were eventually mass-produced by the Alko corporation at its Rajamäki distillery, bundled with matches to light them. Production totaled 450,000 during the Winter War.

[andrey12345]

Short of anti-tank equipment, Japanese infantry attacked Soviet tanks with gasoline-filled bottles. Japanese infantrymen claimed that several hundred Soviet tanks had been destroyed this way, though Soviet loss records do not support this assessment.

This is a myth. The Japanese themselves write that their experiences in this regard have been unsuccessful, since due to strong winds in Manchuria, even set fire to bottle was difficult. In case of successful ignition the efficiency of ungelled gasoline is near-zero. Most tanks is knocked out from artillery/mines etc.

P.S.In general, the first was Greek fire from the island of Rhodes, 190 BC. You forgot to mention it .
In game used KS bottle. It's generally a bit different than the original Molotov cocktail.