Weapons of the First World War

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Research Overview of WW1 Weapons During World War I many new kinds of weapons and technology were invented and improved. Some of these weapons included tanks, chemical and biochemical weapons, grenades, and machine guns. Chemical Warfare was used for the first time on a large scale in World War I. There are two main types of chemical warfare, one affects the surface of the body they come in contact with and the other affects the nervous system. Almost all chemical warfare weapons needed to be inhaled to cause severe damage or death. Chemicals that caused neurological damage acted by blocking the transmission of nerve messages throughout the body, these types of chemicals included tabun, soman, sarin, and VX (“Chemical and Biological Warfare”). Chlorine, hydrogen cyanide, and mustard gas were the most common of the chemicals that affected the body on contact, usually inside the lungs after being inhaled. Phosgene is a choking agent that causes choking by filling the lungs with water. Mustard gas is not a gas but actually tiny droplets of liquid that get dispersed throughout the...

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