Petrol Bomb 5
Petrol Bomb 5 : Development and Use in War: (4) Britain: Early in 1940, with the prospect of immediate invasion, the possibilities of the petrol bomb gripped the imagination of the British public. For the layman, the petrol bomb had the benefit of using entirely familiar and available materials, and they were quickly improvised in large numbers, with the intention of using them against enemy tanks. Although the petrol bomb might seem like a weapon of forlorn hope, the possibility of success was not quite as distant as might be imagined. 1940 was at the very end of the era of the light tank, and the German behemoths of the later war years were still in the future: many tanks were surprisingly vulnerable. When used in the right way and in sufficient numbers, the Finns had found that they were effective. Although the experience of the Spanish Civil War received more publicity, the more sophisticated petroleum warfare tactics of the Finns were not lost on British commanders. In his 5 June address to LDV leaders, General Ironside said: I want to develop this thing they developed in Finland, called the "Molotov cocktail", a bottle filled with resin, petrol and tar which if thrown on top of a tank will ignite, and if you throw half a dozen or more on it you have them cooked. It is quite an effective thing. If you can use your ingenuity, I give you a picture of a road block with two houses close to the block, overlooking it. There are many villages like that. Out of the top windows is the place to drop these things on the tank as it passes the block
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