Smoke munitions testing

To link the chemical warfare organizations of Canada and the United States, a joint U.S.-Canadian Advisory Committee was established. Membership of the committee was subsequently broadened to include Great Britain. This three-power committee eliminated much duplication of effort, established uniform test procedures, and accelerated co-operative work on such items as toxic gases, flame throwers, and smoke munitions. 

Phase I testing was carried out from April to September 2003 (Blades et al., 2004). A variety of munition types containing sulfur mustard agent, phosgene, a phosgene-chloropicrin mixture, and a smoke composition were destroyed. 

The MAPS facility, discussed in detail in Appendix D, has been designed to deal with explosively configured chemical munitions and smoke rounds that will be recovered during the Installation Restoration Program (IRP) at APG. APG has been used for testing chemical weapons for more than 70 years, and the types and numbers of items that will be recovered are unknown at this time. 

Apart from the variety of possible agent fills, there are several other reasons why unusual compounds might be present in recovered munitions. Special formulations of agents and industrial chemicals were sometimes used to achieve certain effects. For instance, tin tetrachloride was encountered in phosgene rounds treated in the Porton Down tests of the EDS-1. This chemical was added to facilitate the penetration of gas masks and to produce a smoke that aided in spotting where rounds had landed. Chlorobenzene, possibly used as a solvent or stabilizer, was found in the mustard rounds processed at Porton Down (Table 2-1). Chlorinated rubber was used as a thickener in some mustard formulations. In addition, unusual compounds or sludges may result from chemical reactions such as corrosion and polymerization that may occur among the components over a period of decades. 

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