Talk:White phosphorus munitions/Archives/2006/July

Mortar bombs
Do any of the major powers still use WP in mortar bombs? I'd thought most had moved on to red phosphorous for safety reasons. The media tends to report the use of RP as WP.
 * Yes. Potential RP replacements are still largely experimental and WP devices are still in production. See, for example, http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2006garm/tuesday/elliot.pdf (PDF) where a M929 (WP mortar round) capability is being added as a system upgrade, just a couple of months ago. -- Securiger 03:57, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Merge phosphorus bomb into this article?
I found and started mildly editing that article, but soon discovered this article looking like the proper one for this subject. Since this article is quite rich in content, I doubt there's much of value in the other article? -- Northgrove 23:55, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Organisation a bit messy
I think this should be entitled "Military use' as the use of WP as a smoke screen is not a weapon. This military use page can be broken down further into the different uses - smoke, incendiary, and so on. The reason is that it is confusing to describe WP use in conflicts without distingushing between these two different uses, and where only incendiary usage is against international law.

The bomb article then becomes a merged part of this article.

Herne nz 08:12, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, except: only incendiary usage is against international law. Um, no it isn't. There is a huge amount of propaganda-generated confusion about this. Here is the text of Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Firstly, under Article 1 Definition 1(b), WP is basically excluded from being classed as an incendiary weapon within the meaning of the convention. Secondly, use of incendiary weapons is illegal only in the specific circumstances covered by Article 2. Thirdly -- and this surprises most people who have not read it carefully -- if you look at the definitions in Article 1 before applying them to Article 2, even deliberate targeting of (what would normally be called) civilians can be legal under certain circumstances; specifically, if they constitute a "military objective" (say, an arms factory, or the Ministry of Defence), are not attacked from the air, and "all feasible" efforts are taking to limit the incendiary effects to that target.


 * But I digress. All of this should go in the incendiary weapon article since the only part which is specific to WP is that -- because it is primarily a smoke system -- it is exempted anyway. -- -- Securiger 04:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Fenian fire
I was digging around for early uses of WP and couldn't find a lot on it so could someone provide a source from its use in the 19thC in Ireland? I did find a passing mention here with some interesting suggestions it was commonly used in the Australian Outback by at least the 1880s. (Emperor 01:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC))
 * I'm pretty sure I know where to find a good ref, but it's a book in a library some distance from where I am now, so it might take a while to dig it up. (The book is about the history of Albright and Wilson, in case someone else is able to find it first). -- Securiger 04:31, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism
Some genius added "Al Gore invented White Phosphorous" to the top of the page. I'm removing it. I'd suggest an admin find out who wrote that and ip ban his ass.


 * Anyone can find out who did it by looking at the page history. The first step then is to go to his talk page and add -- followed by  for a second offence, etc. Only repeat offenders get banned by the admins. -- Securiger 04:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)