Talk:Tabun (nerve agent)

method of delivery

Please note that the volatility of a substance is not directly related to whether that substance may be used contaminate water supplies. Effective contamination of water with nerve agents is primarily dependent on the solubility and hydrolytic stability of those agents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.202.140.109 (talk) 06:57, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I was reading Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer and in it he mentions tabun as the nerve agent he would've tried to introduce to the Führerbunker to kill Adolf Hitler. Speer says he abandoned the plan because "it turned out that tabun became effective only after an explosion." This sounds not true though, now, right? Obviously Speer was writing decades ago, before the Internet and ready access to information, and may have assumed no lay reader would be able to perceive or challenge the shakiness of his claim? We obviously can't know for sure what he was thinking, or even if he was ever really serious about killing Hitler, but can someone confirm that Speer was incorrect and an explosion was not needed to make tabun "effective" and that it could've been dispersed as an aerosol via a ventilation system? Someone should set the record straight! I was just checking the SPeer article on wikipedia and it doesn't reference Tabun by name or link to it, so I'm going to make that change now, but we should really clear this up. Azx2 17:33, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Speers accounts are at some points at least (including the assertion he was plotting to gas the Führerbunker, which as I understood is nowadays at least according to several german historians at least) very doubtful, but that is another topic. As to the delivery: the Wehrmacht actualy devised such a munition, I mean a "Grünring-III" hand grenade, a sealed canister containing several ounces of Tabun along a small central burster (that being a simple standard LA/PETN blasting cap as in most german hand grenades), but it never got into serial mass production, because the concept of a soldier throwing a nerve agent bursting type munition at short range was judged insane/suicidal and of little to no tactical value. So, throwing a hand grenade or a bomb with Tabun fill along with a proper bursting charge (GA is the most detonation labile nerve agent and this dispersal has been problematic, just a little more HE in the burster charge that was needed to aerosolise the fill and the GA fill would "flash over" = burn off before taking effect) down a ventilation intake of the bunker, supposing the air was not filtered, which I find highly doubtful at the least -- the SS had its own CW service and they were sure evil but not dumb, and also they were commited to protect Hitler by any means necessary and beyond -- but the whole concept cannot be dismissed only by the lack of probability. It would be possible for Dr. Speer (being the Reich armament minister at that time still and considered loyal and actualy a kind of a personal friend to Hitler) to obtain a portable explosive tabun device. It cannot be ruled out or hold to with certainity whether he made this all just up after the war to sound less covardly on the Nurenberg trial, it could have been that he got this idea and dismissed it or found it not being possible to do or he not being capable of doing it in the end. Post-war accounts by Speer himself should always be taken with a grain of salt, he surely had a lot of guilt he could have diverted to others and such. But basicaly, no, the conception he asserted that he learned the agent needed an explosive dispersal (hence not being highly volatile, as for instance HCN or phosgene are) -- he could have mistook that with the more broader concept that the agent was persistent, of low volatility and needed an effective aerosolisation mechanism to be effective via inhalation -- one has to remember that Speer was an architect and not a chemist, and this stuff was at that time Top Secret, and he wasn't all that into combat, munition design, unconventional warfare etc. He was a laymen on this, even though if he wanted he would have access to most of the contemporary german data, but frankly, imagine being an architect trying figure this stuff out in at best few hours time to read thousands of pages of classified, highly technical data, with no prior concept of chemical warfare, it is near impossible. Cheers,--147.251.55.2 (talk) 01:08, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Degradation Rate

How long will Tabun keep keep its toxicity? How long does it take to degrade? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.171.244.205 (talk) 23:17, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

It depends. Highly pure tabun stabilised with 5 - 20% chlorobenzene can be stored for several years in hermeticaly sealed steel containers (e.g. shells and aerial bomb bodies) at normal temperatures not exceeding 25°C. Storing it at a higher temperature decreases its stability, half-life being about 6 months at 50°C; impurities such as traces of moisture, acids or bases do also lower the stability of tabun. Noteworthy, even its degradation products (hydrogen cyanide, dimethylammonium cyanide and others) are quite toxic as well, so even degraded chemical ammunition containing tabun stays dangerous. Cheers,--109.193.167.14 (talk) 09:52, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

chemical structure

are the drawn projection and the 3d ball/stick model the same chemical? they look like enantimorphs to me.

Grammar

"Although lethal doses absorbed though the may result in death in 1 to 2 minutes, death may be delayed for 1 to 2 hours."

Doesn't make sense.

"Faintly fruity odor"-who gave it the sniff test?

A: The product's discoverers initially didn't know what they had produced, and because of the substance's relatively low toxicity, they were able to smell small quantities of the agent (though doing so resulted in unpleasant sweating, tremors, mild fever, and radically constricted "pinpoint" pupils that left the unfortunate scientists temporarily blinded for a week or two. Subsequently, the slave laborers who were to manufacture it also were routinely exposed to small quantities of the agent, and also reported the fruity scent, as well as a fishy odor at larger concentrations. (Dranzini 01:35, 12 March 2006 (UTC))

PS: Will work on the grammar.

I think I got a lot of it, still needs work but getting closer to C-class. RockManQ ^(talk)

You forgot to ask about "tasteless liquid". I would not like to be on that panel..."here try this"71.108.138.191 (talk) 02:52, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

C-Class yet?

Is this C-Class yet? RockManQ ^(talk) 23:17, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe it is. RockManQ ^(talk) 23:50, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

== GA Review == Here goes nothing...

First GAN for me so be a little patent, but feel free to give constructive criticism. Not the best with grammarz so that might need the most work. Thanks to anyone who comes and reviews this! Cheers, RockManQ ^(talk) 03:02, 6 November 2008 (UTC)_{A speedy, strategic withdrawal would be the best option probably. Cheers, RockManQ ^(talk) 23:46, 6 November 2008 (UTC)}

Just dropping by, my personal opinion is that this article does not meet the GA criteria. It leaves out significant portions of the topic. The article contains no information on the production of Tabun (i.e. how it's made). In general it lacks any discussion of the chemical characteristic of Tabun (the infobox has more information in it than the actual article). In addition, it would probably be important to include information on the circumstances surrounding demilitarization of Tabun stocks worldwide.

There are a host of minor issues as well:

• References are poorly formatted
• One sentence paragraphs need to be eliminated
• The list in the first section is an example of poor presentation, should probably be written out in sentences.
• Vague statements such as (just an example): The United States once had an active tabun production program,[4] however it was ended many decades ago, are generally useless. This sentence leads to so many questions.
• In general referencing needs to be improved. There are several obvious examples that are badly in need of citation. Example: Since GA is much easier to produce than the other G-series weapons and the process is comparatively widely understood, countries that develop a nerve agent capability but lack advanced industrial facilities often start by producing GA.

This is just what I saw at a glance, and a first read through. Good luck getting this up to GA, and I hope this helps out some. :-) --IvoShandor (talk) 08:42, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Also, this isn't intended to be a review, just some tips on a topic I have interest in. --IvoShandor (talk) 08:51, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

No worries, criticism isn't meant to hurt but improve the article. Cheers, RockManQ ^(talk) 23:41, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I didn't mean to discourage you. If you need a hand, let me know. I know quite a bit about chemical weapons from my time in the military and am a pretty handy researcher. --IvoShandor (talk) 11:22, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

By no means am I discouraged either. I will continue to edit and improve this article until I have exhausted all possible information sources (now that's dedication). What I did was come to my scenes, for example, the article has no uses section, and is poorly formatted. There's also an abundance in refs, most of which I put in (many more problems as well). I'll eventually get it to a GA, however, that time is not now. Cheers, RockManQ ^(talk) 23:36, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Production?

I think that some details, such as the precursors, of tabun manufacturing should be mentioned in this article. Sepp18 (talk) 10:21, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

And also, I expected some data on use by the Germans, it only says shells were made, but doesnt say when, where, how they used it? --Skippan (talk) 03:11, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I found more info on a general page Nerve_agent#During_World_War_II than in this specific page --Skippan (talk) 04:04, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

i think you ment to say "senses" ? lol  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.58.74.234 (talk) 17:26, 27 January 2011 (UTC) 

I just added a description of the german production method, along a scheme depicting it.--Spiperon (talk) 23:24, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand why you are showing a synthesis route to make tabun. Won't this encourage possible experimental creation of tabun or other such analogues??? Is this a responsible position to take? I agree which stating the precusors as the attemped aquistion of such precursors could alert one to attempts to make tabun but why show the synthesis route???? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Possum2009 (talk • contribs) 08:10, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I can try to explain you my stance as to why am I disclosing the methods of manufacture of lethal chemical agents (I did so also with some other chemical agents, if you search on wikimedia commons):

1. These information are all known and freely accessible in open literature. As a non-chemist you certainly would have some work to accomplish to come accross the literature which discusses the syntheses shown, but eventualy even a non-chemist would succeed.

2. As the OPCW from my understanding argues, the goal of achieving a chemical warfare-free world is congruent with the open publication of all (or almost all) known information about chemical warfare and chemical agents. There is no point in trying to censor such information like the synthetic route to an agent, because this is freely and quite easily accessible to anyone with a library card or access to the internet, as I already mentioned.

3. Please note that while I posted a quite detailed general route of synthesis with respective comments, by no means did I post instructions for the synthesis, laboratory or industrial. If someone has enough background to make a viable technical route out of this description, then he wouldn't need Wikipedia for this purpose anyway. Cheers, --Spiperon (talk) 13:06, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Note

Source #10 appears to be a semi-dead link. Should I remove it? --Thenewguy34 (talk) 21:36, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Unclear sentence

The sentence Tabun was the first nerve agent to be discovered by accident in January 1936 is unclear. Presumably it wasn't the first to be discovered in January 1936 (as opposed to those discovered in October 1935 or April 1938). However was it the first to be discovered by accident (as opposed to those which had been discovered on purpose) or should this read Tabun was the first nerve agent to be discovered. This was by accident, in January 1936? And given that it's a completely synthetic product I'm not sure whether "discovered" is a less appropriate term than "invented", in any case. 213.122.147.41 (talk) 22:28, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

The chemical was synthesized for another purpose; its human toxicity was discovered by accident. I overhauled several sentences in that section; let us know if it's clearer. DMacks (talk) 08:07, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 8 September 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:54, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

---

• Tabun (nerve agent) → Tabun
• Tabun → Tabun (disambiguation)

– Tabun was made a disambiguation page in 2005 but it only contains partial title matches and a recent J-pop song, so the nerve agent is the clear primary topic. I moved the disambiguation page to Tabun (disambiguation) but I can't move the nerve agent because of the 2005 move. Galagora (talk) 20:27, 8 September 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 01:13, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Dr. Vogel (talk) 23:40, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

@Galagora: Since 2005? Might be better to discuss this one since that means a claim for no primary topic stood for about 15 years prior to Tabun (song) existing in 2020-ish. Steel1943 (talk) 21:45, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose There are two places with this name (both listed on the DAB page). And the oven is sometimes simply called a "tabun" (rather than "tabun oven"). Is a town that might be called "Town, District, Country" really a partial match, or is ", District, Country" just a disambiguation of something whose actual name is simply "Town"? And those are wildy different meanings--I don't see evidence of the nerve agent being PRIMARY at this time. DMacks (talk) 01:27, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
• Weak Support. Looking at recent page views, setting aside the barangays that are merely mentioned in another article, the chemical does get more views than the other items on the dab that could be referred to just as "Tabun" collectively receive, Google hits loosely support the chemical being primary, and it has an edge in terms of long-term significance over the song. That said, it's not a clear case, so could go either way. If this move is not made, the dab page should be moved back to the base term per WP:MALPLACED. Mdewman6 (talk) 17:26, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose target is a dab page. In ictu oculi (talk) 19:31, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

To be clear, the proposed target is a redirect, because the requestor had already boldly moved the dab page to Tabun (disambiguation), but of course could not boldly complete this move over the resulting redirect that targets a different page than that being moved, and the TR was contested. All this says nothing regarding the central question of whether there is a primary topic or not. Mdewman6 (talk) 21:24, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose also the oven. MrKeefeJohn (talk) 12:02, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose not really seeing this as the primary topic.--☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(ring-ring) 15:55, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Comment: the dab should move back to Tabun as well--☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(ring-ring) 23:42, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
• Support. I agree that this is the clear primary topic. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:05, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
• Support. Pageviews comparison makes it obvious that the nerve agent is indeed the primary topic by far (7x more views than the song or the oven). Ain92 (talk) 13:21, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Added move of associated dab. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 20:47, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

• Support. Even if we accept for sake of argument that the oven and the barangays aren't partial title matches, the nerve agent still has a sufficiently commanding lead in terms of both pageviews and long-term significance to make it the primary topic. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 05:32, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
• Support. Nerve agent is the primary topic per pageviews and also wikinav ([1]). Vpab15 (talk) 15:22, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Poorly written.

Needs a lot of wordsmithing... BeingObjective (talk) 17:16, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

LD50

LD50 of 0.01 mg/kg is unrealistically low. This is 1 mg/human. There is no way to describe the smell and taste at this toxicity. Russian wiki states 5000mg/human, which is unrealistically high (cyanide used in synthesis kills human at a dose of 300 mg). Most of the nerve agents kill at 30 mg/human. This was the first agent in the family. So, I would guesstimate 60 mg/human or 0.6 mg/kg. 89.113.155.116 (talk) 13:10, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

History section tag

In the Synthesis section—which is sourced, but to an impossibly difficult source to verify (in German, dating to the DDR)—the different tabun-solvent technical product mixtures are referred to in a manner different than in the History section. Hence, the latter section was tagged, along with the confusing sentences in each. 73.73.49.62 (talk) 20:13, 31 March 2024 (UTC)