A thought I had today...

Suppose the Germans make the decision to use gas or a coal dust based weapons against the Soviets in early '43. Do the Soviets have the ability to counterattack? Will their use allow the Germans to hold off, or even push back the Soviet steamroller? And what of the Western Allies? Would they retaliate against Germany for their use? Perhaps they attempt a cross-channel invasion a year early? Discuss.

Note, I have two seperate scenarios in mind here:

1. The Germans use such weapons solely against the Soviets in the east.
2. They start out using them in the east, but decide to teach the Western Allies the same lesson, perhaps in Africa, or Italy.
 
Retaliation

The Soviets had a fairly impressive chemical industry prior to the war, one that the Germans knew quite a bit about, as they helped build it. More to the point, a significant amount of the early research on nerve toxins was done by Russian scientists before the war, and the Germans couldn't have ignored that.

My point is that the Germans must have assumed that anything they used against the Soviets would be returned to them with interest. Unless the weapons would win the war in the east immediately (they wouldn't....see WWI for the drawbacks of chemicals, particularly in the huge expanses of the Eastern theatre), the Germans would only be creating more problems for themselves in the long run. The tactical advantages were limited, and the strategic liabilities were immense.

As a secondary point (perhaps not so secondary), it would be quite likely that once the Germans used chemicals (even against the Soviets), the western allies would feel far less restraint against using them against the Germans.
 
Perhaps an offensive use of the weapons then, say a preparatory bombardments with Sarin artillery shells? If the Germans could push the Soviets back quickly enough in this manner, would it be enough to turn the east into a WWI era no-man's land, and shift focus to the west?
 
Size of the Eastern Front

This was almost precisely what the Germans tried on the Eastern Front when they first used chemicals in WWI, and it failed for a simple reason...size. The Eastern Front is enormous, over 1000 miles long, and there are few enough natural choke points that would permit a useful front line (as such) to form. The compact nature of the western front in WWI, combined with the very large number of troops there, made it more practical to establish firm and fixed lines of defense, leading to the use of so-called 'linear tactics'. None of this is possible in Russia.

Worse still, the Soviets could easily reverse this tactic against the Germans, who depended upon delaying tactics and mobile defense when they were successful, and 'stand or die' orders when they were not. Chemicals aren't really great killers (once both sides take precautions), but they do a wonderful job in slowing things down (interdiction) which would tend to interfere with German efforts to mount a mobile defense. As for static defenses, the Soviets had an ideal weapon for saturation gas attacks - the Katyusha - and this would give them a greater chance in obliterating strongpoints that cost them dearly in OTL.
 
Then of course, there's Hitler's personal aversion to the use of chemical weapons, what with him being a veteran of the Western Front and being on the receiving end of at least one gas attack.
 
Then of course, there's Hitler's personal aversion to the use of chemical weapons, what with him being a veteran of the Western Front and being on the receiving end of at least one gas attack.

I knew about that, but after both Torch and Stalingrad, he might have authorized their use if someone asked.
 
I knew about that, but after both Torch and Stalingrad, he might have authorized their use if someone asked.

But to wait purpose? Torch was on a very broad front, and the various Stalingrad battles (in the city gas would have been counterproductive, outside it would have been ineffective due to the scope involved) offer even less opportunity.

Worse still, what happens when the allies retaliate? Gas is going to make a mess of the mobile defense that saved the Germans following Stalingrad, and the various german efforts to stabalize their front in Sicily and Italy are going to be vastly complicated if the Allies use it.
 
But to wait purpose? Torch was on a very broad front, and the various Stalingrad battles (in the city gas would have been counterproductive, outside it would have been ineffective due to the scope involved) offer even less opportunity.

Worse still, what happens when the allies retaliate? Gas is going to make a mess of the mobile defense that saved the Germans following Stalingrad, and the various german efforts to stabalize their front in Sicily and Italy are going to be vastly complicated if the Allies use it.

I'm not sure I had a purpose in mind. It was just a random thought.

What about contaminating certain areas in order to make the land unpassable/useable? For instance, spreading tabun around as they retreat so the Soviets advance into it unknowingly?
 
Scope

You could indeed contaminate some areas with nerve gas (or for that matter, mustard gas), but the front is HUGE, and even for the short time that the area would remain impassible (rain, snow, etc. will deal with that problem even if the Russians dont), it isn't going to make a material difference to most of the offensives that the Russians will be engaged in. Will it slow them down? A bit...for a short time....at great cost.... Will that difference be significant, worth the losses (remember, nerve gas is dangerous nasty stuff to handle, the Germans will lose some troops and equipment from the normal day-to-day operations with the stuff), and generally cost-effective? Not a chance....

Worse still, what will the Russians do? Douse the German defensive positions with gas (as I mentioned before, the Katyusha would be ideal for that), send massive numbers of troops to recon the areas without concern about casualties (they did it with minefields), hand the chems over to the partisans with instructions to use them against rear areas?

This is not a winning proposition for the Germans.
 
Not to worry...

You shouldn't feel so bad...the idea was hardly unworthy....just the scope of the theatre and the generally overhyped effectiveness of chems (look at WWI, where the chems were reasonably potent but the countermeasures were crude to see how really limited they were) tend to give us a distorted notion of how well they work. Certainly for defensive purposes they are very limited, but if you have masses of artillery or rockets and huge numbers of expendable infantry, they can come in quite handy.
 
Did the Soviets have the secret of Mustard and Lewisite? If they did the Germans get nowhere.These are the perfect area denial weapons.
 
I wonder what would happen if they were used before the US entry, say to help take Moscow. I know that would require the Germans to view them as a viable military weapon, but hypothetically...
 
Secret?

Catmo,

Mustard and Lewisite were both fairly easy to manufacture and well understood by any country with even a modest chemical industry. There was no secret involved.

As far as being used for area denial...consider the size of the battlefield...you can pretty much go around anything with the exception of a few minor chokepoints, and those can be deconned if you have expendable labor, which both sides had in abundance.

Life is Black,

The problems with the Germans using it in front of Moscow are:

1) Too cold...while some war gasses work in very cold weather, they are drastically reduced in effectiveness
2) Chemicals must be used in very large quantities to be effective...the German logistics network was not capable of moving those quantities to the Moscow area without displacing other, crucial supplies
3) The Germans lacked sufficient delivery systems to use sufficient quantities of gas in combat
 
The other thing, of course, is that the Germans used horses for mobility. You can put a gas mask on a soldier, you can't put one on a horse.

Once either side starts throwing chemical weapons around, the Germans are stuck in position - can barely advance or retreat without horses.

Soviets are probably in the same boat.
 
Horses

The other thing, of course, is that the Germans used horses for mobility. You can put a gas mask on a soldier, you can't put one on a horse.

Once either side starts throwing chemical weapons around, the Germans are stuck in position - can barely advance or retreat without horses.

Soviets are probably in the same boat.

Interestingly enough, the Germans did have some plans in place for protecting horses from chemicals. In fairness, they would have had only limited utility, but they weren't completely blind to the idea. Keep in mind that all armies made extensive (sometimes nearly exclusive) use of horses in WWI, where chemicals were used, so the problem wasn't unknown to planners on all sides.

While the Soviets did make use of horses, they also made very heavy use of American-supplied trucks. Practically all of their motorized mobility came from those trucks. The panje wagons and the lighter horses favored by the Russians, however, were easier to protect against chemicals than the heavier 'cold bloods' used by the Germans.

An outstanding piece of work on this subject can be found at:

http://www.amazon.com/Mechanized-Ju...5036/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311537275&sr=8-1
 
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