Talk:United Kingdom and weapons of mass destruction

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I'm considering add this sentence to the intro, based on the info at CBRN, but since I know very little about the subject I'll float the idea here first:

While the British media and most lay people use or recognise the term "weapons of mass destruction", the British military and security services prefer the term "CBRNs".

Joe D (t) 23:13, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I have read that the UK military don't like the "WMD" term, as it requires subjective judgement about when battlefield munitions become numerous/large enough to do "mass destruction". A few (or more) chemical shells aren't really "WMD", even though the press/politicians would use the "WMD" phrase. Must admit I've not come across CBRN before instead of NBC. Rwendland 13:20, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rename of Article Proposal

Article should be named "...and its weapons...". That is, unless all other information about the UKs dealings with WMD (e.g. the Iraq dossier etc..) is to be included.--jrleighton 13:11, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid "X and weapons of mass destruction" is the Wikipedia convention, applied to 18 states. Changing one would be confusing. For better or worse we're stuck with it - unless you really want to try to convince editors of all 18 to change! Rwendland 16:15, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

"X and weapons of mass destruction" is the convention for good reason - the articles don't simply cover the WMDs of that country, but its capabilities and stance toward both its own WMDs and those of others. This article is a good example - it has a section about US WMDs deployed in the UK (which would be at odds with an "and its weapons" name). There's no reason why every country in the world couldn't get a "X and WMD" article - Brazil and weapons of mass destruction being a good example: calling it "Brazil and its weapons of mass destruction" would be silly, because it hasn't got any. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 11:59, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] uncited and conflicts with Smallpox

"Historically, the United Kingdom used biological weapons in Canada in the eighteenth century. During the Pontiac rebellion in 1763, the army commander Sir Jeffrey Amherst arranged for smallpox contaminated blankets to be distributed amongst the hostile Native American tribes, which had a devastating effect since they had no natural immunity.

They may also have used smallpox during the American Revolutionary War. Following the capture of Montreal by the rebels, the British commander in Quebec reportedly had civilians in the town immunised against the disease and attempted to infect American revolutionary troops. A smallpox epidemic broke out amongst them, affecting around half of the 10,000 troops."

There is considerable material around about immunisation (variolation) in the American Revolutionary war. Immunising a civilian population would be sensible. Gen. Washington decided to immunise his army. Midgley 20:54, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

The United Kingdom has four [[Vanguard smelly bum bum missile submarine patrols are coordinated with those of the French [2].

Is that even correct English? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.24.176.32 (talk) 14:36, 24 September 2007 (UTC)