Gas Normal Part Of Warfare
- Thread starter Tongera
- Start date
Gas warfare is too much trouble for momentary advantage if you're using it to kill people. It makes a decent area-denial weapon but it's too imprecise and difficult to control IMO.
If you get a gas that kills quicker as opposed to slow painful suffocation. Then it might be seen more like a gun.
Cook
Banned
The entire range of nerve agents incapacitate instantaneously and can kill in a matter of seconds.
katchen
Banned
The use of a wide range of gas agents for different purposes in combat.
Nerve agents are useful for capturing valuable capital assets such as ships intact instead of sinking them. What if the Japanese located one of the American aircraft carriers at the time of Pearl Harbor and instead of attempting to sink it, sent planes with commandos on gliders that detached from Kates and dropped sarin or cyclosarin bombs that cleared the decks before the commandos parachuted in. The commandos then drop more cyclosarin down the air shafts and, wearing proper protection, go down into the ship, killing the crewmen who are still alive. In this way, they have another aircraft carrier and begin to overcome their disadvantage of a lack of capital ships. They can continue this strategy agianst ships in Pearl Harbor and British ships at Singapore, as the Germans can, British ships in and around Scapa Flow and the North Sea and North Atlantic.
The advantage will last until the Wallies and the Russians copy the tactic, which brings piracy on the high seas back in a very ruthless way. And since tanks also need air, a magnetic sarin vaporizer near an air vent can disable a tank in short order.
If the Nazis are engaged in murdering Jews and other civilians ITTL, soman, being quicker, is much more efficient than cyklon-B if it is not in short supply.
Residual organophosphates IOTL that can contaminate an area for months such as VQ and VX were not developed until the early 1950s by the US IOTL and never actually used even though the US did not sign the anti Chemical and Biological warfare convention until the 1970s. But Tabun, Sarin and Soman, if sprayed on surfaces when an army is withdrawing from an area in retreat can contaminate unsuspecting troops entering buildings that have been painted with it, at least for a few days. And if it becomes a priority, residual contaminants might not be difficult to develop.
For dealing with civilians in cities and villages, simply a lot of tear gas can be useful. As American forces used in Vietnam. Not all gas warfare need be lethal. And tear gas can interfere with the combat effectiveness of unprotected troops.
As can hallucinogenic gas agents such as BZ that the USAMRIID and CIA experimented with as part of MKULTRA. But those were not developed IOTL until the 1960s.
Vesicants such as Mustard gas, lewisite, and Chlorine were initially developed by the Germans in World War I as souped up tear gasses, not neccesarily to kill allied troops. They are of limited utility except to burden the enemy with wounded and incapacitated soldiers, some of whom will die, others who will not die, but all of whom must be cared for.. And that goes for all sides and for civilians.as well, if one is engaged in strategiic bombing against civilians.
Finally, there is incendiary or thermobaric chemical warfare, which all sides did use IOTL to the extent that they could and that all nations have continued to refine as an exception to anti-chemical warfare treaties. Thermobaric agents, be they napalm, coal dust (the Germans experimented with it in WWII), ignited tear gas or ignited natural gas or propane on an ad hoc basis create a flame front and blast effect and airburst that can destroy several city blocks. This is the "blockbuster" bomb that the Allies dropped on German cities. And this is the BLU-158, the "daisy cutter that the US uses today. These are chemical weapons that kill people by incineration of their skin, lungs and other tissues.
Sometimes thermobaric weapons are the only way to destroy enemy bunkers or the people inside them, as the US did Japanese soldiers holed up in caves. with flamethrowers. (Is it more humane to burn someone alive than to poison them with a pesticide that kills them within a minute?) And sometimes, as Arthur Harris and Curtis LeMay did with strategic bombing against German and Japanese cities with white phosphorus incendiary bombs that had thermobaric firestorm effects, thermobaric bombing is used simply to destroy civilian lives in the hopes that it will end the enemy's will to resist.
So it's not just a question of whether chemical weapons are used routinely, but the military use to which chemical weapons are put.
Nerve agents are useful for capturing valuable capital assets such as ships intact instead of sinking them. What if the Japanese located one of the American aircraft carriers at the time of Pearl Harbor and instead of attempting to sink it, sent planes with commandos on gliders that detached from Kates and dropped sarin or cyclosarin bombs that cleared the decks before the commandos parachuted in. The commandos then drop more cyclosarin down the air shafts and, wearing proper protection, go down into the ship, killing the crewmen who are still alive. In this way, they have another aircraft carrier and begin to overcome their disadvantage of a lack of capital ships. They can continue this strategy agianst ships in Pearl Harbor and British ships at Singapore, as the Germans can, British ships in and around Scapa Flow and the North Sea and North Atlantic.
The advantage will last until the Wallies and the Russians copy the tactic, which brings piracy on the high seas back in a very ruthless way. And since tanks also need air, a magnetic sarin vaporizer near an air vent can disable a tank in short order. If the Nazis are engaged in murdering Jews and other civilians ITTL, soman, being quicker, is much more efficient than cyklon-B if it is not in short supply.
Residual organophosphates IOTL that can contaminate an area for months such as VQ and VX were not developed until the early 1950s by the US IOTL and never actually used even though the US did not sign the anti Chemical and Biological warfare convention until the 1970s. But Tabun, Sarin and Soman, if sprayed on surfaces when an army is withdrawing from an area in retreat can contaminate unsuspecting troops entering buildings that have been painted with it, at least for a few days. And if it becomes a priority, residual contaminants might not be difficult to develop.
For dealing with civilians in cities and villages, simply a lot of tear gas can be useful. As American forces used in Vietnam. Not all gas warfare need be lethal. And tear gas can interfere with the combat effectiveness of unprotected troops.
As can hallucinogenic gas agents such as BZ that the USAMRIID and CIA experimented with as part of MKULTRA. But those were not developed IOTL until the 1960s.
Vesicants such as Mustard gas, lewisite, and Chlorine were initially developed by the Germans in World War I as souped up tear gasses, not neccesarily to kill allied troops. They are of limited utility except to burden the enemy with wounded and incapacitated soldiers, some of whom will die, others who will not die, but all of whom must be cared for.
. And that goes for all sides and for civilians.as well, if one is engaged in strategiic bombing against civilians. Finally, there is incendiary or thermobaric chemical warfare, which all sides did use IOTL to the extent that they could and that all nations have continued to refine as an exception to anti-chemical warfare treaties. Thermobaric agents, be they napalm, coal dust (the Germans experimented with it in WWII), ignited tear gas or ignited natural gas or propane on an ad hoc basis create a flame front and blast effect and airburst that can destroy several city blocks. This is the "blockbuster" bomb that the Allies dropped on German cities. And this is the BLU-158, the "daisy cutter that the US uses today. These are chemical weapons that kill people by incineration of their skin, lungs and other tissues.
Sometimes thermobaric weapons are the only way to destroy enemy bunkers or the people inside them, as the US did Japanese soldiers holed up in caves. with flamethrowers. (Is it more humane to burn someone alive than to poison them with a pesticide that kills them within a minute?) And sometimes, as Arthur Harris and Curtis LeMay did with strategic bombing against German and Japanese cities with white phosphorus incendiary bombs that had thermobaric firestorm effects, thermobaric bombing is used simply to destroy civilian lives in the hopes that it will end the enemy's will to resist.
So it's not just a question of whether chemical weapons are used routinely, but the military use to which chemical weapons are put.
birdboy2000
Banned
OTL, Hitler was wounded by a gas attack during WWI. If you could butterfly this exposure without butterflying his rise to power, or a different revanchist German ruler without his dislike for gas replaced him, perhaps the Axis would be willing to cross that line, and the allies would retaliate in kind.
Kaptin Kurk
Banned
Yeah, basically. It was pretty interesting that gas wasn't used as a widespread weapon in WWII. On the other hand, it might also speak to human mentality. Nuclear weapons haven't been used widespread in this era. '
There is even evidence that the ancients were reluctant to use the biological and chemical warfare tools at their disposal. (I.E., poisoning rivers.) Therefore, while all such weapons have been used, you may be running up against human nature in part. (It's not like the ancients hemlock poisoned every river they knew fed the enemy, even though it was probably within a lot of their capabilities.* Or within the capability of using some other natural poison.)
At our basic, we tend to like to have our new slaves / conquest alive.
This.
It's also worth noting that a lot of the instances poison being used come during long, stalemated wars where they appear to have been somewhat desperate measures to break the stalemate. These cases are remembered and specifically noted which implies that they were highly unusual.
For what its worth it seems like poison was more common and acceptable in Chinese warfare than Western.
Cook
Banned
This furphy keeps cropping up and is completely baseless.
1) Hitler was not wounded by gas in World War One; he was hospitalised for hysterical blindness – it is on his service medical record – something he lied about in Mein Kampf and suppressed when he came to power.
2) Under Hitler the Third Reich had an extensive chemical weapons program; they were the first to develop nerve gases and accumulated extensive stockpiles of the chemicals for nerve gas during the war.
The reason Hitler did not use chemical weapons, and we know this from the records of Chancellery meetings that were captured at the end of the war, was that throughout the war he feared that the allies had the same weapons in equal measure and would retaliate in kind.
Not much of a chance - most of the ships of the era were designed to be proofed against gas, because at the time it was expected to be a normal part of warfare.
Cook
Banned
Ships consist of a lot of air-tight compartments that are able to move fast and manoeuvre; there are very few targets against which gas would be less effective.
Gas bombs are generally parachute deployed, floating down onto the target – which in this case is moving and manoeuvring away from the attacking aircraft, in addition to firing anti-aircraft guns. Even if the gas filled bomb did land on the deck, it is a wind-swept deck (gas attacks were always undertaken during low or nil wind conditions); the gas will blow away or the bomb will roll overboard.
I do like the image of commandos trying to parachute onto a moving ship though; highly amusing.
Let's at least give credit for ingenuity. The commandos are deployed by gliders, drop the canisters of sarin, and then they parachute onto the flight deck. If they just had to parachute onto the deck of a moving ship there wouldn't be much of a challenge, would there?
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Because the German chemical program was far more advanced.
Although he may or may not have used weaponised Tulameria at Stalingrad.
BlondieBC
Banned
Good chance. Or since the eastern and western front had different rules of war such as POW treated well if UK or French but allowed to die if Soviet, you could have the same here. Say for example, a panicking Stalin uses mustard gas in defense of Moscow. Hitler blames it for him not being able to take the city. Hitler allows commanders release over winter to corp level commanders. Come Spring, it is used to try to eliminate Leningrad and instead of taking Stalingrad, it is used to deny it to the Russians. Germany does better in WW2 in 1942, and gas is seen as a weapon which saved Moscow and then helped Germans avoid the hoards and being cut off in 1942.
If Hitler had intelligence info to belie this and/or his dementia accelerated earlier, he might have gone ahead with a far more nightmare-inducing Blitz of London.
As noted by Kachen, Hitler's holding back on chemical attacks on allied cities was ironic in light of allied firebombing of axis cities later on.
According to this article, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...itain-Hitlers-deadly-gas-killed-millions.html one of Hitler's top scientists apparently misled Hitler about allied nerve gas capacities. The article paints a lively picture of the potential scene of Tabun nerve agent being used on allied soldiers during the D-day assault.
Firebombing was carried out on Coventry and London late in 1940, so it's not a case or irony, but of 'reaping the whirlwind'. Of course, the British had wanted to do something similar themselves, but decided it was best to wait until Germany threw the first punch.
The defences were organised by Rommel, not Hitler, and Rommel ignored enough of the Fuhrer's orders that doing the same with this one would cause no problems. And if it had been forced, well, this isn't 1944, Operation Vegetarian isn't a pipe-dream. Besides, you'd have to explain why it wasn't used first on the Soviets.
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During WW1 a huge number of soldiers were temporary blinded by gas and the German Army couldn't afford these troops either being discharged or given long leaves of absence for health reasons so 'hysterical blindness' was a common diagnosis in order to get troops back to the front far more quickly then if they were diagnosed with actually having been gassed so I wouldn't put too much stock in the notion that because that is what the doctor listed it as proves Hitler wasn't gassed.
@ katchen- mad props on the comprehensive survey of chemical warfare agents.
My thoughts are, outside of area denial or flushing bunkers with irritants, chemical warfare's more trouble than it's worth. It creates just as many headaches for the user as the target.
Thermobaric weapons are just exotic explosives with no persistent effects.
CBW treaties are about regulating methods capable of killing thousands to millions at a whack with agents that are impossible to contain once released. Sarin, soman and so forth poison the ground for weeks to months and need we go how persistent Agent Orange is?
For those who think running around in MOPP suits doesn't burden your troops as much as it does the enemy in 100 degree F-38 degree C heat, you're on dope.
Chemical warfare has its uses but not as reliable go to in many situations IMO.
My thoughts are, outside of area denial or flushing bunkers with irritants, chemical warfare's more trouble than it's worth. It creates just as many headaches for the user as the target.
Thermobaric weapons are just exotic explosives with no persistent effects.
CBW treaties are about regulating methods capable of killing thousands to millions at a whack with agents that are impossible to contain once released. Sarin, soman and so forth poison the ground for weeks to months and need we go how persistent Agent Orange is?
For those who think running around in MOPP suits doesn't burden your troops as much as it does the enemy in 100 degree F-38 degree C heat, you're on dope.
Chemical warfare has its uses but not as reliable go to in many situations IMO.