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Old 30th January 2013, 06:02 PM   #170
catsmate
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Originally Posted by sackett View Post
About gas in WW1: The old* Ballantine Books History of the Violent Century Weapons Book # 43, Gas, is a good read. Ian V. Hogg was the author, and he couldn't write a dull sentence. The war gases of that period were perhaps not the ghastly weapons we suppose; Hogg makes a case that in fact they incapacitated rather than killed wholesale. The stuff we have today certainly makes them look tame -- well, tamer.
CW agents of the era killed about 2%, however those who didn't die often suffered for the rest if their lives.

Originally Posted by Damien Evans View Post
Apparently you missed the whole Sinai and Palestine Campaign. Not sure how you could miss that, given its modern ramifications for the Middle-East.
Ah, Allenby. He didn't want to be there but he did a good job. And contributed significantly to the knowledge of the migration patterns of storks.

Originally Posted by dudalb View Post
Hell, shells from the Civil War have been known to go off when found on Civil War Battlefields. The NPS actually post signs warning people not to handle them if they find them.
The point is no matter how old it is,how rusty it is, DO NOT HANDLE AND EXPLOSIVE ORNDANCE.
A good point. Especially given some of the ordnance used Picric acid as a filler. Doesn't age well.
While I was in the USA, about twenty years ago, a souvenir shell from the ACW that'd been blamelessly sitting on a mantelshelf for 120+ years detonated one Thanksgiving, without casualties.
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