From early in the war, there had been experiments with mounting flamethrowers on British vehicles; leading to vehicles such as the Cockatrice, Basilisk and the Wasp (the latter being a flamethrower on a Universal Carrier).
General Percy Hobart saw the Crocodile demonstrated in 1943 and pressured the MoS to produce a development plan[REF] and the Chief of the General Staff added the flamethrowers to the 79th Division plan.