Chinese flamethrowers

[PlasmaKrab]

Originally Posted by redcoat2

Yes. I think the flamethrower may be a Chinese Type 74 – which is a direct copy of the Russian LPO-50. I don’t know when NORINCO in China started to manufacture the weapon. It may be that the Chinese started to make the Type 74 when they were still on good terms with the Soviets – a few years before 1979.

OK, I had't found info about the Chinese version. According to Wikipedia there is also a Chinese Type-58 flamethrower, but no more info there.

Edit: I wonder why the Chinese flamethrower is called the Type 74? 1974 perhaps?

Standard PLA practice AFAIK, but the Type-XX would generally be the year of type-classification, not IOC. Given the notoriously long trial runs favored by the PLA, it may actually have been rushed into service in '79, or have been very shortly in service outside training units.
OTOH the IOC of the LPO-50 itself (in USSR) is less and less clear the more I look into it. Apparently no one has accurate info and it is just consistently described as "post-war" which could mean anything from 1946 to 1989.