German Army chemical shells

Mustard Gas was first used by the German Army in 1917. The most employed of all the chemical weapons used during the war by either side. Yperite was so powerful that only small amounts had to be added to high explosive shells to be effective. Once in the soil, mustard gas remains active for several weeks, esspecially in cold weather and forms stiff floating clumps in water that can remain deadly for years. Mustard Gas is still used by some Third-World Dictators, Warlords and Terrorists, especially in the Middle-East. 

Gas also assumed an increasing importance in the Allied armouries, if only to counter the German initiatives. By June 1918, the French had produced substantial quantities of mustard gas with which they inflicted heavy casualties upon the Seventh German Army and the 11th Bavarian Division. The British and later the Americans increased their production requirements, with the British launching their first mustard gas attack in September. By the Armistice, chemical shells comprised an estimated 35 per cent of the French, 25 per cent of the British and 15 per cent of the American ammunition expenditures. Had the war continued, both the British and Americans planned to expand their gas shell programmes considerably. ... 

TNA,WO32/21200, Main HQ 21 Army Group, German Griinring 3 Shell , 16 April 1945. In this context, the term charging refers to the active content inside a chemical weapon, i.e. payload , specifically to the newly discovered nerve agents. 

The German Army came close to the American Army in its stockpile of mustard filled shells, some 400,000 10-cm. mustard-arsenol shells coming to light after the war. No other chemical mortar shells were found. They either may have decided that other fillings were not satisfactory or else they were not able to put other shells into production. ... 

Fig. 2-2. The German 150-mm T-Shell, which mixed xylyl bromide with an explosive charge. Note that the explosive charge was in the front and the chemical agent in the rear compartment. This design is similar to the one proposed in 1862 by John Doughty during the American Civil War (see Figure 3-1). Reprinted from Army War College. German Methods of Offense. Vol 1. In Gas Warfare. Washington, DC War Department 1918 59.

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