Chemical weapons, devices used for the sole purpose of hurting or killing humans, are widely considered one of the four types of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Chemical weapons are devices that spread a certain toxic chemical to incapacitate people. The two most dangerous kinds of chemical weapons are nerve agents and vesicant, or blister, agents. Types There five kinds of chemical agents. Lethal, Incapacitating agents, Riot control gases, Harassing agents, and Defoliants. (Hersh, 1) Lethal agents include Nerve agents, Vesicants, Blood agents, and Pulmonary agents. Nerve agents are phosphorus-containing organic chemicals and they work by disrupting the mechanism that transfers nerve messages to organs. These include Tabun, Sarin, Soman, Cyclosarin, GV, VE, VG, VM, VR, and VX. They are one of the two most dangerous types of chemical weapons Vesicants are chemical compounds that cause eye and skin pain and irritation. Also known as blister agents, they are known for leaving painful water blisters on affected skin. Some of these are Ethyldichloroarsine, Methyldichloroarsine, Phenyldichl...
History has proven the use of chemical weapons ranging back for decades. From the Greeks in ancient Europe using Greek fire to South American tribes using a form of tear gas made of grounded up hot chili peppers to scare away enemy tribes. As well as dipping the tips of spear heads with a poisonous toxin. Poisonous toxins used from live reptiles like frogs and venom from the snakes found from whichever region had enough potency venom to exterminate. The past has proven, that in order for Armies to survive and win, it relied on out smarting the enemy. New technologies and the evolution of weaponry were left to the brightest minds from those eras to develop.
Orange and Cancer"). The chemical was sprayed from airplanes on trees, base perimeters, roadways, and communication lines. It was also sprayed by riverboats and trucks (committee, 74). Agent Orange is a dioxin herbicide containing Dichlorophenoxyacetic and Trichlorophenoxyacetic acids. "Dioxin is the most toxic and most durable chemical mankind has developed so far" ("Vietnamese"). Both acids are highly toxic and considered mutagens ("Toxipedia"). Trichlorophenoxyacetic is considerabl...
Wright III, B. (1998, November). The Chemical Warfare Service Prepares for World War II. Retrieved from http://www.almc.army.mil/alog/issues/NovDec98/MS274.htm
The two chemical weapons that were used were: nerve agent and mustard gas. Nerve agent has two main classes that are Class G and Class V. Class V is more new, however less fatal. The specific nerve agent used by the Iraqis is Cyclosarin. Cyclosarin is an extremely toxic substance used as a chemical weapon, which is a member of Class G. Cyclosarin is the most dangerous gas out of both classes. It is known to have a sweet smell and is also flammable unlike other nerve gases. Mustard gas on the other hand is yellow and smells like garlic. Both gases cause death in minutes and have long lasting effects. These can include diseases and other horrible problems. Many of these diseases cannot be cured, for the cells have been damaged and cannot be repaired.
"Federation of American Scientists :: Types of Chemical Weapons." Federation of American Scientists. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2010.
Fries, A. A., & West, C. J. (1921). Chemical warfare,. New York [etc.: McGraw-Hill book company, inc..
The Agent Orange was a defoliant chemical used by the US in the Vietnam War from 1961 through 1971. This chemical caused a lot of effects too many people. It could have been just a short term effect or a long term effect, it could have killed someone right away or it could have made them suffer then they passed away. This chemical was very dangerous and deadly but was used by the United States military forces.
Poison gas was perhaps the most feared weapon out of all. Created to overcome the long stalemate style of trench warfare, its purpose was to draw out soldiers hiding in the trenches. One side would throw the poison gas into the enemy trenches and they would either wait for their enemy to come out into open fire or perish in the trenches. The first poison gas used in battle was chlorine at the start of the Second Battle of Ypres on April 22, 1915 by the Germans. Shortly after, followed the phosgene. The effects of these gases were ghastly. Chlorine was the most deadly as "within seconds of inhaling its vapor, it destroys the victim's respiratory organs, bringing on choking attacks" (Duffy). Phosgene had similar effects, except the fact that the effects started kicking in after 48 hours of inhalation. In September 1917, the Germans introduced the mustard gas or Yperite which was contained in artillery shells against the Russians at Riga. Those exposed t...
Atomic Bomb The use of the atomic bombs on Japan was necessary for the revenge of the Americans. These bombs took years to make due to a problematic equation. The impact of the bombs killed hundreds of thousands of people and the radiation is still killing people today. People today still wonder why the bombs were dropped. If these bombs weren’t dropped on the Japanese the history of the world would have been changed forever. The Atomic bomb took 6 years to develop (1939-1945) for scientists to work on a equation to make the U-235 into a bomb. The most complicated process in this was trying to produce enough uranium to sustain a chain reaction. The bombs used on the cities cost about $2 billion to develop, this also making the U.S. wanting to use them against Japan. “Hiroshima was a major military target and we have spent 2 billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history- and won.” (3) The bomb dropped on Hiroshima weighted 4.5 tons and the bomb used on Nagasaki weighted 10 kilotons. On July 16, 1945, the first ever atomic bomb was tested in the Jamez Mountains in Northern New Mexico, code named “Gadget.” The single weapon ultimately dropped on Hiroshima, nicknamed “Little Boy,” produced the amount of approximately twenty- thousand tons of TNT, which is roughly seven times greater than all of the bombs dropped by all the allies on all of Germany in 1942. The first Japanese City bomb was Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. An American B-29 bomber, named Enola Gay, flown by the pilot Paul W. Tibbets, dropped the “Little Boy” uranium atomic bomb. Three days later a second bomb named ”Fat Boy,” made of plutonium was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. After being released, it took approximately one minute for Little Boy to reach the point of explosion, which was about 2,000 feet. The impact of the bombs on the cities and people was massive. Black rain containing large amounts of nuclear fallout fell as much as 30km from the original blast site. A mushroom cloud rose to twenty thousand feet in the air, and sixty percent of the city was destroyed. The shock wave and its reverse effect reached speeds close to those of the speed of sound. The wind generated by the bombs destroyed most of the houses and buildings within a 1.
Chemical warfare is the use of chemical agents to injure, incapacitate, or kill enemy combatants. First seen during World War I (WWI), the devastating effects of widespread chemical warfare were eventually deemed inhumane by an international consensus and chemical agents were subsequently banned from use. Still, despite the tendency of the modern warrior to overlook antiquated tactics, the threat of chemical agents in the theater of war cannot be entirely discounted by today's Soldier. By analyzing the application, evolution, and overall legacy of chemical weapons in the Great War we can work to minimize the danger they pose in current conflicts and those of the near future. For it is only by understanding the past that we can understand the present and shape tomorrow.
It was later known that the EPA or better known as the Environmental Protection Agency banned Agent Orange in the United States when a large number of birth of a baby who is born without any signs of life at or after 24 weeks of pregnancy were reported among mothers in Oregon, where Agent Orange had been heavily used (The Story of Agent Orange). Many Americans were outraged after finding out what Agent Orange has caused to their people. The Vietnam veterans cried for help from the Veterans Administration and usually the response was put on, but the veterans will not back down. These veterans would band together to have studies on the toxic herbicide and bring those studies to the government attention. Despite the veterans’ hard efforts, the
Tu, Anthony. “Chemical Weapons Abandoned by the Imperial Army in Japan and China at the End of World War II.” Toxin Reviews 30.1 (2001): 1-5 Environmental Complete. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.
...elicopters, land mines, booby traps, and poison gases. Each weapon had a different use they could be used to kill people or to cause devastation to the land and the plant life in the area. The weapons of the Vietnam War had some off the most devastating weapons ever used in warfare and because of the devastation those weapon were never used again.
What is a biological weapon? A biological weapon is the use of toxins to cause disease in humans (also an...