Special Paint on the Hood of the World War II Jeep Could Detect Mustard Gas

> "after looking at blue British detector paint in the early 1940s"

It is odd that the article doesn't delve into that point more. In the early stages of the war, actually from mid-1938 onwards, British aircraft and vehicles had 'gas detector' panels which were squares paper soaked in the detection paint and taped-on. It was usually yellowish with one on the wing or the fuselage-spine of aircraft:

https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/attachments/a380efa1d53530a5-j...

Those fell out of use from late 1940 due to the low risk of gas attack and production ended in 1943. Just as the USA was starting production of its M5 paint!

The United States had mustard gas munitions in the European theater in case they needed to retaliate against a first use of chemical weapons by the Germans. In 1943 the Germans launched a successful air raid on the port of Bari, Italy [1]. One of the ships destroyed in this attack was a U.S. freighter carrying mustard gas munitions. Many allied servicemen and Italian civilians were exposed to mustard gas in this attack, and their treatment was impaired because the military command absolutely did not want to reveal the presence of chemical agents to the Germans in fear that the Germans might use that as a justification for using their own chemical weapons.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raid_on_Bari

Reading “The Hollow Years” about France in the 1930’s.

As war seemed more and more likely from the mid-1930's onward, a lot was talked about the possible merger of chemical warfare and new airplane technology.

A particularly haunting line the author cites from a contemporary historian talked about how “a few dozen bombers can spread enough gas to push over all of Paris a tsunami of mustard gas 100 feet high and 50 miles wide”.

Probably not true, but interesting how they merged threats old and new.

The article make it sounds like the Germans were the ones known to use chemical weapons during the WW1. Both sides used it quite extensively, this wasn't just the German. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapons_in_World_War_...

Coming to Battlefield V one presumes.

Doesn’t human eyes and skin serve as a more immediate detector than a color changing star? Surely you would start feeling the effects of a liquid chemical weapon attack before your magic mustard star would have time to change color.