REAL LIFE NEWS: THE ULTIMATE STINK BOMBS
by Hazed
Have you ever been in a room where somebody has let off a stinkbomb? They were quite popular when I was at school: small glass vials, easily broken, filled with a vile smelling liquid. Guaranteed to disrupt a boring lesson like double maths.
Now the US military wants to advance the concept: from school pranks to offensive weapons. They are called malodorant bombs and are intended to be a non-lethal weapon to clear buildings or drive targets out into the open.
But there’s a legal quandary over these malodorous devices: could they count as chemical weapons? If so, their use in warfare would be banned.
The US Department of Defense (DoD) is hoping they have found a loophole. The International Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) prohibits temporarily disabling compounds that activate the trigeminal nerve when people are exposed to it. This nerve conveys sensation from the face, cheeks and jaw - but does not control smell.
These new super stink bombs don’t cause any injury, but the intense foul smells - a combination of sewage and pungent rotting meat - can trigger an unthinking fear reaction that causes the target to flee. That’s why the DoD is so interested in developing them.
There’s a lot of work to be done to develop a way to deliver the stink bombs, and to find out how effective they are in real combat. Not to mention figuring out how easy they are to defeat, for example simply by using gas masks.
