lidite gas used in Boer war
dwig...@my-deja.com
used by the British at the seige of Ladysmith in
the Boer war in 1899. Did a web search and the
only reference I found was in a journal written
by a Austrailan service man in WW1. Can any one
till me what lidite is? From the references it
sounds like a non-lethal (tear gas ?) of some
sort and was not as nasty as the poison gases
used in WW1(chlorine and phosgen).
Thanks
Dwight Hebert
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Chris Cooksey
>I've seen a reference about a gas called lidite
>used by the British at the seige of Ladysmith in
>the Boer war in 1899. Did a web search and the
>only reference I found was in a journal written
>by a Austrailan service man in WW1. Can any one
>till me what lidite is? From the references it
>sounds like a non-lethal (tear gas ?) of some
>sort and was not as nasty as the poison gases
>used in WW1(chlorine and phosgen).
>
It sounds like lyddite used as a high explosive in WW1. It is picric
acid, 2,4,6-trinitrophenol. So called because experiments on its HE
use were once carried out at the town of Lydd (Sussex).
--
Chris Cooksey
Bruce Hamilton
>I've seen a reference about a gas called lidite
I suspect that your reference may have misspelled
Lyddite, which IIRC, was the british name for
cast picric acid ( 2,4,6 trinitrophenol ) explosive.
It may have fallen out of favour because it could
cause more own goals than enemy casulties. It
produced a stench, but wasn't, AFAIK, a war gas.
A WWW search on Lyddite should find more details.
Bruce Hamilton
Ian Gay
A confusion with Lewisite, perhaps? (But F. & F. say that was developed in
1917).
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Bruce Hamilton
gay_n...@sfu.ca (Ian Gay) writes:
>In article <...>, B.Ham...@irl.cri.nz (Bruce Hamilton) wrote:
>>dwig...@my-deja.com wrote:
>>>I've seen a reference about a gas called lidite
>>I suspect that your reference may have misspelled
>>Lyddite, which IIRC, was the british name for
>>cast picric acid ( 2,4,6 trinitrophenol ) explosive.
...
>A confusion with Lewisite, perhaps?
>( But F. & F. say that was developed in 1917 ).
I thought of that too, but Lewisite wasn't used in the either
the Boer War or WWI and perhaps was an American name,
so I suspect it was Lyddite, a British picric acid- based
explosive ) that being referred to.
It was probably phased out because the picric acid had a
nasty habit of reacting with the metallic shell case over
time to form metallic picrates that were extremely shock
sensitive.
Bruce Hamilton