W.W. I Gas Shells of the German Army (Almanach Hachette, 1919)

It is often believed that the Germans were the first to use chemical weapons during the Great War, but historians like to point out that they were second to the French in this matter: in August of 1914, French infantry fired tear-gas grenades and in October, the Germans one-upped them with chemical artillery shells during the battle of Neuve Chapelle. However, the Germans are properly credited for being the first of the combatants to use chemical artillery with the most devastating effect. On April 22, 1915, the German Army hurled 520 gas shells at British and Canadian units in Belgium, killing five thousand and incapacitating ten thousand more. Following this historic incident, both sides began producing large amounts of gas shells and, of course, gas masks. The following is a black and white diagram depicting five different German gas artillery shells that were manufactured to be fired from a number of different guns of varying calibers.


http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/pdf/D. Gaz.pdf

 

Hello Everyone,

My first post here so please be gentle!

I thought some of you may like to see my 15cm German gas projectile,it's a ground dug round and still in good condition with only a little pitting.

Regards,
Andy

 

Here is some info about the shell.

Regards,
Andy

 

Hi Andy and welcome !

Thanks for the photo ... is this part of a collection ? what made you decide to get that ?

Annie

 

Some more info on other German gas shells.

Regards,
Andy

 

Hi Annie,

Thanks for the welcome!

As to why I got the gas shell,well, I collect artillery fuzes and thought they looked a little boring just displayed on shelves,so I decided to buy a few projectiles to display some of my fuzes in to add a bit of variety!

Regards,
Andy

 

Hi Andy ...

I found a photo that looked interesting .... but I imagine it would have to be a huge fuze to go into theses !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gasmasked_artillerymen.jpg

Annie

EDIT ... You probably know all this already ... but I found this that maybe of interest !

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-020.htm

 

Hi Andy !

I found this picture ... is this what you collect .... but spelt wrong ??!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/inknimage/2259328903/

Annie

 

Hi Annie,

Yes,those are what I collect.

I'll take some pics of my WW1 examples and post them later.

Regards,
Andy

 

Here are my British and German WW1 fuzes,plus my only Russian example.

Regards,
Andy