Talk:Poison gas in World War I

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Contents

[edit] Infamous or Famous?

The mustard gas section of the article begins "The most famous and effective gas..." Shouldn't the word 'famous' be changed to 'infamous?' I think so. Also, wasn't mustard gas horribly deadly, not merely debilitating?


[edit] Diphosgene

No mention of diphosgene, used at Verdun and elsewhere? Gdr 15:18, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)

[edit] Help stamp out redundancy and repetition!

The main page version of this article reads:

The Use of poison gas in World War I was a major military innovation of the First World War.

Such redundancy strikes me as sloppy, but maybe it's just me... :)

TJSwoboda 00:14, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Use of poison gas beyond WWI

I don't mean to be contentious or perhaps overly literal in my reading, but does this statement strike anyone else as very flawed?

No subsequent conflict has made such large-scale use of poison gas as the First World War.

Certainly the "conflict" between the Nazis and Jews involved large-scale use of poison gases. Were they not, in fact, used on a massively larger scale in concentration camps than in the battles of WWI? Obviously this article is WWI-specific, so a detailed description is probably inappropriate. It seems like some mention should be made, though. Alternatively, the wording could be changed: "No subsequent combat", perhaps. Just a thought. HorsePunchKid 02:59, 2005 May 29 (UTC)

[edit] s/gas/electric

On 16:31 29 May 2005, 64.230.8.213 replaced gas by electric:

In 1915, when electric was relatively new, less than 3% of British gas casualties died.

does it make sense??

[edit] Phosgene "18 times more powerful than chlorine"

Phosgene is called "18 times more powerful than chlorine". What does this mean? Does exposure to phosgene kill 18 times more rats in the lab than exposure to chlorine? Or does phosgene strip 18 times more electrons off a reactant? I'm removing the reference for now; please do re-insert it if someone can explain what the sentence means. Tempshill 17:15, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

  • I'd guess it means it takes 18x more chlorine to kill 1 man than phosgene, or an equal amount of phosgene will kill 18x more men--but I'm by no means expert... Trekphiler 06:56, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dramatic success?

The article reads Gas never reproduced the dramatic success of 22 April 1915, yet according to the article, that gas attack resulted in around 300 British deaths and no consequence of military success. The line is belied by the very large casualty numbers later in the article. Can an expert rewrite the sentence? Why does someone think it was a dramatic success, never again reproduced? Tempshill 17:24, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

My reading says that on 22 April 1915, chlorine cleared 7 kilometres of the front line of defending troops. (RJP 19:47, 23 September 2005 (UTC))

[edit] Move

Please don't reflex-revert. The move was to remove excess wordage from the title. "The use" is self-evident and the article is not disambiguated from any other article about poison gas in WW I.

Peter Isotalo 10:00, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Poison gas was this effective?

this article here is extremely heavy on the incredible horrors of gas, and the high casualty rates. The Australian high school history books, the world book encyclopedia and the several WWI biographies I have lying around my room all indicate that chemical agents worked well at first due to the amazing above-referenced surprise factor, but became much less effective once troops were educated and countermeasures were developed. the psychological effect was still immense, but gas did not in the end acheive any decicive results. Tempshill touches on this disparity above.

while the information in the bulk of this article appears extremely compelling with its statistics and first hand accounts, it seems to give a different view of the effectiveness of gas than is present elsewhere. most other accounts will state that gas was a horrific weapon that was even more terrible due to its failure to acheive any substantial military objectives. like aerial bombardment of civilian cities in the second world war, people learned to adapt and got on with things. It may be advisable to have this article edited to reflect this. As it stands the casual reader could be expected to beleive that gas was a dazzling wonder weapon, the article even going so far as to label WWI as the "chemists war". this plays down the monstrous role that other world war one military developments like the machine gun, tank, and aircraft had in shaping the conflict. --Fruity Bix 15:54, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

The "chemists' war" thing is very common, but it doesn't just have to do with gas. But in general, you are correct; all the info packed in does distort the overall strategic impact of gas, which was limited.--ragesoss 16:02, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move some contents to Gas Mask article?

There is more history of the gas mask in this article then there is in the Gas Mask article under 'History and development of the gas mask'. Wouldn't it make sense to merge the two, at least to make sure there is no redundancy or contradiction?

[edit] Cross Blue, Cross Blue!

Anybody feel a need to mention Blue Cross, the British codename for sneezing agent diphenylchloroarsine (sez Fuller's Military History of the Western World, p277n1) Trekphiler 07:01, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Revert

Reverted one step due to vandalism; 86.143.126.50 01:06, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

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