The killing capacity of gas was limited, with four percent of combat deaths caused by gas

>The killing capacity of gas was limited, with four percent of combat deaths caused by gas.

Was mustard gas a meme?

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meme was a memem that a meme meme meme meme MEME

Yes/no.

Gas is hard to use in a WW1 style military context. It gets blown about by the wind, most trench lines that have really shitty ventilation are also hard to deliver the gas to in the first place, and there are countermeasures.

But it was absolutely deadly when it was first introduced, in large part because countermeasures weren't taken, and hadn't been figured out yet. It wasn't mustard gas, (Chlorine, IIRC, but I could be wrong) but you had gas attacks blowing literally miles wide holes in the line when they first started throwing chemical weapons. The fear and danger was very ,very real, it just didn't hold to the same intensity as say artillery or good old fashioned rifles from 1914-1918,

thousands died 3-4 years later after the war had ended.
The gas takes time in small doses because a small bit can mess your lung tissue which back then they had no way of knowing till it was too late.

Meme or not, that shit was literally the bane of every soldier's existence.
May have not been used effectively, but it def. caused some serious nightmares.

You don't have to be killed by gas for it to ruin your day. Hundreds of thousands of people suffered horrible injuries from the gas that didn't kill them but rendered them incapable of fighting. From a tactical perspective, that's the same as a kill.

Plus, being hit by gas attacks absolutely ruined morale even among those who weren't injured or killed. Gas masks were primitive and uncomfortable things to wear, making the already miserable conditions of the trench that much worse.

>four percent of combat deaths caused by gas
this is actually quite large for a meme

>Implying gasses legacy wasn't in the death it caused, but in the effects it had on the soldiers psych both during after being exposed.
>Implying the experiance of choking on Mustard gas isn't one of the most terrifying things a man can experiance.

considering its psychological effect, it's not a meme at all. "poisonous gases" were banned in 1899, way before their use. because they're evil, mmkay.

>literal cloud of death slowly creeping towards you, plucking birds out of the sky and sucking the life out of plants

Combat deaths don't matter when comparing to the psychological effects.

Not to mention that mustard gas is a powerful carcinogen.

Gas also blinded and burned tons of men. A guy with no eyes is out of the fight.

Procedure for donning my gas mask:
Stop breathing and close eyes
Don mask, insert filter if none inserted
Feel mask for vacuum seal
Adjust if needed
Exhale as hard you can to expel contaiminated air from mask
Seal port
Open eyes and breathe

Guess what happens if you can't exhale hard enough?
You breath the shit in. Small amount? Assume combat ineffective within minutes, best case.

Open you eyes early? Anything from no danger, uncontrolled crying and itching/burning, to flat out fatal exposure.

God help you if you had just exhaled when thgas hit, you can't take even the smallest breath until all of this is done.


If you mask isn't sealing right, you won't know until it leaks and you start coughing or otherwise show you're fucked.

God help you if you haven't been able to shave, the mask WILL leak with more than a 16th of an inch or so of beard.

Two weeks of growth and mine just won't seal.


tl;dr
IT"s incredibly easy even for prepared people to be rendered combat ineffective or permanently crippled buy gas attacks, but not die.

I wouldn't want to be the brit who put his mask on and took a breath BEFORE blowing the mask clear.

Requesting the journal of the man tearing the gas mask off of a teenage boys face to save himself.

I wouldn't call it a meme, it's just over-stated. Gas just wasn't very effective, especially gas grenades, which was the first method used to deploy it.

>The total number of British and Empire war deaths caused by gas, according to the Imperial War Museum, was about 6,000 - less than a third of the fatalities suffered by the British on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Of the 90,000 soldiers killed by gas on all sides, more than half were Russian, many of whom may not even have been equipped with masks.

>Far more soldiers were injured. Some 185,000 British and Empire service personnel were classed as gas casualties - 175,000 of those in the last two years of the war as mustard gas came into use. The overwhelming majority though went on to make good recoveries.

>According to the Imperial War Museum, of the roughly 600,000 disability pensions still being paid to British servicemen by 1929, only 1% were being given to those classed as victims of gas.

bbc.com/news/magazine-31042472

People are still being shelled with gas rounds today. They're gruesome like flamethrowers man, warfare utilized to one of it's more torturous epithets.

Mustard gas was effective just ask the ethiopians

>Measuring combat effectiveness by a kill to death ratio
Go back to COD and never come back

nah

>deaths
That's your first problem. Check how many soldiers were blinded too. Or had to breath through tubes for the rest of their lives. Gas fucked people up in more ways than just killing them. Also, it was early days for the technology, and the tactics. The Germans on more than one occasion gassed themselves when then wind blew it back over their trenches.

So, weren't there like two conferences before WW1 where they banned chemical weapons? But what caused everyone to start using them in the war?
Was it like, well, let's see if this shit works, noone is going to mind it's war after all or something?

The trouble with mustard gas is that It is more of a hindrance than anything, it's heavier than air.

Killed like nothing else though

>four percent of combat deaths caused by gas
This says more about the use of gas and the total amount of casualties other weapons caused (artillery was responsible for 2/3rds of all deaths in WW1)

Think about it this way. You know the bombers are coming. You hide underground. They drop mustard gas. It seeps underground. You die.

You're in trench warfare. You can barely see over the top. Bullets are whizzing overhead, shrapnel is whizzing overhead, you are safe. Until heavier than air mustard gas starts filling up your trench.

It's a nightmare. And it's a bad way to go.

Seconding this

The first time the germans used chlorine they basically wiped out the entire section of the western front they used it on. If they hadnt been completely unprepared for it they might have punched through the entire line

Their main use was to screen your troops during offensives.

Considering Germany did the Holocaust, I don't think they cared a lot about international treaties.

it had a huge impact on morale, took away any advantage the target might have, incapacitated or forced into retreat whole regiments, flooded the field hospitals with horridly fucked up casulties and generaly scared the holy shit out of people

it was very much effective in many ways

>Considering Germany did the Holocaust
citation required.

It was a meme
>>>/all quite on the home front/ ww1 memers

>using weak b8 in 2016