And like any item of sophisticated military equipment, it requires full training in usage, maintenance and servicing to ensure efficiency and to preserve their full protective and safety critical qualities.Īt first sight a modern gas mask doesn’t look that different from one of nearly 100 years ago. So from then until now gas masks have become as much a part of military personnel equipment as the rifle, flak vest and helmet. The company was also responsible for the manufacture of civilian gas masks for the British population during the Second World War - a manufacturing operation on an almost unprecedented scale, before or since. Military Gas Mask ProductionĪccording to the market leader in military gas mask production - Avon Protection, a subsidiary of Avon Rubber plc, - even though outlawed by the United Nations, these devastating weapons still exist so preparation and training is vital And the relative ease of manufacturing these weapons or sourcing them from dubious vendors means they are increasingly likely to be used by terrorist organisations or stockpiled by rogue states.Īvon has been building and manufacturing respiratory protection equipment, including gas masks, since World War One - nearly 100 years. As this knowledge spreads throughout developing countries, the increased possibility of chemical warfare becomes a harsh reality. The technology needed to produce these chemicals is similar to that used to make plastics, fertilizers, and detergents. Many nations now have a considerable variety of lethal and incapacitating chemical agents and the means to deliver them. While more recently, Sadam Hussein used chemical weapons against both the Iranians and the Kurds in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Mussolini used mustard gas during the Abyssinian war of 1938. During the Sino-Japanese War in the late ‘30s, gas weapons, such as phosgene, chlorine, Lewisite and mustard gas (yellow) were used against Chinese troops. Not surprisingly, the British government believed that some form of poison gas would be used by Nazi Germany on the civilian population during the Second World War and by 1940 they had had issued 38 million gas masks!Įven though chemical warfare was not used by Germany against the British population, there have been more military and civilian chemical assaults during the last century than many people realise.
The predominant chemical agents then used were mustard gas (a blister agent) and chlorine gas (a choking agent) and it is calculated that over 100,000 soldiers died and many thousands more injured and blinded in gas attacks on both sides. Toxic gases were seen as a way to bring an end to the stalemate on the Western Front. Gas masks are not new to the military and were first employed en masse during the First World War to protect soldiers from gas attacks.
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