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WW1 British gas shells

A fair bit of chem stuff (ww2 mostly) had fairly thin walls so tends to be rusted out.
Things like Mk 1 chemical mines, 65lb light cased aircraft bombs and 400lb SCI's (flying cows) tend to be very rare in good condition. They just rust away. Thicker stuff 18pdrs, 4.5" shells, most of the German & French stuff tends to be around in varying condition. Some items are really common (German 10.5cm projo) and some less so (French 120mm projo).
 
Nice post, very interesting!
An issue with sea dumped CW is that providing it was dumped before 1st January 1985 and remains dumped at sea and not recovered then you aren't required to declare or dispose of it!
A similar thing with buried chem weapons - Provided it was buried before 1st January 1977 and remains buried then again you don't have to do any thing about it!
 
CW Convention

Pete,

Is it the case that possession of an empty munition/projectile made solely for the purpose of containing CW would be in contravention of the Chemical Weapons Convention?
 
Norman,

It would appear that if the possession is for peaceful purposes, there's no problem. Fortunately, in this legislation, they have seen fit to put the 'lawful possession' definition at the beginning of the Act, unlike the Landmines Act, where it is hidden at the very end

Regards

TimG.

CHEMICAL WEAPONS ACT 1996

Introduction

1 General interpretation

(1) Chemical weapons are—
(a) toxic chemicals and their precursors;
(b) munitions and other devices designed to cause death or harm through the toxic properties of toxic chemicals released by them;
(c) equipment designed for use in connection with munitions and devices falling within paragraph (b).
(2) Subsection (1) is subject to sections 2(2) and (3), 10(1) and 11(2) (by virtue of which an object is not a chemical weapon if the use or intended use is only for permitted purposes).
(3) Permitted purposes are—
(a) peaceful purposes;
(b) purposes related to protection against toxic chemicals;
(c) legitimate military purposes;
(d) purposes of enforcing the law.
 
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While the text given is pretty close to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which took effect in April of 1997, there are some differences. Regardless, under the CWC, (in effect for 188 countries) all chemical weapons are to be destroyed. Empty chemical weapons must be destroyed as well (Category 3). This is effective for all CW, 1914 to present.

The exception to this is that it is noted that State Party (member country) may wish to destroy unfilled chemical weapons using, on a case by case basis, a destruction process that meets the requirements of the Convention, but does not preclude their use either for training or display purposes.

In addition each country is required to pass legislation to ensure that all requirements of the Convention are supported by the laws of the country.

So in effect, by the letter of the law, the only completely legal way you could possess an empty chemical weapon and for it to be fully legal would be for your country to declare it to the OPCW, then identify the method by which it was destroyed and its location.

Of course this was intended to keep major players from cheating, and nobody is after the small collector. From OPCW's perspective it is recognised that training collections exist and serve a useful purpose. Unless it seems there is a major infraction nobody is looking at the museums, training collections or private individuals. From any overzealous local authorities however, a little knowledge could be a dangerous thing.
 
hush hush sweet Charlotte

I think the message here is that if you do have an empty chemical shell or 2 or 3 in your collection then "mum" is the word. Don't advertise and nobody will ever bother you about it. It does seem to be leaning that way on all inert ordnance, as more time goes by it seems that collections are more frowned upon by the powers that be (or they think they be!) I've seen some beautiful restoration work in this forum on gas shells, and it would be just a damn shame if these objects of beauty were to be destroyed. I think ussubs hit the nail on the head, the little collector is relatively safe as the big fish are the ones to be invited to the fry. Dano
 
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