What was the purpose of poisonous gases in world war 2?

Answer 1

To kill people. Correct. The gas would be dispersed by artillery and make the enemy sick or require them to retreat or to cover up, thus allowing the attacker(wearing gas masks) to advance. Poisonous gas was never used in WW2---only WW1. However there was an incident involving poisonous gas. On 2 December 1943, approximately 100 German Ju-88 bombed the port of Bari, Italy for twenty minutes, which was known as the "second Pearl Harbor". Many ships were damaged. The USS John Harvey (a liberty carog ship) was not hit, it caught fire, then without warning, it disappeared in a huge explosion. Its cargo included 2,000 M47-A1 mustard gas bombs to be used in case the Germans resorted to gas attacks. A total of 628 military personnel were hospitalized and 69 later died because no one knew the cause of the burns. Ship loses included: Americans 5, British 4, Italians 3, Norwegians 3, Poles 2. The Allies were storing the poisonous gas bombs just in case Germany used them first. Gas was also used in concentration camps to kill the people there in large numbers at a time. The inmates of the camps were led into a room with things that looked like shower heads and slowly gassed to death inside. So yeah poison gas was used in WW2.

Answer 2

Poison gasses in WWI were mostly used to kill enemies without having to use great physical actions in doing so. Such as Chlorine gas would blind enemies, make their throats swell and within a period of 5 days would kill them. Mustard gas was more effective in that it could be launched in shells, was invisible and had more range of effectiveness so that your own troops would not be harmed by the change of wind. But mustard gas was more brutal, causing a slow painful death in a minimum of 3 weeks, but usually ended up killing in 5.