Talk:White phosphorus munitions/Archives/2006/March

Motivation for this cut?

I noticed that someone did cut away this quote from Globalsecurity:

"...Phosphorus burns on the skin are deep and painful; a firm eschar is produced and is surrounded by vesiculation. The burns usually are multiple, deep, and variable in size. The solid in the eye produces severe injury. The particles continue to burn unless deprived of atmospheric oxygen. Contact with these particles can cause local burns. These weapons are particularly nasty because white phosphorus continues to burn until it disappears. If service members are hit by pieces of white phosphorus, it could burn right down to the bone. Burns usually are limited to areas of exposed skin (upper extremities, face). Burns frequently are second and third degree because of the rapid ignition and highly lipophilic properties of white phosphorus."

I would like to know the motivation. --Pokipsy76 09:25, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

The substance of this cite is almost entirely paraphrased higher in the article under "Effects on humans". Recommend either keeping the paraphrase or replacing with the cite... my understanding is Wikipedia generally prefers the former. You could also amend the higher section if you believe it inaccurate. Also, it is cited where it is in the context of whether WP can burn clothing... the redacted quote now refers directly to that question rather than beating around the bush and repeating material already covered higher. No other reason.--BruceR 13:46, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

So what about the "Emergency War Surgery" cite? Isn't this citation (or the thesis that it is intended to support in the paragraph) contraddictory with the phrase "Burns usually are limited to areas of exposed skin because only the larger WP particles can burn through personal clothing"? Shouldn't this contraddiction be pointed out? This was the aim of the citation from globalsecurity so it makes no sense to completely cut the cite just because it would be a repetition because the context and the aim is different.--Pokipsy76 17:56, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd say the two cites are complementary to each other, and both contradict the urban myth of death without clothing damage (I agree they are, however, somewhat at odds with the paraphrase you mention). EWS is saying that most WP injuries are due to people's clothing catching fire from the particles. Globalsecurity is saying the first thing you do if you're hit by WP is get your clothing off before it burns through. Both say clothing does burn... hence both contradict the legend that WP kills you while leaving your clothing intact.

Look at it this way. A little particle (like a speck) of WP landing on your skin will give you a skin burn before it consumes itself. But if it lands on your clothing, it will likely singe it, but not do your skin any damage. Exposed skin therefore does bear a greater risk being burnt in this way: the paraphrase is correct to that extent. But as the CWS says a greater threat is your clothing actually catching fire with you in it... in that case it's not going to be just your exposed skin that gets injured, obviously.

It takes a significantly sized piece of WP shrapnel to burn right through human flesh before consuming itself... clothing only provides marginal protection in such a case... so there should be less of a difference whether the skin area hit by any bigger shrapnel was exposed or unexposed.

I'm certainly not wedded to that paraphrase... I'm just not sure yet how to explain the antipersonnel effects better. But I don't think it helps to put information about antipersonnel effects at the bottom imbedded in a different section, away from the actual section on antipersonnel effects. If you think the information at the base is more apropos of the weapon's antipersonnel effects, why not move all those cites into the antipersonnel effects section, instead of at the very end?--BruceR 22:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/ http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/inchiesta/video/fallujah_ING.wmv [I finally worked up enough courage to watch it and it has lived up to my worst fears. Watching it was almost an invasive experience, because I felt like someone had crawled into my mind and brought my nightmares to life. Image after image of men, women and children so burnt and scarred that the only way you could tell the males apart from the females, and the children apart from the adults, was by the clothes they are wearing… the clothes which were eerily intact- like each corpse had been burnt to the bone, and then dressed up lovingly in their everyday attire- the polka dot nightgown with a lace collar… the baby girl in her cotton pajamas- little earrings dangling from little ears.]

Your video shows napalm, not white phosphorus, as the explosive effect deomonstrates--fire, not smoke. The narrator even refer to the weapon as napalm. As such, the video is irrelevant to the discussion. -Chin, Cheng-chuan

What do you mean? That WP would look like smoke? And that the commentary by a media man, probably not skilled in chemical warfare, knows napalm from WP? He probably meant it was analoge to napalm when used as a weapon. A human 04:06, 13 March 2006 (UTC)