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Napalm was used in a limited theater-the South Pacific and in a few invasions where the Japs dug themselves in.(Tarawa, Okinawa, Iwo Jima and maybe a few others). Both sides used flame throwers in WWI.(The Germans started their use.) The statistical comparisons between WWI and WWII are real though I do not have their location at my finger tips. Wounds were studied as were deaths and comparisons were made between those factors in the two wars. Our discussion is becoming verbal i.e. the definition of “cleaner” is leading to a verbal dispute. Find and compare the statistics!

I’m not so sure what the definition of “clean” is here. Mine would be flattening a one square mile area from 30,000 feet with a B-52 to the point where no two bricks are stuck together. The plane is supposed to be very uncomfortable to fly in, but...compare that to street fighting where there is an IED at every intersection, and you can only find 3/4 of them, and every 100 windows has a sniper, some with RPG’s. I’m no so sure that our present method of warfare is “clean”...at least, not for us.

The Russians has their own problems in WWII. The German civilians were outfitted with the first RPG’s. The Russians would take T-34’s through the streets, and the tank would be hit. The hold was only the size of a quarter but everyone in the tank would be dead from the hot metal, etc. They Russians would just patch up the hole and get more soldiers to put in the tank...

I have read that the projectiles used in the Civil war were incredibly evil, and that, combined with the lack of medical care, meant that most gunshot wounds to the extremities meant an amputation.

Your statement that - "In many ways death was far less clean in WWI than WWII. It was due, in the main, to the iron casings of artillery which sent out huge mangling chunks of iron when exploded." - implied that those iron casings were no longer flying around in WWII, so death was cleaner then. I responded that those same chunks of shrapnel were flying in WWII and, indeed, are still flying to this very day.

Death may have been less clean in WWI because of the lack of antibiotics, or the general state of medical technology, or the fact that they lived in mud-filled trenches for four years, but shrapnel has been a battlefield constant since exploding shells were invented in the 15th or 16th century; so I guess I don't understand your juxtaposing those terms.

I'm not trying to be deliberately contentious, or just a smart-a$$; I'm just explaining what drew my initial response to your post.