Compression Charge and Refueling Area

At the top of the fuel tanks are three screw on caps with an electric wire running through each of them. The wire is connected directly to the battery pack and trigger assembly of the weapon. When the weapon is fired, the compression charge of the selected tank will ignite and force the fuel through the weapon. I do not know the makeup of the compression charges or even what they look like. I do know that they are identical to the ones used in the TPO-50 towed flamethrower weapon system.

Even though I do not know much about the compression charges I do know how they are placed in the weapon. The caps on each tank are removed and the charges are fitted into them before they are screwed back onto the tank. The weapon is usually refueled at this point, simply by pouring in either diesel fuel or the special thickened mixture into the weapon. There is a crude grating used to keep foreign matter out of the tanks. In the picture to the left I removed one so you can see it. They are normally not removed except for cleaning.

Release Valve

Each of the three fuel tanks on the LPO-50 is equipped with a single pressure release valve (shown here as the longer thinner piece coming off of the tank). These are used to discharge excess gas pressure when it is time to refuel the tanks. It also serves as a safety valve for when the tanks build up an excess of pressure due to faulty compression charges.