With this powerful armory of short-range artillery, the German forces were able to reach across No Man's Land and bring a punishing fire to bear on any target which presented itself. When chemical warfare arrived, the "minenwerfer" was a highly convenient method of delivering gas. The first German use of gas was in 1915 during the Battle of Bolimów in Poland on January 31. The German army shelled the Russian positions with xylyl bromide, the attack was relatively unsuccessful due to low temperature which prevented the gas from vaporizing and spreading.