For you CBRN/NBC/CBW fans, courtesy of High Caliber History: Drilling into a Mustard Gas Shell!
Filmed in 1918, soldiers in the AEF’s Chemical Warfare Service are taking apart a 155mm German shell filled with mustard gas by drilling into it.
The next time you think your job might be dangerous, be thankful that you’re not somewhere in France during World War I literally drilling into a poisonous mustard gas shell.
Syria, in what many characterize as a response to the Middle East’s worse kept military secret, namely a highly capable Israeli nuclear weapons program, seems to have developed a stockpile of chemical weapons and the means to deploy them. And with Syria in chaos, such weapons only make for a potentially deadlier regional situation.
As U.S. Sen. John McCain announces his support for air strikes against Syria, President Barack Obama has reportedly asked military advisors for “preliminary military options.” But with talk mounting of arming the Free Syrian Army, all such chatter must be viewed through the lens of Damascus’s WMD capabilities.
Several weeks ago, the U.S. State Department began coordinating with Syria’s neighbors to organize the handling of Syria’s WMD if the regime collapsed. According to a widely cited report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Syria “has chemical weapons, and most experts believe it has mustard agents and at least ordinary nerve gas. It may have persistent nerve gas as well. It is believed to have cluster warheads for delivering chemical weapons, and it probably has chemical bombs and rocket warheads as well. It may have chemical artillery shells.”
