About 25 years ago, our school had a vet (WW2 or Vietnam, don't remember) come in & talk. He said something about phosphorus grenades (IIRC). Immediately teary eyed, voice crumbled; you could tell it still haunted him. Honestly felt bad for the guy for what he experienced, not to mention what those around him endured
@@joedavidson6556 It was used in WW2. You can also see it used in FURY, where at one point a German soldier comes running out of a building with WP burning through him.
I remember having a Vietnam vet come to our school too to talk about this. He said that he was hit with WP and tried getting in the river but was still on fire so they used mud and sand, packed in his wounds. He said when they got to the hospital and started cutting him open he burst into flames on the OR table. One of the worst things I remember about people coming to the school. The other was a very, very disgusting "movie" about drugs and their effects. To this day I don't like the song "Lean On Me".
Back in 2008 I was in Iraq and was the first Medic on scene for an IED strike. Little did I know at the time it was four 155 rounds (tank rounds) with White Phosphorus that the Hummv drove over. I tried everything to put our guys out. Used all of the water, burn blankets, Fire extinguishers, it wasn't until we buried them that the fire went out.
Fuck dude ive read alot of comments but yours hits me in the nuts could serve but i try to understand for the vets in my family above and below the ground also since schools dont teach thus shit and the rest of my family are odly unpatriotic i have to teach the kids my daughter and my nephews about all this my cousin was a ranger on a striker team and i thought hed seen some messed up shit it took him years to say anything about it and im the only one that knows i did alot of damage to my liver and had to fight him to prevent a suicide attempt to get him to unload that shit im glad your open about it thats the hardest part thank you and your brothers in arms for your sacrifices and welcome home if you didnt get to hear it when you got back
@todydn it takes a lot to deal with it every day. I love the days I don't think about it, but I still have triggers. I find that at least telling others about it helps to prepare them for possible situations overseas. WP wasn't even on my mind at the time because no one talked about it. I look back on that day and try to focus on the guy I saved, and was able to get a medevac for.
@@Ryuus1 dude thats hero shit dont let anyone or anything make you feel different my pops may he rip was a vietnam vet force recon marine im only here today as i was born in 94 because a medic and the boys of the soar flew in against orders to get him and his guys out my buggest goal is to do something impactful for the vets for now as im disabled trying to get back to work i just try to keep my cousin alive and stuff like this gives me lots of motivation to get better so i can make a change if i can the marines wouldnt have me but they cant stop me from helping lol
@@MetalheadAndNerd - Aged containers of urine poured over wood ashes makes some of the components of gun powder... so it does not surprise me that urine extracts can be used for many things. Urea is part of insulation(that burns like hell) and is also made into a strong concentrated liquid injected into diesel exhaust to eliminate nitrogen compounds. Better living through chemistry. Scary shit.
I'm from Lithuania. For those that don't know where it is - we border the Baltic Sea. A sea that countries like Finland, Denmark, Russia, Sweden and Germany also have borders with. Right after WW2 ended, the soviet union didn't know where to throw their overwhelming stockpile of chemical weapons, so they dumped them right in the Baltic sea. Of course, as time went on the bombs started to rust, decay and release whatever was inside out into the water. Another thing you might need to know - we Lithuanians love amber. We have a whole museum here for it, and every year amber jewellery is sold basically everywhere. Another not so fun fact is that Amber is almost undistinguishable from White Phosphorus. Now the WP is consistently washing up on our shores along with amber, that people collect and put in their pockets, hold in their hands etc. Every year we have victims of the stuff setting on fire in their pockets or hands etc. I don't know if we've had people die from it yet, but I wouldn't be surprised.
@@sleep_deprived_stormworkerThese were captured German chemical weapons that were to be buried as a result of the Potsdam Conference, the USA and Great Britain also scuttled their part, so this is not only a “russia moment”
The white smoke from white phosphorus is actually fine particulate of a substance called phosphorus pentoxide. This stuff is incredible as it can rip water out of lots of chemicals. It can even rip water out of sulfuric acid to make sulfur trioxide. It does this and makes phosphoric acid. Needless to say that smoke is also horrifying as well but in its own way.
Yup it makes an awesome smoke screen, one that is effective against most thermal imaging systems as well. It isn't good to inhale or have eyes exposed to for obvious reasons though. 😮
If you want to keep tour products REALLY dry, P2O5 has always been the "go-to" desiccant. Remarkably unpleasant stuff though, and you always place it on a Teflon or ceramic watch glass, since when hydrated, the resulting phosphoric acid is VERY corrosive.
I think I saw the same guy talk over 30 years ago Did he make a joke about taking off his prosthetic ear and playing the piano with it “by ear”? Not making a bad joke, I really remember that…he mixed in humor in his talk The man I saw wore a dark wig, heavy set, and his face was burned
@@MrShysterme it was in 98 if memory serves. He may have made a joke like that; he was remarkably positive all things considered, but I only remember him being in his Marine blues. From what I recall, I believe he was bald
The 70's TV show mash did an episode where a soldier had W.P. in a leg wound and to get them out they submerged him in water and turned off the lights to see them and remove them from his leg. Until now I didn't realize how accurate that was.
In nursing school, I wrote a paper on phossy jaw (Phosphorus Necrosis of the Jaw) and learned about sequestrum. That's when an area of bone dies and breaks off becoming loose inside the tissue. It gave me nightmares for a few nights.
Medical care involves a certain amount of dispassionate necessity when dealing with the live and cognisant jumble of meat that is us. . And at the same time is an extreme amount of compassionate empathy to be able to push through and give care and solace at it's most immediate point of need. Not everyone can remove themselves entirely from the extreme horrors that may face you then but bless their bravery for doing it anyway. These are the people that prove we as a species are still worth believing in.
a fire that can't be put out because it re-ignites later then when you finally figure out how to stop the fire you still die because it absorbs thru your skin/lungs(as vapor) and replaces all the calcium in your bones so they glow in the dark as little as 55 mg can be fatal
When used in populated areas, shot at civilians, or intended to cause burns or toxicity, it is a war crime. The only legal way to use it is as a smokescreen
That story of Razia is one of the worst and terrifying, gruesome things I have ever heard. That is honestly so sad that she and her family had to endure such horror.
That's US and Isreal who did that? I listen to a lot of true crime. But I. Wow. I guess I typically listen to just Luke murders and serial killers versus country. Fucking is it normal to burn kids up and shoot and first aid trying to help? I don't see that shit in any war hero action figure movie?
Not a lot of things make me queezy, or get under my skin. I like learning about this stuff, because they don't teach the horrors of war in the US. They don't teach that we're sometimes the bad guys. But unless we make a change and start to teach our children about these monstrous actions, they will just continue. I know it will never be perfect, but god damn. I just don't understand how people can see this happen and not feel any guilt or sympathy. I know war does intense things to peoples minds, but this is why it needs to stop. God. My heart hurts so badly for her. I had my second child a year ago, and I just can't. I can't imagine that pain. I don't want to.
I saw a US vet that had hit in Vietnam by one of these grenades. He dove into water, but every time he came back up he would reignite. It's amazing he survived.
My grandpa got a WP or napalm burn on his calf in Vietnam during a firefight (he just remembers it sticking), and had to shove his leg into the mud to prevent it from burning off. He got out of Vietnam with 7 wounds, 4 of which were gunshots, 1 burn, and 2 shrapnel impacts. He walked with a very slight, almost unnoticeable limp, afterwards. He told my brother and I that he had “done enough fighting for 10 generations”, and didn’t want anyone in our family signing up to go to war. He endured some of the horrors of WP, seeing child soldiers set on fire after grenades were launched into the trees, smoldering adolescent corpses, burnt women and even male combatants torched by the flame. It’s been years since he passed, but here’s a paraphrased quote from the late Sergeant Major. “They looked like zombies, as they stumbled, and burnt with the relentlessness of a prank candle. The sparks coming off their bodies reminded me of fireworks. With that .30, I chopped them down as they emerged from the bush, putting many out of their misery. Hearing someone scream as their lungs bubbled up, seeing the bloody foam shoot from their mouth as the agony continued will haunt me forever, and I can only pray that another draft never happens for you boys.” He volunteered to sign up at 16 or 17, illegally. He spent his entire life making up for the sins he committed and atrocities he witnessed in Vietnam. I hope his soul got the rest he deserved, because no one should face such horrors.
It's good he understood what he had been a part of. So, so many Americans just go "thank them for their service", when in fact those soldiers have been invading forces killing civilians en masse. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq - all illegitimate invasions or proxy wars.
@@s.alpinus8395DON'T YOU DARE ATTEMPT TO ATTACH BLAME TO THE SOLDIERS. THE RESPONSIBILITY RESTS UPON THE SHOULDERS OF THOSE WHO PUT THEM THERE AND *YES* WE ARE FOREVER GRATEFUL AND THANK THEM FOR THEIR SERVICE! 🇺🇸
Prior Army EOD tech here (Bomb squad) WP is commonly labeled as “bursting smoke”. When fired from mortars are artillery shells when it bursts it creates a very quick smoke screen. The smoke canisters on armored vehicles fire bursting smoke canisters creating a thick smoke screen in the matter of a couple seconds. I remember doing some demo on old WP rockets. When blew them up into the air to make sure all of the WP burns away. When we went back down to check to see if everything was destroyed I noticed my boot was smoking. I had stepped on a small piece of WP and exposed it to air and it had started to smolder on my sole. Fortunately I was able to cover it back up to extinguish the flame but it definitely got the heart pumping for a few seconds…Fun times.
But you never forget how it broke up the attack and saved your ass and the platoons...willypeet. wanna talk about napalm strikes from the perspective of troops that needed them? Next time maybe, out.
First time I'd heard of white phosphorous was in Spec Ops: The Line and the sequence is very haunting and very much embedded in my mind that it was a war crime level substance. Kinda effed up to find out its use isn't even a war crime and that it's still being regularly used by militaries in ways that affect and burn civilians, and frankly some of those stories told in this will probably haunt me every time its name comes up.
The fucked thing is, those people in the game GOT OFF EASY. They just burned up right then and there, and didn't have to live in agony for days on end until death.
@@MetalheadAndNerdNow technically you can't fire WP munitions into people or structures people are in. But...most smoke generation devices contain some amount of white phosphorus. So concentrated smoke grenade byproduct is quite toxic.
I’ve had a near death experience on a jet ski. Uncle died, cousin lost an eye and I was unconscious under water for 2 mins before coming up. All I can say is. Death is very very welcomed when suffering has reached a stand point. Such as trying to hold your breath. Felt like the gravity of earth forced my mouth open and lungs to suck water in. As going, all I thought was “f*ck I’m dying here, right now.” Slight panic then comfortability.
I studied white phosphorus to put it into my dungeons and dragons game. I described what it was doing to people as a result of a terrorist attack in the game and my players said it was the most disturbing thing they could recall ever hearing.
When I was in the Air Force my first duty location was at Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson, AZ. There I was a weapons loader and weapons systems maintenance for the A-10 Warthog. We loaded lots and lots of white phosphorus rockets. Anytime we were loading white phosphorus rockets the ammo trailer, trailer that would bring us bombs, rockets, and other munitions, would have a large ammo can full of water on the front of the trailer for us to submerge our arms in if any got onto us. We were also told to keep them submerged and use the knife in our tool boxes to dig it out of the affected arm and/or other body parts. Making 100% sure not to remove the body part from the water till A. we get to the hospital or B. you are 100% certain you got everything off.
This gets the yikes award. 😮 the first step is smothering and digging bulk wp out. The next step is chemical removal, iodine works great for this. Makes HI dnd phosphoric acid that can be washed away. ❤
My old therapist served in the Falkland Wars, I remember him telling me that in training they were taught how to use a knife to dig out chunks of White Phosphorus from their flesh, as of course if some is left in it can reignite when the medics are trying to fix you up. Disgusting stuff.
in the Army they gave us small pieces of bandage wit copper sulfate (1995) to extinguish the phosphorus. but you could not use more than 1dm2 otherwise you died of that. But if you see once how it looks when only one phosphorus grenade explodes, you know it was all bullshit...
Burn debridement is one of the most painful medical treatments people can undergo. And it leaves extensive open wounds that are easily infected. What a horror show.
Went through burn debridement for a week without pain medication. When I complained a little, the male nurse said that some people just couldn't endure a little pain.
I read about a story in WW2 during Operation Overlord, when a British soldier became trapped in barred wire following a German ambush. During the ambush, the soldier had a White Phosphorus Grenade hanging on his field webbing. A bullet from a German machine gun hit the grenade, setting it off and causing the soldier to burn from the grenade while trapped in the wire. His surviving squadies swore off carrying Phosphorus grenades in their own webbings after seeing this.
Dead god! This is horrific! I’ve been a first responder for years, not much can make me squirm, but the description of the baby and then the child sure did. (Not even because they were kids, but of the actual description!)
@@Silentgrace11 Agent orange is like radiation. It's the "gift" that keeps on giving. It just doesn't leave the body. And given the rate of miscarriages and birth defects, it can pass on to the child. Even if it seems perfectly healthy, they probably have a high risk of cancer.
Phosphorus Grenades were issued to us in Vietnam. I saw what the outcome of using them was. I had to cut a slab of meat off my buddy’s left arm when he got splashed by it. Of all the Horrific things I saw in Three Tours, WP and some Booby Traps gave me the Horrors. WP has to be the nastiest thing ever issued and Deployed in Warfare. It is still available in Grenades to this day! WHY?
Sorry to hear that I can imagine something like that can stay with you for a long time. Personally I think White Phosphorus should be a band munition as I'd say that tenically it's a chemical weapon. They were use in Afghanistan but I never witnessed us ever using them. 🇬🇧
I'll tell you why. Because we humans are animals that do terrible, horrible things to each other. People who imagine some future utopia wherein there is never any war are delusional. There will always be war, and people will always try to win no matter the cost. Human decency is a, "first world problem," so to speak. As soon as we're fighting for our lives, it is forgotten about.
Because politician are almost without question, sadistic psychopaths. Its a miracle the concept of a war crime exists at all. Since our leaders enjoy inflicting suffering.
I used to know a security guard from Australia who was in the special forces and said that he was at the battle of Fallujah and saw American planes drop white phosphorus on the city. He said he thought they were dropping smoke to cover the assault that his team was gearing up for. He also said that his team was sent into the city some time later to clear out any remaining insurgents. He didn’t describe the scene but he said while cold sober that since that day he would now rather fight the American army than fight with it. He got out of the armed forces as soon as he could.
Australia doesn't want any smoke with America! Remember how Australia started as a country? Oh yeah Prison colony for EU! Also if it wasn't for America Australia wouldn't exist!
I love the topics you choose to tackle, the critical points that get made on this channel are professionally subtle and well evidenced and posed, really solid work from Simon and whoever wrote the script as always!
I have a very strong belief that fire is the most horrific way to die. Because fire is never fast, it will burn and use the body fats to keep burning. Death by fire often comes from asphyxiation or smoke inhalation. A few instances have a victim pass out due to the high temperature. The survivors are generally always in pain. For many years. The reconstruction of their bodies may take a decade or longer. So when you start using something that functions like WP it just makes the entire thing far worse. And the sad part about this all is that incendiary munitions won't go out of military use. And no international law will ever be enough to stop some from using it.
My father, who was a Korean War veteran, had burn scars on his chest which he said were from a white phosphorus grenade. I never got the whole story so I don't know if it was a US or a Chinese grenade. BTW, because soldiers are crude and irreverent, during my time in the service, we often referred to it as "wooly peter" instead of willie pete.
@@theassasinboy13 I can absolutely assure you that one’s proclivity to have a “level” of crudeness isn’t affected by nationality. Wake up and stop taking pride in being godless.
Thank you for educating with compassion. I believe this production is the best I’ve yet seen from your channel. High marks considering the trove of great work to be found throughout.
We had some WP shells on the Spruance class I was on. They told us that if we dropped one of the shells that it will start smoking and sizzling, and all we could do was somehow get it off the ship. We had a thin little canister to put it in that would give us 4 minutes to get an 85 lb shell up 3 decks of straight up ladders and onto the 01 level and run and throw it off the side of the ship. If we didn't make it, it would burn right through every deck below and right through the bottom of the ship. Thankfully it never happened but we had a plan that 4 of the strongest men would run up the ladder and instead of one man trying to climb 3 ladders with an 85 lb shell in his arms we would hand it off to the man up the next level and he would then hand it off to the man above him etc until it was off the ship. We even practiced it with other shells that weren't so volatile. Gotta be ready. 😅😂
When my drill sergeant fought in Vietnam they threw white phosphorus grenades into a VC trench position. When my drill sergeant's unit advanced my drill sergeant ran up to the trench to see what his white phosphorous grenade did to the VC. The WP burnt through the top of the VC's head causing smoke to come out of the VC's nose and mouth and there was a weird whistling and clicking noise coming from the VC's nose. I was told this story in 1988 and my drill sergeant fought in 1968 my drill sergeant told me whenever heard a tea post whistling he is reminded of that day.
I was in Afghanistan in 2009, phosphorus ammuntion is trully the stuff of nightmares. We never had any to use, but the enemy sure did and will never forget seeing what it can do. Great video by the way.
I remember listening to an account from a Marine who fought in Fallujah in 2007 and he said white phosphorus had been dropped through a U.S. artillery strike without informing the Marines. (Read More) He said none of the Marines were hit by the artillery, but when they went through to clear the area and secure the sector, he saw firsthand what WP does to human beings. In his own words (paraphrased based on memory), he said it looked like someone had dumped a huge vat of acid on every person before baking them in an oven, and they were "randomly melted through" with smoke billowing through their clothes and wounds. Flesh, muscle, bone, you could see everything at random intervals on every person. He said he and a Lance Corporal, basically his battle buddy, were told to secure an alleyway and make sure it was clear, but it horrified them so much that they turned back, ran around the corner, dawdled for a few minutes trying not to throw up, then lied and reported they'd secured the alleyway. He said they were later told the U.S. was "trying out a new compound" in their artillery shells, but a platoon commander who made a hobby of studying weapons and warfare technologies from different parts of history suspected very heavily it was white phosphorus, and the explanation of "a new compound" was just a way of covering the young Marines' asses if any were questioned by the press. The Marine stated in later years he did a bit of research on his own to see the effects of white phosphorus, and sure enough, what he could find seemed to match what he and the other Marines saw in Fallujah. He mentioned it still gives him nightmares.
@@OxTheHerdzz😂 I shake n baked plenty of Taliban in Kunar prov and on the Pak border as a former Artilleryman... shame your coward ass wasn't there... Simp on though lefty
I'm so glad you discussed the horrors in Gaza. It's shocking to think how much worse things have gotten in the 9 months since this video was published.
Poor child. I've had to endure one skin graft. I could not imagine being a child (or seeing a child) endure such a painful process repeatedly. Hopefully, someone will hear her story and help. Bless, Razia and her father, may they find the help they need. It disgusts me that humans do this to each other.
@@derekstein6193 Or some crazy Wagner skinhead. They strike me as a very "ritualistic" bunch like the SS was and would probably dabble in something like this.
@@nouhorni3229 I didn't say they ACTUALLY do it lol. Just that they've been known to have some deranged individuals in their ranks after their mass prison recruitments.
everyone and their mom knows what wp is and what is really used for the fact that its use is not banned shows that those in power dont care about foreign civilians its only until they themselves feel the effects for such a weapon will they change their minds
I dont know how you put out such quality content so regularly between all your shows, Simon. I've been watching you for at least 3 or 4 years now, and it still amazes me. Also, from a fellow beard enthusiast, congratulations. Keep it going!
I was in a 105 outfit in Vietnam. We used WP for "Marking Missions." These were air bursts that allowed troops on the ground to get their bearings as they were usually in a jungle environment. I came close to being fried by WP myself. I was painting a sign for the battery when the gun behind me had an in muzzle burst. Me and the guys pulling maintenance on our gun didn't get a drop on us. A miracle. I noticed a blister on the sign and dabbed it with my finger and wound up with a piece of WP sizzling on my finger tip. The next day the same thing happened. I'll never forget seeing a large pink flaming ball roaring down the road next to our gun. In such cases the rounds from that lot are gathered up and disposed of. As far as I know we never used WP as an anti-personnel weapon. It was strictly used for orienting troops on the ground or to provide smoke.
If it is so dangerous - even to the people firing the stuff - why isn't something else used for those marking and smoking uses? I realize that you probably can't answer that, it' just what's so baffling to me reading your story. Like, military scientist are usually smart enough to invent something different for those uses, that doesn't also melt people alive. Why should it be allowed to use something that can also be used to commit horrific war crimes?
@@Treepwastaken it is insanely rare that a round detonates in a mortar system or artillery cannon. If it does, HE, WP, Illum, etc., it's a catastrophic weapons failure.
Idk how as a parent you can watch your child suffer that much. (Referring to the story of Razia) Honestly at that point i think death would be more merciful. God forgive me but that's how i feel after listening to what she went thru. That sounded like h'll for both her and her father. I hope she's doing OK....
Each one of us has to draw a line... define a point at which we'd be so damaged and incapable of healing that to go on would be cruelty, itself. At that point, or beyond it, then death is the kinder fate. It sucks, but it's life and death literally... AND there are fates worse than dying. ;o)
I understand your sentiment, but I doubt Razia‘s parents felt the same way as most of them would be deeply religious in her area, and they would truly and completely consider it. God‘s will, whether their children lived or died.. having this level of faith is certainly a legendary and the perceived placebo power of belief can, and does perform miracles. In this case, life found a way when all of the odds were against life itself-- this is exactly what war really looks like. Stay safe and blessed out there in the world 🌎 ❤
Are we talking about when they stopped a genocide? And fought against combatants not only hiding in civilian areas but also using indiscriminate munitions?
As a person who has worked in a phosphate mine, and my dad made a career there. I wonder how many chickens I fed, Coca Cola I made, and chemical weapons we unintentionally made
The problem with trying to charge the US and Russia with war crimes is that they do not acknowledge the Haag war crime tribunals jurisdiction. So even if it were fully classified as a war crime the tribunal have no way to charge the US or Russia for it.
I had no idea Shake and Bakes were a war crime. During artillery training we did a lot of Shake and Bake fire missions, and this was years after the battle of Fallujah.
@@danielpeters2282 only to the US military 🤦🏻♂️ ..and it's client states.😫 The rest of the planet knows this is chemical warfare and can be replied to in kind😳😬 ....be sure that someone will deploy much nastier chemicals in retaliation eventually, it's damn near a guarantee
I served 2008-2014 as a mortarman and was told shake and bakes were illegal. However I quickly realized there was a bit of a loophole: WP is used as marker and we aim where the WP hit so we’re still doing a “shake and bake” even if we didn’t call it that.
Everything about Iraq was a war crime, the people in the Bush administration only waited for an excuse to invade Iraq so they blew up the WTC and lied about WMDs...... what you don't think it's a strange that both times people tried to blow up the WTC a Bush was president? Those guys who so much evil & murder around the world world for wealth & power wouldn't do it here too? Of course they would.
A shiver runs through the body from stories about this devilish weapon. It is difficult to imagine the torment experienced by the poor people who had to deal with white phosphorus. This weapon is the apogee of human cruelty towards others and it seems to me that it should be prohibited everywhere and always.😬
Nasty stuff. I remember being absolutely gobsmacked when the unit armorer (US Army) described just HOW nasty. “Having this shyt somehow accidentally cook off is the ultimate arms room nightmare. In training, we were told to run like hell if it happens.”
Despite how horrific willie pete actually is world militaries are still going to use it. They'll swear it's for masking and making smokescreens but there are other ways to do that that doesn't have to use a chemical weapon that's melts bodies. One of the best depictions of willie pete in fiction is from Spec Ops: The Line. You play as the villian, though you don't know it, but there is a moment where you basically use WP to murder a bunch of civilians. While only being fiction it really shows the horror of just how dangerous WP actually is.
I've been terrified of white phosphorus since that scene in We Were Soldiers. That dudes skin fell off like it was clothing being removed. Seemed very accurate. Fucking nightmare fuel.
I think a very effective example of the horror of white phosphorus comes from the game "Spec-ops: The Line". Brutal scene, both physically, and emotionally speaking.
We met a man at a local event we went to as part of our homeschooling.. I forget his name but can still picture him clearly. he served in Vietnam & was hit with a WP grenade.. he had 6.5 fingers between both hands, lost half his face including his eye, ear & nose.. he said he spent weeks in hospital with his insides just continuing to burn.. it was horrible. Pain was excruciating. Then his wife left him while he was still in hospital bcs he was so disfigured. At the end of the talk, he played a few pieces on the piano for us and I marveled at how well he could play in spite of missing so many fingers..
My Dad was a Korean War Marine in the infantry. He spent most of his time in a bunker on hill 884 after things were pretty much stalemated. At one point he was half expecting to be attacked, and he had rigged a WP charge with wires back to the bunker so he could set it off if he saw an attack coming. He never had to use it.
I still think that who ever thought of using it in warfare should just straight up be put on trial for war crimes, along with anyone who authorizes its use and uses it. Its just so horrific that I dont care if it possibly has tactical advantages, it SHOULD NOT be used.
the idea of war crimes is laughable. anyone can and will use anything to advance there objectives and only the winner will decide who committed them, so lets drop the whole charade
One of my best friend's father served in Viet Nam in the USMC and he was on a ship that had an accident with some white phosphorous. He said there was a crewmate that was trying to clean up and picked up a jagged piece of meta that a bit of phosphorous on the tip and when bent back to throw it off the ship, in kind of a football pass motion, it barely touched his arm just below the elbow and he ended up throwing that entire part of his arm in the water alone with the piece of metal. His arm came apart that quickly.
@@TravellingLampever heard the reports from the guy at nagasaki he said he tried to help a lady if the ground and the skin came off her arms like gloves nucleation of protiens is crazy
I had a white phosphorus rocket almost hit me in Afghanistan in 2013. There’s actually a picture of me somewhere in an article trying to put the fire out. That was before I knew it was WP. When I noticed the stripe on intact tail piece I noped right the fuck out of there.
Thank you for this video. Maybe it can alert more people to this horrific chemical and cause more people to protest against the use of it in war. But, I'm not hopeful.
- This is your fault, goddammit! - Stop right there, Lugo! - But it is! He wouldn't listen! - We didn't have a choise! - He turned us into fucking killers!
White phosphorus appears sometimes in the movies. In the movie "Platoon" an American soldier is hit with white phosphorus while they're attacking a bunker, and another American soldier digs it out with a knife. I think the Americans might have used white phosphorus to clear a hiding place when the Americans burn down that village. It also occurred in the movie "Fury". German soldiers are flushed out by white phosphorus and they have white phosphorus on them. An American soldier says, "let them burn", but an American soldier humanely kills they with a .50 cal. machine gun. I don't remember the name of the movie, but there is a movie about an Israeli intelligence unit that uses white phosphorus to kill a room full of Arab intelligence operators. The Israelis said they used the white phosphorus to burn all the oxygen out of the air, suffocating the Arabs. It's been a long time since I saw that movie. ..... White phosphorus is very useful to put up a smoke screen, but as long as we have it some dumb private is going to use it to clear out a bunker or a room.
In civilian use, there is actually an update that should provide some glimpse of hope. I used to trade WP for a research chemicals company to fit tiny amounts in specially designed crucibles. These crucibles would go into trace oxygen analyzers that would ensure oxygen-free supply of nitrogen to semiconductor process tools. Starting 2014, a ban of trading WP hit us. Not even milligrammes of WP were allowed to be traded and eventually we had to remove the chemical from our offerings altogether. In case chemical companies had processed that used WP, they were asked to immediately look for replenishment processes and shut the incumbent process down ASAP. Commercially, WP was dead and replaced with other phosphorus compounds and WP as such no longer to be commercially produced. Let's all hope that it is the case and supplies will run out ASAP. I am not sure, however, on what the military does here. They have their own sources and will run their own agenda... 😊
Crazy thing is it is a war crime to use it directly on human targets... But it can be used to mark targets to the point that many officers are trained to shout "keep marking the target" if there's a chance that war reporters are in the area so they don't get brought up on war crimes when using WP And honestly im not surprised the US has blocked motions to get it banned.the US military still usesva lot of weapons that other countries consider illegal including cluster munitions with more than 5 sub munitions snd artillery launched mines
Well, good f***in' luck legislating warfare to accomplish a g** d*** thing other than punishing the people who abide said "rules". The end of WWII was the only time in history that war criminals were sought out and actually brought to any justice, and even then, a LOT of them (more than faced justice) escape punishment, even with the vast majority of the world motivated to do so. The problem with trying to regulate any "rules of engagement" is that this is WAR you're talking about. It's a crime in and of itself, industrialized murder no matter how you try to define it. People are fighting for their lives, and that comes with desperation. Criminals don't give a sh*t about your rules, so only the decent people involved get limits, and limits in warfare are inherently WEAKNESS... period. Not once in all of human history has anyone won the war by dying for his country. He won it by making OTHER PEOPLE die for theirs... SO getting all gung-ho about going off to war and declaring war and finding a shooting solution isn't as nice or technical or a fancy affair. It's an undignified brawl to the deaths of hundreds and/or thousands... millions... more... AND then there's the public demands for more retribution... more revenge... a non-stop cycle... from whatabout-ism to generational divides and all the excuses used to justify the next atrocity. When YOUR ass is on the line, you'll be damnably thankful the weapon or countermeasure works, and not too picky about what kind of hell is getting rained down on "the enemy" that's hellbent to kill you... maim you... drag you down some gods-awful pit and torture you... or worse. ;o)
The US deliberately fired WP into basements in Fallujah and elsewhere as a tactic to avoid their troops clearing buildings and risking themselves. Only Channel 4 news showed the piles of glowing civilian corpses resulting from this war crime, but some WP use on civilians were also later revealed in Julian Assange's Wikileaks of US/UK war crimes. No wonder he's held as a political prisoner in the west.
Most weapons that are banned are weapons that are relatively impractical, but cause unnecessary suffering. For example gas killed very few people in WW1 compared to artillery and machine guns, but since gasses like Chlorine can cause permanent blindness.
@@NearQuasar That's the sad aspect of things... the horrific stuff that kills people very well isn't banned. The gnarly stuff which kills people not as well, but in rather gnarly ways tends to be banned or simply falls out of use when people find some better way to deliver painful death to their designated enemies but with far less risk to themselves. For instance, flamethrowers were _never_ banned by the Geneva Convention. Neither were triangular-profile bayonets. Almost nobody uses flamethrowers anymore because we developed better ways of delivering heat to the enemy, like incendiary rockets, which provide a human barbecue on demand but _without_ risking one of your own lads' life by sending him forward with a 70-lb Super Soaker designed in hell strapped to his back. Likewise, triangular bayonets are not common in armies anymore because bayonets are no longer effective casualty-causing agents on the battlefield, _and_ because some clever people figured out the following about a hundred years ago: 1. In an age of repeating rifles and machine guns, the bayonet is pretty much useless as a weapon for incapacitating enemy combatants. 2. Soldiers still need knives--occasionally for opening up people wearing the wrong colours, but more often for opening up packages, cutting through wire, etc. 3. Soldiers are already carrying enough stuff--why load them down with a bayonet _and_ a utility knife when you can have the bayonet double as their utility knife (or vice versa). Triangular bayonets are only good for poking holes in people. Knives are useful for cutting and poking holes in a variety of things besides people. The thought behind making triangular bayonets was _not_ an increase in wounding potential as much as a desire to make a stabbing implement that was cheap to make and robust (not as likely to snap or break in the field under normal, or even heavy use). It's cheaper and easier to make a strong pointed spike than to make a knife blade which is rigid and strong enough to withstand repeated use as a thrusting and stabbing implement. Even before the bayonet was invented, there were various examples of stabbing or thrusting weapons designed with triangular or rhomboid blades, such as stilettos and some rapiers. The thought behind these was again to make weapons purely optimised for stabbing over cutting.
As someone who lives near the Baltic sea, ive heard some secondhand stories of yellow phosphorous(thats was used in ww2 i believe) washing up on the beaches and people picking it up thinking it's amber. It's a bit creepy to think about that a rock you pick up at a beach might cause burns.
As someone who's had 2nd and 3rd degree burns from WP before, I can say first hand that the burns hurt worse than anything that you could ever imagine and it truly will vaporize your skin quickly.
@@InitialFailurecome back when you have experience with WP burns. I lived the nightmare, you haven't. Come back when you've had 60% of your hand burned off like I did. It burns hotter than almost anything and that's enough to vaporize many things, including skin and hair. Don't believe me? View my post in the community section on my page showing the burns. Thankfully (or not), people with actual experience are here to show what it's really like to those who know nothing about it....
When I was in the Army in the 80s and 90s, we were trained on phosphorous weapons, both deployment and defense. When asked if these were chemical weapons banned by the Geneva Conventions, trainers said that no, it is still legal. Mentally, it blew me away. My personal squad weapon was an M203 rifle/grenade launcher. We had phosphorous rounds, but fortunately I never used them.
@kitkat47chrysalis95 I know what an M203 is. I'm asking what specific round for that weapon system is WP? What is the nomenclature of the WP projectile, not the system. I'm not aware of any WP 203 rounds that weren't XM or experimental.
Back in the 80s we had WP grenades in our ASPs and even when we went out in field support. We were advised the only authorized use of these were to destroy disabled or soon to be captured assets as the grenade would burn through the engine block. In AIT we were given a live demonstration of how this works on a decommissioned Jeep, it burned completely through the hood and engine block and fell to the ground still smoking. It saddens me that we would resort to such heinous actions as using this as a weapon.
Thats thermite white phosphorus is hot but not melting iron in a few seconds hot if it was they would use it in place of thermite for welding rail tracks together as its easier to make and cheaper and not quite as explosive if used improperly thermite grenades dont explode they burn and have been used since ww2 for equipment destruction a grenade in the breach of a tank gun or artilery piece made it worthles and infixable thats where throwing a grenade down the barrel of a tank comes from sonehow it got jacked to be a frag wich honestly unless it managed to get in the tank when the breach is open or if there was a explosive shell loaded it wouldnt even damage the tank
Imagine the thought process though.. "How to create a stone that turns other metals into gold.... hmm.. hard challenge.. i know! Ill piss in cup and boil it! Then ill light the residue on fire! Surely that must be the way to go!"
14:20 The loophole is ridiculous! By this rule, you could use *mustard gas* as a "smokescreen". Heck, you can use *everything* as a "smokescreen". It isn't very good at it, but I'm using [insert deadly toxin] as a smokescreen. Not to *harm* anyone, that isn't its' purpose! /s
What kind of sociopaths are in charge that they can know what this stuff does and just let it carry on existing? I mean, I just answered my own question but it still horrifies me.
@@eadweard.Oh yeah, fuck this guy who thinks that we shouldn't be using a pointlessly cruel, toxic material to kill each other. I for one think that we should find more painful ways to kill civilians. What kind of brainrot has people going around online and *attacking* people for suggesting that we don't cause needless suffering?
@@BruceBoydeWell I'm sceptical that comments like his will be effective in reducing human suffering - and I harbour just the slightest of suspicions that they are more intended to make the person making them appear morally righteous.
@@eadweard. That's better. I can't say I entirely disagree with you, but I would counter that they may have just learned about white phosphorus weapons and their continued use. The response I'd expect is one of disgust, and every new person who learns about it is a person who might spread the word and in a perhaps eventually pressure policymakers. There's a solid argument that the U.S.' eventual disengagement from Vietnam was due to increasing public awareness (whether you think that was a good or bad thing). I don't really have faith in that happening, but hey. Or maybe they do just want a few upvotes.
Well played for covering these facts before 7th October. It was truly horrifying at the time circa 2008. A fact that those demons have been doing this horrific stuff for decades.
Razia im so sorry .. thank you for sharing Razia's story.. im crying .. it really impacted me iv seen videos of it being used in gaza recently and very clearly in the past week the telltale glow of it falling on the city is undeniable
About 25 years ago, our school had a vet (WW2 or Vietnam, don't remember) come in & talk. He said something about phosphorus grenades (IIRC). Immediately teary eyed, voice crumbled; you could tell it still haunted him. Honestly felt bad for the guy for what he experienced, not to mention what those around him endured
I kno they had Willy Pete’s in Vietnam. Unsure about WW2 but I thought they had them as well.
@@joedavidson6556 It was used in WW2. You can also see it used in FURY, where at one point a German soldier comes running out of a building with WP burning through him.
@@ATruckCampbell Yea I thought so but I wasn’t 100% sure on that.
I remember having a Vietnam vet come to our school too to talk about this. He said that he was hit with WP and tried getting in the river but was still on fire so they used mud and sand, packed in his wounds. He said when they got to the hospital and started cutting him open he burst into flames on the OR table. One of the worst things I remember about people coming to the school. The other was a very, very disgusting "movie" about drugs and their effects. To this day I don't like the song "Lean On Me".
white phosphorus shells. They would use it during night attacks.. I'm not going to redescribe what he told me but its horrific.
Back in 2008 I was in Iraq and was the first Medic on scene for an IED strike. Little did I know at the time it was four 155 rounds (tank rounds) with White Phosphorus that the Hummv drove over. I tried everything to put our guys out. Used all of the water, burn blankets, Fire extinguishers, it wasn't until we buried them that the fire went out.
Fuck dude ive read alot of comments but yours hits me in the nuts could serve but i try to understand for the vets in my family above and below the ground also since schools dont teach thus shit and the rest of my family are odly unpatriotic i have to teach the kids my daughter and my nephews about all this my cousin was a ranger on a striker team and i thought hed seen some messed up shit it took him years to say anything about it and im the only one that knows i did alot of damage to my liver and had to fight him to prevent a suicide attempt to get him to unload that shit im glad your open about it thats the hardest part thank you and your brothers in arms for your sacrifices and welcome home if you didnt get to hear it when you got back
@todydn it takes a lot to deal with it every day. I love the days I don't think about it, but I still have triggers. I find that at least telling others about it helps to prepare them for possible situations overseas. WP wasn't even on my mind at the time because no one talked about it. I look back on that day and try to focus on the guy I saved, and was able to get a medevac for.
@@Ryuus1 dude thats hero shit dont let anyone or anything make you feel different my pops may he rip was a vietnam vet force recon marine im only here today as i was born in 94 because a medic and the boys of the soar flew in against orders to get him and his guys out my buggest goal is to do something impactful for the vets for now as im disabled trying to get back to work i just try to keep my cousin alive and stuff like this gives me lots of motivation to get better so i can make a change if i can the marines wouldnt have me but they cant stop me from helping lol
@@Ryuus1 also i bet his family is realy greatful do you have contact with him by chance
@@todydn no, he wasn't from my unit. So all I had was his last name
Side note: Imagine being the guy who boiled a vat of piss until it started to glow? He must have been like "Yoooooooo whuut?"
Hated by his neighbors and still no gold.
@@MetalheadAndNerd Damn
Thanks, you two. I needed that bit of levity after this one!
@@MetalheadAndNerd - Aged containers of urine poured over wood ashes makes some of the components of gun powder... so it does not surprise me that urine extracts can be used for many things. Urea is part of insulation(that burns like hell) and is also made into a strong concentrated liquid injected into diesel exhaust to eliminate nitrogen compounds. Better living through chemistry. Scary shit.
"Yooooooo whut?" Pretty much sums up most scientific research in the Middle ages.
I'm from Lithuania. For those that don't know where it is - we border the Baltic Sea. A sea that countries like Finland, Denmark, Russia, Sweden and Germany also have borders with. Right after WW2 ended, the soviet union didn't know where to throw their overwhelming stockpile of chemical weapons, so they dumped them right in the Baltic sea. Of course, as time went on the bombs started to rust, decay and release whatever was inside out into the water. Another thing you might need to know - we Lithuanians love amber. We have a whole museum here for it, and every year amber jewellery is sold basically everywhere. Another not so fun fact is that Amber is almost undistinguishable from White Phosphorus. Now the WP is consistently washing up on our shores along with amber, that people collect and put in their pockets, hold in their hands etc. Every year we have victims of the stuff setting on fire in their pockets or hands etc. I don't know if we've had people die from it yet, but I wouldn't be surprised.
That's hectic
russia moment
@@sleep_deprived_stormworkerThese were captured German chemical weapons that were to be buried as a result of the Potsdam Conference, the USA and Great Britain also scuttled their part, so this is not only a “russia moment”
Does it wash up on the beeches at nida
Jesus Christ.. that's good to know
The white smoke from white phosphorus is actually fine particulate of a substance called phosphorus pentoxide. This stuff is incredible as it can rip water out of lots of chemicals. It can even rip water out of sulfuric acid to make sulfur trioxide. It does this and makes phosphoric acid. Needless to say that smoke is also horrifying as well but in its own way.
Well that's reassuring!!😊
Never thought about what the smoke was. Talk about useful
Yup it makes an awesome smoke screen, one that is effective against most thermal imaging systems as well. It isn't good to inhale or have eyes exposed to for obvious reasons though. 😮
If you want to keep tour products REALLY dry, P2O5 has always been the "go-to" desiccant. Remarkably unpleasant stuff though, and you always place it on a Teflon or ceramic watch glass, since when hydrated, the resulting phosphoric acid is VERY corrosive.
@@phils4634 is it really good? I know it's a strong dehydrating agent but doesn't it sort of get passivated by a layer of h3po4?
Long time ago I was at a convention and a Marine who suffered phosphorus burns in Vietnam gave a speech. The pain he endured was horrifying.
I think I saw the same guy talk over 30 years ago
Did he make a joke about taking off his prosthetic ear and playing the piano with it “by ear”?
Not making a bad joke, I really remember that…he mixed in humor in his talk
The man I saw wore a dark wig, heavy set, and his face was burned
@@MrShysterme it was in 98 if memory serves. He may have made a joke like that; he was remarkably positive all things considered, but I only remember him being in his Marine blues. From what I recall, I believe he was bald
I wouldn't say fat but yes he was more on the heavyset side and yes sadly, badly burned.
And now Israel is dropping it on women and children in Gaza.
The 70's TV show mash did an episode where a soldier had W.P. in a leg wound and to get them out they submerged him in water and turned off the lights to see them and remove them from his leg. Until now I didn't realize how accurate that was.
There was a lot of things in M*A*S*H* that were quite factually accurate.
That was a really great show. Especially compared to the mind numbing crap on tv now.
I remember that episode. Even as a kid I knew who Mr. William Peter was. It was a very accurate portrayal of trying to treat the soldier.
Was looking for exactly this comment. I've never forgotten that episode, along with others. M*A*S*H was an incredible show.
@@CrankyQuokka It was, and I know they had a medical consultant but HOW accurate it was, was incredible.
In nursing school, I wrote a paper on phossy jaw (Phosphorus Necrosis of the Jaw) and learned about sequestrum. That's when an area of bone dies and breaks off becoming loose inside the tissue. It gave me nightmares for a few nights.
I’ve seen a man whose balls were the size of a bowling ball because his intensities poked through the abdominal wall somehow into there
@@Allen667sjjawhy have you seen This?
Medical care involves a certain amount of dispassionate necessity when dealing with the live and cognisant jumble of meat that is us. . And at the same time is an extreme amount of compassionate empathy to be able to push through and give care and solace at it's most immediate point of need. Not everyone can remove themselves entirely from the extreme horrors that may face you then but bless their bravery for doing it anyway. These are the people that prove we as a species are still worth believing in.
@@MrFuzzyGreenwell said
a fire that can't be put out because it re-ignites later then when you finally figure out how to stop the fire you still die because it absorbs thru your skin/lungs(as vapor) and replaces all the calcium in your bones so they glow in the dark as little as 55 mg can be fatal
The fact that the use of this terrifying chemical isn’t a war crime is honestly almost mind boggling
The irony of using tear gas is a war crime but not this. Also tear gas is allowed to be used against American citizens but not active war combatants
Some could argue it's literally mind boggling.
@@Fightre_Flightedefinitely boggling my mind, but then again, whos enforcing war crimes???
When used in populated areas, shot at civilians, or intended to cause burns or toxicity, it is a war crime. The only legal way to use it is as a smokescreen
@@junyaiwase
The rest of the world, arguably...
It's boggling your mind? Did the U.S. put up a "tactical smoke screen" in your AO?
The timing of this video is terrifyingly coincidental. Thank you for giving a clear, brutal description of the effects of WP.
I do not think the timing of the video is coincidental at all, honestly.
I wondered about that myself.
But two months is more time than the current events in Israel.
Israel uses something else, it looks like white phoshorous when deployed.
I thought the same thing..
Not at all coincidental. A pro-Hamas, anti-Israel production.
Unfortunately, I am finished with this channel.
That story of Razia is one of the worst and terrifying, gruesome things I have ever heard. That is honestly so sad that she and her family had to endure such horror.
Do they have a donation page
That's US and Isreal who did that? I listen to a lot of true crime. But I. Wow. I guess I typically listen to just Luke murders and serial killers versus country.
Fucking is it normal to burn kids up and shoot and first aid trying to help? I don't see that shit in any war hero action figure movie?
War is hell and it's always the general population that suffers the most.
Not a lot of things make me queezy, or get under my skin. I like learning about this stuff, because they don't teach the horrors of war in the US. They don't teach that we're sometimes the bad guys. But unless we make a change and start to teach our children about these monstrous actions, they will just continue. I know it will never be perfect, but god damn. I just don't understand how people can see this happen and not feel any guilt or sympathy. I know war does intense things to peoples minds, but this is why it needs to stop. God. My heart hurts so badly for her. I had my second child a year ago, and I just can't. I can't imagine that pain. I don't want to.
same.... 😔
I saw a US vet that had hit in Vietnam by one of these grenades. He dove into water, but every time he came back up he would reignite. It's amazing he survived.
Daaammmm!!!!!!
My grandpa got a WP or napalm burn on his calf in Vietnam during a firefight (he just remembers it sticking), and had to shove his leg into the mud to prevent it from burning off. He got out of Vietnam with 7 wounds, 4 of which were gunshots, 1 burn, and 2 shrapnel impacts. He walked with a very slight, almost unnoticeable limp, afterwards. He told my brother and I that he had “done enough fighting for 10 generations”, and didn’t want anyone in our family signing up to go to war.
He endured some of the horrors of WP, seeing child soldiers set on fire after grenades were launched into the trees, smoldering adolescent corpses, burnt women and even male combatants torched by the flame.
It’s been years since he passed, but here’s a paraphrased quote from the late Sergeant Major.
“They looked like zombies, as they stumbled, and burnt with the relentlessness of a prank candle. The sparks coming off their bodies reminded me of fireworks. With that .30, I chopped them down as they emerged from the bush, putting many out of their misery. Hearing someone scream as their lungs bubbled up, seeing the bloody foam shoot from their mouth as the agony continued will haunt me forever, and I can only pray that another draft never happens for you boys.”
He volunteered to sign up at 16 or 17, illegally. He spent his entire life making up for the sins he committed and atrocities he witnessed in Vietnam.
I hope his soul got the rest he deserved, because no one should face such horrors.
May he rest peacefully.
It's good he understood what he had been a part of. So, so many Americans just go "thank them for their service", when in fact those soldiers have been invading forces killing civilians en masse.
Korea, Vietnam, Iraq - all illegitimate invasions or proxy wars.
Damn draft dodging hippies. Coward.
@@s.alpinus8395DON'T YOU DARE ATTEMPT TO ATTACH BLAME TO THE SOLDIERS.
THE RESPONSIBILITY RESTS UPON THE SHOULDERS OF THOSE WHO PUT THEM THERE AND *YES* WE ARE FOREVER GRATEFUL AND THANK THEM FOR THEIR SERVICE! 🇺🇸
@@quoilluminentur2981BANG RIGHT MATE. FROM ENGLAND.
Prior Army EOD tech here (Bomb squad) WP is commonly labeled as “bursting smoke”. When fired from mortars are artillery shells when it bursts it creates a very quick smoke screen. The smoke canisters on armored vehicles fire bursting smoke canisters creating a thick smoke screen in the matter of a couple seconds. I remember doing some demo on old WP rockets. When blew them up into the air to make sure all of the WP burns away. When we went back down to check to see if everything was destroyed I noticed my boot was smoking. I had stepped on a small piece of WP and exposed it to air and it had started to smolder on my sole. Fortunately I was able to cover it back up to extinguish the flame but it definitely got the heart pumping for a few seconds…Fun times.
Damn bro you got MASSIVE stones. Much respect
The fact that this stuff isn’t a war crime, will never be lost on me.
But you never forget how it broke up the attack and saved your ass and the platoons...willypeet. wanna talk about napalm strikes from the perspective of troops that needed them? Next time maybe, out.
you clearly do not understand how evil white phosphorous is then do you @@georgemacdonell2341
Who is geneva to tell the world how to fight a war?
It is a war crime to use white phosphorus in built up urban areas
History is determined by the victors
First time I'd heard of white phosphorous was in Spec Ops: The Line and the sequence is very haunting and very much embedded in my mind that it was a war crime level substance. Kinda effed up to find out its use isn't even a war crime and that it's still being regularly used by militaries in ways that affect and burn civilians, and frankly some of those stories told in this will probably haunt me every time its name comes up.
The fucked thing is, those people in the game GOT OFF EASY. They just burned up right then and there, and didn't have to live in agony for days on end until death.
i was aviation we know all a about white phos
flachettes are nasty too they are covered in anti coagulant so people that get tagged bleed out quick
@mcgibs theyd probably feel fine with iv oxycodone or fentanyl even with the burns
Same doing that level stayed with me
I hated me after that game
Every soldier knows and fears white phos! It really is the stuff of nightmares.
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket yeah but Marines are a different breed altogether. 🪖😉
@billythekid9061 That's the difference between the ones shooting it and the ones receiving it.
@@MetalheadAndNerdNow technically you can't fire WP munitions into people or structures people are in. But...most smoke generation devices contain some amount of white phosphorus. So concentrated smoke grenade byproduct is quite toxic.
Civilian victims: amateurs
So shooting it into civilian areas is a clear war crime!
It's not death, it's the time it takes to die.
Death always takes a lifetime.
touche...(imagine snotty accent)
I’ve had a near death experience on a jet ski. Uncle died, cousin lost an eye and I was unconscious under water for 2 mins before coming up. All I can say is. Death is very very welcomed when suffering has reached a stand point. Such as trying to hold your breath. Felt like the gravity of earth forced my mouth open and lungs to suck water in. As going, all I thought was “f*ck I’m dying here, right now.” Slight panic then comfortability.
I wash my balls with it everyday .
just like you can jump from any height, it will *NEVER* kill you!
only the landing might be tricky!
I studied white phosphorus to put it into my dungeons and dragons game. I described what it was doing to people as a result of a terrorist attack in the game and my players said it was the most disturbing thing they could recall ever hearing.
that must've been one *hell* of a dnd session
What kinds of dnd were you playing
The 2008 Iraq War dnd campaign 😂
When I was in the Air Force my first duty location was at Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson, AZ. There I was a weapons loader and weapons systems maintenance for the A-10 Warthog. We loaded lots and lots of white phosphorus rockets. Anytime we were loading white phosphorus rockets the ammo trailer, trailer that would bring us bombs, rockets, and other munitions, would have a large ammo can full of water on the front of the trailer for us to submerge our arms in if any got onto us. We were also told to keep them submerged and use the knife in our tool boxes to dig it out of the affected arm and/or other body parts. Making 100% sure not to remove the body part from the water till A. we get to the hospital or B. you are 100% certain you got everything off.
Same here. And wasn’t WP used in the fuses in Napalm bombs if I remember correctly. USAF MMS 77-81☮️
Holy crap
This gets the yikes award. 😮 the first step is smothering and digging bulk wp out. The next step is chemical removal, iodine works great for this. Makes HI dnd phosphoric acid that can be washed away. ❤
My old therapist served in the Falkland Wars, I remember him telling me that in training they were taught how to use a knife to dig out chunks of White Phosphorus from their flesh, as of course if some is left in it can reignite when the medics are trying to fix you up. Disgusting stuff.
You have just repeated what was stated in the video.
Why?
UA-cam really is the home of idiocy.
in the Army they gave us small pieces of bandage wit copper sulfate (1995) to extinguish the phosphorus. but you could not use more than 1dm2 otherwise you died of that. But if you see once how it looks when only one phosphorus grenade explodes, you know it was all bullshit...
@@mcalax5901 because he might have written it before it was stated?
@@mcalax5901 People say stupider shit all the time, relax dude.
Burn debridement is one of the most painful medical treatments people can undergo. And it leaves extensive open wounds that are easily infected. What a horror show.
Except to wound care nurses.
It’s to grim for me to do.😬
@@FYMASMD I'm not sure this truly stops at just being a burn. The toxicity is also a thing to compete with.
Went through burn debridement for a week without pain medication. When I complained a little, the male nurse said that some people just couldn't endure a little pain.
exactly why military loves fire weapons.... 🙄
"treatment"...
SCIENTISTS IN THE 1600's: "I want to turn metal into gold.... I know, I'll boil my piss"
Golden Showers???
😂
@@lawrenceharrington3180follow the money 😂
@@lawrenceharrington3180 I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if the entire reason he boiled his own urine was because it had a similar color to gold.
I really appreciate your "no none-sense" approach and delivery on this topic.
Bang on man.
I read about a story in WW2 during Operation Overlord, when a British soldier became trapped in barred wire following a German ambush. During the ambush, the soldier had a White Phosphorus Grenade hanging on his field webbing. A bullet from a German machine gun hit the grenade, setting it off and causing the soldier to burn from the grenade while trapped in the wire. His surviving squadies swore off carrying Phosphorus grenades in their own webbings after seeing this.
Dead god! This is horrific! I’ve been a first responder for years, not much can make me squirm, but the description of the baby and then the child sure did. (Not even because they were kids, but of the actual description!)
@billythekid the difference being one is still legalized for militant use because of a cruel loophole
@@Silentgrace11 Agent orange is like radiation. It's the "gift" that keeps on giving. It just doesn't leave the body. And given the rate of miscarriages and birth defects, it can pass on to the child. Even if it seems perfectly healthy, they probably have a high risk of cancer.
Is it true though?
The story about Razia really made me tear up, that is horrible. How cruel is humanity...
You're not alone, but please remember this is possibly one of the worst examples. It has nothing to do with humanity. It's an inhumane weapon.
Notice the country that did it. They're really not humane to anyone if you look into it
@@HIFLY01No nation in that portion of the earth is civil or humane.
@@HIFLY01what Israel is doing to Palestine is truly horrible, and a large part of the world (the us) is cheering them on
@@griffinmckenzie7203"bOtH SiDeS"
The "Into the Shadows" and "Warographics" crossover I always wanted.
It's almost eerie how this was posted exactly a month before it would become extremely relevant.
Yes, very eerie. So sad to think of the Gazans that are being subjected to it right now 😥
Phosphorus Grenades were issued to us in Vietnam. I saw what the outcome of using them was. I had to cut a slab of meat off my buddy’s left arm when he got splashed by it. Of all the Horrific things I saw in Three Tours, WP and some Booby Traps gave me the Horrors. WP has to be the nastiest thing ever issued and Deployed in Warfare. It is still available in Grenades to this day! WHY?
Sorry to hear that I can imagine something like that can stay with you for a long time. Personally I think White Phosphorus should be a band munition as I'd say that tenically it's a chemical weapon. They were use in Afghanistan but I never witnessed us ever using them. 🇬🇧
I'm sorry to hear you had so grim experiences. I hope you can find peace in your life.
I think you tragically answered your own question
I'll tell you why. Because we humans are animals that do terrible, horrible things to each other. People who imagine some future utopia wherein there is never any war are delusional. There will always be war, and people will always try to win no matter the cost. Human decency is a, "first world problem," so to speak. As soon as we're fighting for our lives, it is forgotten about.
Because politician are almost without question, sadistic psychopaths. Its a miracle the concept of a war crime exists at all. Since our leaders enjoy inflicting suffering.
I first learned about White Phosphorus in Spec Ops: The Line. Used it to bomb soldiers only then to discover you killed civilians
Same. That game is fucked
There is an Easter egg on the screen when you use it, the character is smiling like a madman in the reflection.
That game had me shook like no other game before it or since. Just a really, really powerful game.
That part in that game haunts me to this day.
That’s military service in powerful nations these days. Fuck you and follow orders.
I used to know a security guard from Australia who was in the special forces and said that he was at the battle of Fallujah and saw American planes drop white phosphorus on the city. He said he thought they were dropping smoke to cover the assault that his team was gearing up for. He also said that his team was sent into the city some time later to clear out any remaining insurgents. He didn’t describe the scene but he said while cold sober that since that day he would now rather fight the American army than fight with it. He got out of the armed forces as soon as he could.
Pretty sure he wouldn't have had to worry about fighting with them from what you said.
Australia doesn't want any smoke with America! Remember how Australia started as a country? Oh yeah Prison colony for EU! Also if it wasn't for America Australia wouldn't exist!
Australia in Fallujah?
Oh, he was "special forces"
What a fantastically, difficult watch. Well done to the team.
I love the topics you choose to tackle, the critical points that get made on this channel are professionally subtle and well evidenced and posed, really solid work from Simon and whoever wrote the script as always!
I have a very strong belief that fire is the most horrific way to die. Because fire is never fast, it will burn and use the body fats to keep burning. Death by fire often comes from asphyxiation or smoke inhalation. A few instances have a victim pass out due to the high temperature. The survivors are generally always in pain. For many years. The reconstruction of their bodies may take a decade or longer.
So when you start using something that functions like WP it just makes the entire thing far worse. And the sad part about this all is that incendiary munitions won't go out of military use. And no international law will ever be enough to stop some from using it.
The irony of using it as a smokescreen is itself a smokescreen to allow its use.
Well, no, because it's literally used as a smoke screen.
@@InitialFailureYeah sure, its definitely only used as a “smokescreen”….. talk about gullible.
@@mvmusic8467 yea cause I used the word "only" in my comment.
Talk about looking for a reason to be outraged.
My father, who was a Korean War veteran, had burn scars on his chest which he said were from a white phosphorus grenade. I never got the whole story so I don't know if it was a US or a Chinese grenade. BTW, because soldiers are crude and irreverent, during my time in the service, we often referred to it as "wooly peter" instead of willie pete.
Sorry, why is "wooly peter" more crude than "willie pete"?
Seems to work given the blockbuster movies and internationally renowned comedians we keep churning out.
@@avaevathornton9851 "Peter" is a euphemism for a male sex organ. Therefore, a wooly...ummm...guy part.
@@theassasinboy13 If you expect me to be ashamed of that, you're going to be disappointed.
@@theassasinboy13 I can absolutely assure you that one’s proclivity to have a “level” of crudeness isn’t affected by nationality. Wake up and stop taking pride in being godless.
Thank you for educating with compassion. I believe this production is the best I’ve yet seen from your channel. High marks considering the trove of great work to be found throughout.
We had some WP shells on the Spruance class I was on. They told us that if we dropped one of the shells that it will start smoking and sizzling, and all we could do was somehow get it off the ship. We had a thin little canister to put it in that would give us 4 minutes to get an 85 lb shell up 3 decks of straight up ladders and onto the 01 level and run and throw it off the side of the ship. If we didn't make it, it would burn right through every deck below and right through the bottom of the ship. Thankfully it never happened but we had a plan that 4 of the strongest men would run up the ladder and instead of one man trying to climb 3 ladders with an 85 lb shell in his arms we would hand it off to the man up the next level and he would then hand it off to the man above him etc until it was off the ship. We even practiced it with other shells that weren't so volatile. Gotta be ready. 😅😂
When my drill sergeant fought in Vietnam they threw white phosphorus grenades into a VC trench position. When my drill sergeant's unit advanced my drill sergeant ran up to the trench to see what his white phosphorous grenade did to the VC. The WP burnt through the top of the VC's head causing smoke to come out of the VC's nose and mouth and there was a weird whistling and clicking noise coming from the VC's nose. I was told this story in 1988 and my drill sergeant fought in 1968 my drill sergeant told me whenever heard a tea post whistling he is reminded of that day.
I was in Afghanistan in 2009, phosphorus ammuntion is trully the stuff of nightmares. We never had any to use, but the enemy sure did and will never forget seeing what it can do. Great video by the way.
Care to share more details?
Share more please
I remember listening to an account from a Marine who fought in Fallujah in 2007 and he said white phosphorus had been dropped through a U.S. artillery strike without informing the Marines. (Read More)
He said none of the Marines were hit by the artillery, but when they went through to clear the area and secure the sector, he saw firsthand what WP does to human beings.
In his own words (paraphrased based on memory), he said it looked like someone had dumped a huge vat of acid on every person before baking them in an oven, and they were "randomly melted through" with smoke billowing through their clothes and wounds. Flesh, muscle, bone, you could see everything at random intervals on every person.
He said he and a Lance Corporal, basically his battle buddy, were told to secure an alleyway and make sure it was clear, but it horrified them so much that they turned back, ran around the corner, dawdled for a few minutes trying not to throw up, then lied and reported they'd secured the alleyway.
He said they were later told the U.S. was "trying out a new compound" in their artillery shells, but a platoon commander who made a hobby of studying weapons and warfare technologies from different parts of history suspected very heavily it was white phosphorus, and the explanation of "a new compound" was just a way of covering the young Marines' asses if any were questioned by the press.
The Marine stated in later years he did a bit of research on his own to see the effects of white phosphorus, and sure enough, what he could find seemed to match what he and the other Marines saw in Fallujah.
He mentioned it still gives him nightmares.
@@OxTheHerdzz😂 I shake n baked plenty of Taliban in Kunar prov and on the Pak border as a former Artilleryman... shame your coward ass wasn't there... Simp on though lefty
@@OxTheHerdzzThat’s the kind of thinking that perpetuates war… honestly.
"Do you feel like a hero yet?"
It's Konrad's fault. All of it.
It is absurd that use of WP is not legally a war crime. This is such a clear cut example of the difference between what is legal and what is moral.
I'm so glad you discussed the horrors in Gaza. It's shocking to think how much worse things have gotten in the 9 months since this video was published.
Poor child. I've had to endure one skin graft. I could not imagine being a child (or seeing a child) endure such a painful process repeatedly. Hopefully, someone will hear her story and help. Bless, Razia and her father, may they find the help they need. It disgusts me that humans do this to each other.
And now Israel is dropping it on women and children in Gaza.
It's also horrific to think that technically speaking, in a war white phosphorus can be synthesised from your enemies' bones.
This reads like something a chaotic evil, alchemy enthusiast, necromancy wizard would come up with D&D.
@@derekstein6193 Or some crazy Wagner skinhead. They strike me as a very "ritualistic" bunch like the SS was and would probably dabble in something like this.
@@atrumluminarium "some wagner mercenaries probably make war crimes from their enemies bones" bruh what? 💀
@@nouhorni3229 I didn't say they ACTUALLY do it lol. Just that they've been known to have some deranged individuals in their ranks after their mass prison recruitments.
@@atrumluminarium Nah the US gave Ukraine Wp and depleted uranium munitions
Man's inhumanity to man never ceases to amaze me.
Things like this just shows that psychopaths run wars.
Self-satisfied drivel.
everyone and their mom knows what wp is and what is really used for
the fact that its use is not banned shows that those in power dont care about foreign civilians its only until they themselves feel the effects for such a weapon will they change their minds
The timing of this video is... intriguing.
My thoughts exactly.
I dont know how you put out such quality content so regularly between all your shows, Simon. I've been watching you for at least 3 or 4 years now, and it still amazes me. Also, from a fellow beard enthusiast, congratulations. Keep it going!
I was in a 105 outfit in Vietnam. We used WP for "Marking Missions." These were air bursts that allowed troops on the ground to get their bearings as they were usually in a jungle environment. I came close to being fried by WP myself. I was painting a sign for the battery when the gun behind me had an in muzzle burst. Me and the guys pulling maintenance on our gun didn't get a drop on us. A miracle. I noticed a blister on the sign and dabbed it with my finger and wound up with a piece of WP sizzling on my finger tip. The next day the same thing happened. I'll never forget seeing a large pink flaming ball roaring down the road next to our gun. In such cases the rounds from that lot are gathered up and disposed of. As far as I know we never used WP as an anti-personnel weapon. It was strictly used for orienting troops on the ground or to provide smoke.
If it is so dangerous - even to the people firing the stuff - why isn't something else used for those marking and smoking uses? I realize that you probably can't answer that, it' just what's so baffling to me reading your story. Like, military scientist are usually smart enough to invent something different for those uses, that doesn't also melt people alive. Why should it be allowed to use something that can also be used to commit horrific war crimes?
@@Treepwastakenbecause its REALLY good at making smoke, never goes out or expires works in the rain and is very very cheap
We had regular smoke rounds, but the WP produced a brilliant white smoke and dispersed rapidly so probably why it was used. @@Treepwastaken
@@Treepwastaken it is insanely rare that a round detonates in a mortar system or artillery cannon.
If it does, HE, WP, Illum, etc., it's a catastrophic weapons failure.
Idk how as a parent you can watch your child suffer that much. (Referring to the story of Razia)
Honestly at that point i think death would be more merciful. God forgive me but that's how i feel after listening to what she went thru. That sounded like h'll for both her and her father. I hope she's doing OK....
Each one of us has to draw a line... define a point at which we'd be so damaged and incapable of healing that to go on would be cruelty, itself. At that point, or beyond it, then death is the kinder fate. It sucks, but it's life and death literally... AND there are fates worse than dying. ;o)
I understand your sentiment, but I doubt Razia‘s parents felt the same way as most of them would be deeply religious in her area, and they would truly and completely consider it. God‘s will, whether their children lived or died.. having this level of faith is certainly a legendary and the perceived placebo power of belief can, and does perform miracles. In this case, life found a way when all of the odds were against life itself-- this is exactly what war really looks like.
Stay safe and blessed out there in the world 🌎 ❤
It wouldn't be the first time allegedly that a medic gave too much morphine. Allegedly. Some suffering is just too great.
Agreed. . That toeture would be relived daily.... death wpuld be far more merciful.
It's only a war crime if you lose the war.
The unfortunate truth.
Yes some armys,and countrys are Teflon no charges ever stick
@@mikewarpula911 Pretty much the ones with nukes.
@BigMobe pretty much anyone attached to the us/nato, anyone remember when nato bombed civilians? Don't hear too much about that...
Are we talking about when they stopped a genocide? And fought against combatants not only hiding in civilian areas but also using indiscriminate munitions?
As a person who has worked in a phosphate mine, and my dad made a career there. I wonder how many chickens I fed, Coca Cola I made, and chemical weapons we unintentionally made
The problem with trying to charge the US and Russia with war crimes is that they do not acknowledge the Haag war crime tribunals jurisdiction. So even if it were fully classified as a war crime the tribunal have no way to charge the US or Russia for it.
Simon just glossed over the guy trying to make the philosopher stone so hard
Never mind he said it
He did an in-depth video on the guy whom saved and boiled his urine for a long time, I'm guessing it was the same dude he mentioned here.
The story of razia, poor girl. I can just imagine the pain and horror all of them went through. This is stuff not even my nightmares dare to imagine
It is honestly an indictment vs mankind.
The Jewish people survived a genocide, just to try on doing it to someone else.
Truly evil incarnate
You are assuming she actually existed and that it wasn't just a made-up propaganda story.
I had no idea Shake and Bakes were a war crime. During artillery training we did a lot of Shake and Bake fire missions, and this was years after the battle of Fallujah.
It’s not
@@danielpeters2282 only to the US military 🤦🏻♂️
..and it's client states.😫
The rest of the planet knows this is chemical warfare and can be replied to in kind😳😬
....be sure that someone will deploy much nastier chemicals in retaliation eventually, it's damn near a guarantee
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusketdlc package lol
I served 2008-2014 as a mortarman and was told shake and bakes were illegal. However I quickly realized there was a bit of a loophole: WP is used as marker and we aim where the WP hit so we’re still doing a “shake and bake” even if we didn’t call it that.
Everything about Iraq was a war crime, the people in the Bush administration only waited for an excuse to invade Iraq so they blew up the WTC and lied about WMDs...... what you don't think it's a strange that both times people tried to blow up the WTC a Bush was president?
Those guys who so much evil & murder around the world world for wealth & power wouldn't do it here too? Of course they would.
A shiver runs through the body from stories about this devilish weapon. It is difficult to imagine the torment experienced by the poor people who had to deal with white phosphorus. This weapon is the apogee of human cruelty towards others and it seems to me that it should be prohibited everywhere and always.😬
Nasty stuff. I remember being absolutely gobsmacked when the unit armorer (US Army) described just HOW nasty. “Having this shyt somehow accidentally cook off is the ultimate arms room nightmare. In training, we were told to run like hell if it happens.”
Despite how horrific willie pete actually is world militaries are still going to use it. They'll swear it's for masking and making smokescreens but there are other ways to do that that doesn't have to use a chemical weapon that's melts bodies. One of the best depictions of willie pete in fiction is from Spec Ops: The Line. You play as the villian, though you don't know it, but there is a moment where you basically use WP to murder a bunch of civilians. While only being fiction it really shows the horror of just how dangerous WP actually is.
I've been terrified of white phosphorus since that scene in We Were Soldiers. That dudes skin fell off like it was clothing being removed. Seemed very accurate. Fucking nightmare fuel.
I believe the use of napalm was being depicted in that particular scene. It was horrific nonetheless
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusketand innocent civilians?
are all civillians innocent?@@lessgoofyone
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusketYou said that and your enemy said the same
Most unintentionally inappropriately funny comment ever. I laughed. Then I didn't.
I think a very effective example of the horror of white phosphorus comes from the game "Spec-ops: The Line". Brutal scene, both physically, and emotionally speaking.
i always think about that game and scene when I see news about white phosphorus
It really is brutal. The whole game, but that scene is among the worst. @@nizar70707
We met a man at a local event we went to as part of our homeschooling..
I forget his name but can still picture him clearly.
he served in Vietnam & was hit with a WP grenade.. he had 6.5 fingers between both hands, lost half his face including his eye, ear & nose..
he said he spent weeks in hospital with his insides just continuing to burn.. it was horrible. Pain was excruciating. Then his wife left him while he was still in hospital bcs he was so disfigured.
At the end of the talk, he played a few pieces on the piano for us and I marveled at how well he could play in spite of missing so many fingers..
My Dad was a Korean War Marine in the infantry. He spent most of his time in a bunker on hill 884 after things were pretty much stalemated. At one point he was half expecting to be attacked, and he had rigged a WP charge with wires back to the bunker so he could set it off if he saw an attack coming. He never had to use it.
I still think that who ever thought of using it in warfare should just straight up be put on trial for war crimes, along with anyone who authorizes its use and uses it. Its just so horrific that I dont care if it possibly has tactical advantages, it SHOULD NOT be used.
the idea of war crimes is laughable. anyone can and will use anything to advance there objectives and only the winner will decide who committed them, so lets drop the whole charade
One of my best friend's father served in Viet Nam in the USMC and he was on a ship that had an accident with some white phosphorous. He said there was a crewmate that was trying to clean up and picked up a jagged piece of meta that a bit of phosphorous on the tip and when bent back to throw it off the ship, in kind of a football pass motion, it barely touched his arm just below the elbow and he ended up throwing that entire part of his arm in the water alone with the piece of metal. His arm came apart that quickly.
That story always stuck with me ever since I was a kid.
@@TravellingLampever heard the reports from the guy at nagasaki he said he tried to help a lady if the ground and the skin came off her arms like gloves nucleation of protiens is crazy
I had a white phosphorus rocket almost hit me in Afghanistan in 2013. There’s actually a picture of me somewhere in an article trying to put the fire out. That was before I knew it was WP. When I noticed the stripe on intact tail piece I noped right the fuck out of there.
Noticed the stripe on intact?
The fact that israel is able to consistently use this on civilians and recieve no consequences is actually fucking nuts
You keep believing that. Definitely no lies there...
@@eandaandbwe both saw the video so.
It isn't nuts, if the muslims had the same opportunity to use the substance on jews they would've been more brutal.
This is one of the most if not the most important video that you have done so far.
Thank you for this video. Maybe it can alert more people to this horrific chemical and cause more people to protest against the use of it in war. But, I'm not hopeful.
- This is your fault, goddammit!
- Stop right there, Lugo!
- But it is! He wouldn't listen!
- We didn't have a choise!
- He turned us into fucking killers!
Which is pretty funny considering how many people they killed to get that far. I guess they didn't count.
White phosphorus appears sometimes in the movies. In the movie "Platoon" an American soldier is hit with white phosphorus while they're attacking a bunker, and another American soldier digs it out with a knife. I think the Americans might have used white phosphorus to clear a hiding place when the Americans burn down that village. It also occurred in the movie "Fury". German soldiers are flushed out by white phosphorus and they have white phosphorus on them. An American soldier says, "let them burn", but an American soldier humanely kills they with a .50 cal. machine gun. I don't remember the name of the movie, but there is a movie about an Israeli intelligence unit that uses white phosphorus to kill a room full of Arab intelligence operators. The Israelis said they used the white phosphorus to burn all the oxygen out of the air, suffocating the Arabs. It's been a long time since I saw that movie. ..... White phosphorus is very useful to put up a smoke screen, but as long as we have it some dumb private is going to use it to clear out a bunker or a room.
Also in We Were Soldiers
In civilian use, there is actually an update that should provide some glimpse of hope. I used to trade WP for a research chemicals company to fit tiny amounts in specially designed crucibles. These crucibles would go into trace oxygen analyzers that would ensure oxygen-free supply of nitrogen to semiconductor process tools.
Starting 2014, a ban of trading WP hit us. Not even milligrammes of WP were allowed to be traded and eventually we had to remove the chemical from our offerings altogether.
In case chemical companies had processed that used WP, they were asked to immediately look for replenishment processes and shut the incumbent process down ASAP. Commercially, WP was dead and replaced with other phosphorus compounds and WP as such no longer to be commercially produced.
Let's all hope that it is the case and supplies will run out ASAP.
I am not sure, however, on what the military does here. They have their own sources and will run their own agenda... 😊
This is truly evil that people would ever use such a terrifying and agonizing weapon against their fellow humans.
Crazy thing is it is a war crime to use it directly on human targets... But it can be used to mark targets to the point that many officers are trained to shout "keep marking the target" if there's a chance that war reporters are in the area so they don't get brought up on war crimes when using WP
And honestly im not surprised the US has blocked motions to get it banned.the US military still usesva lot of weapons that other countries consider illegal including cluster munitions with more than 5 sub munitions snd artillery launched mines
Well, good f***in' luck legislating warfare to accomplish a g** d*** thing other than punishing the people who abide said "rules". The end of WWII was the only time in history that war criminals were sought out and actually brought to any justice, and even then, a LOT of them (more than faced justice) escape punishment, even with the vast majority of the world motivated to do so.
The problem with trying to regulate any "rules of engagement" is that this is WAR you're talking about. It's a crime in and of itself, industrialized murder no matter how you try to define it. People are fighting for their lives, and that comes with desperation. Criminals don't give a sh*t about your rules, so only the decent people involved get limits, and limits in warfare are inherently WEAKNESS... period.
Not once in all of human history has anyone won the war by dying for his country. He won it by making OTHER PEOPLE die for theirs... SO getting all gung-ho about going off to war and declaring war and finding a shooting solution isn't as nice or technical or a fancy affair. It's an undignified brawl to the deaths of hundreds and/or thousands... millions... more... AND then there's the public demands for more retribution... more revenge... a non-stop cycle... from whatabout-ism to generational divides and all the excuses used to justify the next atrocity.
When YOUR ass is on the line, you'll be damnably thankful the weapon or countermeasure works, and not too picky about what kind of hell is getting rained down on "the enemy" that's hellbent to kill you... maim you... drag you down some gods-awful pit and torture you... or worse. ;o)
The US deliberately fired WP into basements in Fallujah and elsewhere as a tactic to avoid their troops clearing buildings and risking themselves. Only Channel 4 news showed the piles of glowing civilian corpses resulting from this war crime, but some WP use on civilians were also later revealed in Julian Assange's Wikileaks of US/UK war crimes. No wonder he's held as a political prisoner in the west.
Most weapons that are banned are weapons that are relatively impractical, but cause unnecessary suffering. For example gas killed very few people in WW1 compared to artillery and machine guns, but since gasses like Chlorine can cause permanent blindness.
@@NearQuasar That's the sad aspect of things... the horrific stuff that kills people very well isn't banned. The gnarly stuff which kills people not as well, but in rather gnarly ways tends to be banned or simply falls out of use when people find some better way to deliver painful death to their designated enemies but with far less risk to themselves.
For instance, flamethrowers were _never_ banned by the Geneva Convention. Neither were triangular-profile bayonets. Almost nobody uses flamethrowers anymore because we developed better ways of delivering heat to the enemy, like incendiary rockets, which provide a human barbecue on demand but _without_ risking one of your own lads' life by sending him forward with a 70-lb Super Soaker designed in hell strapped to his back.
Likewise, triangular bayonets are not common in armies anymore because bayonets are no longer effective casualty-causing agents on the battlefield, _and_ because some clever people figured out the following about a hundred years ago:
1. In an age of repeating rifles and machine guns, the bayonet is pretty much useless as a weapon for incapacitating enemy combatants.
2. Soldiers still need knives--occasionally for opening up people wearing the wrong colours, but more often for opening up packages, cutting through wire, etc.
3. Soldiers are already carrying enough stuff--why load them down with a bayonet _and_ a utility knife when you can have the bayonet double as their utility knife (or vice versa).
Triangular bayonets are only good for poking holes in people. Knives are useful for cutting and poking holes in a variety of things besides people. The thought behind making triangular bayonets was _not_ an increase in wounding potential as much as a desire to make a stabbing implement that was cheap to make and robust (not as likely to snap or break in the field under normal, or even heavy use). It's cheaper and easier to make a strong pointed spike than to make a knife blade which is rigid and strong enough to withstand repeated use as a thrusting and stabbing implement. Even before the bayonet was invented, there were various examples of stabbing or thrusting weapons designed with triangular or rhomboid blades, such as stilettos and some rapiers. The thought behind these was again to make weapons purely optimised for stabbing over cutting.
Please cite where Officers are literally trained to* say "keep marking the target".
I went to college with a Vietnam veteran who had 9 circular scars on his body from cutting WP out of his skin.
I’d love to see a video (if you haven’t already) about victims of agent orange and its effects today
As someone who lives near the Baltic sea, ive heard some secondhand stories of yellow phosphorous(thats was used in ww2 i believe) washing up on the beaches and people picking it up thinking it's amber. It's a bit creepy to think about that a rock you pick up at a beach might cause burns.
As someone who's had 2nd and 3rd degree burns from WP before, I can say first hand that the burns hurt worse than anything that you could ever imagine and it truly will vaporize your skin quickly.
It doesn't vaporize anything.
It burns stuff.
@@InitialFailurecome back when you have experience with WP burns. I lived the nightmare, you haven't. Come back when you've had 60% of your hand burned off like I did. It burns hotter than almost anything and that's enough to vaporize many things, including skin and hair. Don't believe me? View my post in the community section on my page showing the burns. Thankfully (or not), people with actual experience are here to show what it's really like to those who know nothing about it....
When I was in the Army in the 80s and 90s, we were trained on phosphorous weapons, both deployment and defense. When asked if these were chemical weapons banned by the Geneva Conventions, trainers said that no, it is still legal. Mentally, it blew me away. My personal squad weapon was an M203 rifle/grenade launcher. We had phosphorous rounds, but fortunately I never used them.
What WP round is 40mm and shot from a 203?
@@InitialFailure underbarrel grenade launcher
@kitkat47chrysalis95 I know what an M203 is. I'm asking what specific round for that weapon system is WP? What is the nomenclature of the WP projectile, not the system.
I'm not aware of any WP 203 rounds that weren't XM or experimental.
*crickets*
Still nothing?
@@InitialFailure It's been over thirty years. I don't remember the nomenclature of a round I never fired.
Curious if anyone's ever thought if Greek fire was actually at least partially phosphorus based?
Nope just higly refined oil and pine resin
It's crossed my mind, especially since no one has been confidently able to reproduce it.
Simon, that story of the little girl just killed a part of my soul.
Love the info graphic you guys have
Back in the 80s we had WP grenades in our ASPs and even when we went out in field support. We were advised the only authorized use of these were to destroy disabled or soon to be captured assets as the grenade would burn through the engine block. In AIT we were given a live demonstration of how this works on a decommissioned Jeep, it burned completely through the hood and engine block and fell to the ground still smoking. It saddens me that we would resort to such heinous actions as using this as a weapon.
Thats thermite white phosphorus is hot but not melting iron in a few seconds hot if it was they would use it in place of thermite for welding rail tracks together as its easier to make and cheaper and not quite as explosive if used improperly thermite grenades dont explode they burn and have been used since ww2 for equipment destruction a grenade in the breach of a tank gun or artilery piece made it worthles and infixable thats where throwing a grenade down the barrel of a tank comes from sonehow it got jacked to be a frag wich honestly unless it managed to get in the tank when the breach is open or if there was a explosive shell loaded it wouldnt even damage the tank
Thermite grenade, which is cannister-shaped and actually contains thermite and thermmate. WP is an entirely different animal.
So it's like xenomorph blood?
So now we can understand why the US is hated in certain parts of the world
When you said that if it's horrifying you'll cover it, you truly meant it. Thanks. This was truly disturbing.
Good that you mentioned the US and Israeli use of phosphorus. But what about Russia in the present war in Ukraine?
Imagine the thought process though..
"How to create a stone that turns other metals into gold.... hmm.. hard challenge.. i know! Ill piss in cup and boil it! Then ill light the residue on fire! Surely that must be the way to go!"
It's like crafting in games
Sometimes you just gotta try stuff
14:20 The loophole is ridiculous! By this rule, you could use *mustard gas* as a "smokescreen". Heck, you can use *everything* as a "smokescreen". It isn't very good at it, but I'm using [insert deadly toxin] as a smokescreen. Not to *harm* anyone, that isn't its' purpose! /s
I've heard phosgene smells like freshly cut grass. So it might also be used as air freshener.
If it doesn't WORK as a smokescreen, the excuse doesn't fly. Mustard gas would be a terrible smokescreen.
As a father, hearing those tragedies in detail, that ish hurt, and am ashamed at this time to say I am a veteran
at least a veteran and not actively being part of it I guess
@Sleepy49914 I was a sailor, in a non-combatant role, from '10-'18 so yeah, still this is a travesty, and this ish needs to stop
You fought for Zog and Israel underneath it all unfortunately. I feel sorry for any vet who truly thinks they served their country
I mean, I did, but also served to further the agenda of various multi-national corporations with only $$$ on the schedule
Only a war crime if you agreed to the treaty and the US did not.
It's always the civilians who are suffering when the men in power decides that they want more power... *sigh*
Curious that the “victims” are the ones employing this chemical the most, and will continue to do so in Gaza and Iran
Jews are no longer victims, they're actually fighting against Islamic terror
What kind of sociopaths are in charge that they can know what this stuff does and just let it carry on existing? I mean, I just answered my own question but it still horrifies me.
Sanctimonious drivel.
@@eadweard.Oh yeah, fuck this guy who thinks that we shouldn't be using a pointlessly cruel, toxic material to kill each other. I for one think that we should find more painful ways to kill civilians.
What kind of brainrot has people going around online and *attacking* people for suggesting that we don't cause needless suffering?
@@BruceBoydeWell I'm sceptical that comments like his will be effective in reducing human suffering - and I harbour just the slightest of suspicions that they are more intended to make the person making them appear morally righteous.
@@eadweard. That's better. I can't say I entirely disagree with you, but I would counter that they may have just learned about white phosphorus weapons and their continued use. The response I'd expect is one of disgust, and every new person who learns about it is a person who might spread the word and in a perhaps eventually pressure policymakers. There's a solid argument that the U.S.' eventual disengagement from Vietnam was due to increasing public awareness (whether you think that was a good or bad thing). I don't really have faith in that happening, but hey.
Or maybe they do just want a few upvotes.
The ones who want to win 😊
I'm Ukrainian. Russia used it in Ukraine on a wide scale.
Well played for covering these facts before 7th October. It was truly horrifying at the time circa 2008. A fact that those demons have been doing this horrific stuff for decades.
Razia im so sorry ..
thank you for sharing Razia's story.. im crying .. it really impacted me iv seen videos of it being used in gaza recently and very clearly in the past week the telltale glow of it falling on the city is undeniable
so how about Napalm's sucessors? these incendiary liquids. Are these legal? are they better or worse in regards of suffering?
Both stick to flesh like glue and just keep Burning and I would also say that this level of pain has no metric for measuring
@@TmagetPain from burns like this actually only occur for a short while until it burns away all the nerves that detect pain.