Eastern Front with Gas (No Britain)

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
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Deleted member 1487

Assuming the British have exited the war in 1940 and the Germans opt to use gas against the Soviets, how does the Eastern front play out?
I'm looking to discuss this scenario specifically, so would we avoid discussing how the British exit the war?

Without the threat of British retaliating with gas and anthrax on German cities, the Germans opt to use their gas stocks on the Soviets during their invasion.

Nerve gas though is not available in quantities until September 1942, which is when the first batch of the major new Tabun production facility would reach the front line (the factory went online in June). Still the Germans have about 20-25 tons of Tabun available in June 1941 and the capacity to make 1-1.5 tons a month until June of 1942. Sarin wasn't available until 1944 due to its difficulty of production, and then only about 50 tons a year could be produced.

They also have a massive chemical engineering industry that dwarves the Soviet's production capabilities and potential. The Soviets also don't have a domestic source of rubber and rely on Buna (synthetic rubber), so don't have enough gas masks for their troops. In fact in June 1941 there is a massive deficit of masks with front line troops, leaving them massively vulnerable to WW1 era gasses. No only that but their masks aren't meant to protect against tear and vomiting gas, which the Germans often used to force wearers to pull of their masks and leave them vulnerable to poison gases.

So assuming the Germans use gas rockets, artillery shells, and aircraft bombs during the Eastern Front campaign, what happens?
I assume the aircraft bomb version would be the most practical in the fast moving battles of Barbarossa, but when the artillery catches up in the big pocket battles they will play a role as well.

The important places to use gas would probably be in pocket reduction, strong point clearing (including beachheads that the Soviets were very hard to remove from), and city fighting like at Stalingrad. IMHO the Germans would end up taking less losses as a result of these early battles due to the Soviet pockets being disrupted by the use of gas. I could see Tabun being used during the Kiev pocket, basically being saved up for when it would be most useful. During the winter gas cannot vaporize, so would be useless for those battles.

At Stalingrad gas would be critical not only as a means of clearing out the city, but also for surpressing/eliminating artillery across the Volga. About this time Tabun would be available in major amounts too, so it could be used regularly and the Soviets wouldn't have the capability to defend against it with.

Kursk, if something like it still happens despite butterflies, would also see heavy saturation of nerve gas, but would it be a game changer? How about the rest of the fighting on the Eastern front?
 
german mustard agent of the period was super lethal and persistant; it would do well in collapsing pockets and acting as an area denial weapon; it would also play hell with soviet rear areas if they had HE-111's do spraying attacks at night over civi centers (creating massive refugee and contamination problems) what was more they had tonnes and tonnes of the stuff

think about Leningrad for example; if done in medium weather of the early fall the city could be so contaminated as to collapse order entirely
 
I thought the Nazis didn't use gas because Hitler had been gassed during WWI and was personally opposed to it.
 
I thought the Nazis didn't use gas because Hitler had been gassed during WWI and was personally opposed to it.

Well, yes, but there was also an understanding that if the Germans deployed gas, then the British would choke Germany in gas in response, and don't forget that the Brits have Vegetarian in their backpocket too.
 
I could see the US and the UK (now out of the war) massively stepping up aid particularly in anti-gas materials for the Soviets compared to OTL. It wouldn't surprise me if the British would put the threat of gas deployment back on the table if the Nazis start rattling their sabers at the UK after Barbarossa. You would also probably see a serious arms race kick off among all the powers capable of competing.

That is also probably the ONLY thing the Nazis could do to even more firmly cross the moral event horizon. Death camps+mass gassing of European Russia=holy Gods the biggest body count in human history. You can also bet, if the Soviets manage to get enough material and such to hit back and win, the retaliation against Germany is going to make the looting of East German OTL like kids stealing pencils.
 
Don't the Russians have gas themselves? Not nerve agents, but old fashioed stuff will still kill Germans...

Not in the same league of what Germany had created in the interwar period.

With the UK out of the war Lend Lease never happens, the undeclared war between the U.S. Navy and the German Navy never happens and Germany does not declare war on the U.S. after Pearl Harbor.

Germany fighting a one front war against the Soviet's with gas would have been a bloodbath of epic proportions. If the Soviet's manage to hold on the first two years the war will decend into something like the Iran/Iraq war only with something like 60 million dead.

In this situation the likely end of the war is both sides simply being strategically exhausted and agreeing to an armistice.
 

Deleted member 1487

Not in the same league of what Germany had created in the interwar period.

With the UK out of the war Lend Lease never happens, the undeclared war between the U.S. Navy and the German Navy never happens and Germany does not declare war on the U.S. after Pearl Harbor.

Germany fighting a one front war against the Soviet's with gas would have been a bloodbath of epic proportions. If the Soviet's manage to hold on the first two years the war will decend into something like the Iran/Iraq war only with something like 60 million dead.

In this situation the likely end of the war is both sides simply being strategically exhausted and agreeing to an armistice.

With the Germans gassing Soviet cities, would they even be able to fight back effectively?
 
Perhaps the POD could be December 1941. The Wehrmacht fails to capture Moscow, the Germans must retreat and Hitler, furious, after having to face the first Wehrmacht true defeat, orders Moscow to be gassed.
 
I believe the Soviets had anthrax too.
There is a rumor that the USSR used Tularemia against the Germans at Stalingrad, and successfully enough to slow the Panzers

It looks pretty likely, a tenfold increase of total cases, mostly centered around an enemy army, especially considering this was the rare airborne form
 
Perhaps the POD could be December 1941. The Wehrmacht fails to capture Moscow, the Germans must retreat and Hitler, furious, after having to face the first Wehrmacht true defeat, orders Moscow to be gassed.

Eh, kill off Hitler in late 1940 and have Goering take command and I can see it. Hitler had a real aversion to the stuff after hallucinating and going blind for a number of days from it.

During the war, Germany stockpiled tabun, sarin, and soman but refrained from their use on the battlefield. In total, Germany produced about 78,000 tons of chemical weapons.

By 1945 the nation produced about 12,000 tons of tabun and 1,000 pounds (450 kg) of sarin. Delivery systems for the nerve agents included 105 mm and 150 mm artillery shells, a 250 kg bomb and a 150 mm rocket.

Even when the Soviets neared Berlin, Adolf Hitler was against using tabun as the final trump card, a decision which stemmed from his own experience with chemical weapons in World War I.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#section_1
 
With the Germans gassing Soviet cities, would they even be able to fight back effectively?

perhaps not

like I said before German mustard agent was VERY persistant and caustic

They could have 200 HE-111's at night drop or spray 800,000 pounds of mustard agent per night on critical targets... like rail yards, and the ensuing contamination would severely hamper movement to say nothing of the huge casualty and refugee problem such attacks would create; note only that, the Heinkels could do this bombing 1000 miles behind the front screwing up deliveries of food, fuel and ammo to front line troops
 

Deleted member 1487

perhaps not

like I said before German mustard agent was VERY persistant and caustic

They could have 200 HE-111's at night drop or spray 800,000 pounds of mustard agent per night on critical targets... like rail yards, and the ensuing contamination would severely hamper movement to say nothing of the huge casualty and refugee problem such attacks would create; note only that, the Heinkels could do this bombing 1000 miles behind the front screwing up deliveries of food, fuel and ammo to front line troops

Where can I learn more about this more persistant mustard gas? As far as I've been able to find out from online sources there doesn't seem to be a difference between WW1 and WW2 versions, but I'd like to know more.

So, hypothetically if the Germans mustard gas Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad, plus bomb Soviet oil facilities at Baku and other caucasian sources, how long could the Soviets continued to fight?
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Perhaps the POD could be December 1941. The Wehrmacht fails to capture Moscow, the Germans must retreat and Hitler, furious, after having to face the first Wehrmacht true defeat, orders Moscow to be gassed.

Since Hitler wanted to destroy Moscow permanently, I can see him using in more in the October 1941 time frame to destroy the city center, thereby saving the need for a urban battle. This can also fit in well with the needed logistical pause to resupply the the Nazi Army.
 
If he did that then I think it likely that he would also use it on Leningrad. From an invaders point of view the nice thing about Gas is that it leaves the infrastructure intact. Just wait for the damn stuff to brakedown and walk right in, police up the bodies and restart production.
 

iddt3

Donor
Even if the Nazis make peace with the UK, I would think there would still be LL, it's in the UK's interest that the Nazis don't win after all.
 
Where can I learn more about this more persistant mustard gas? As far as I've been able to find out from online sources there doesn't seem to be a difference between WW1 and WW2 versions, but I'd like to know more.

So, hypothetically if the Germans mustard gas Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad, plus bomb Soviet oil facilities at Baku and other caucasian sources, how long could the Soviets continued to fight?

The mustard agent the Germans had stock piled was in weapons called Sprühbüchse 37... it was much thicker and more persistant their their ww1 versions; it also was less water soluable too... so if you rinsed a contaminated area with water (or rain washed it) the sulfer mustard would rise to the surface in still dangerous potency levels and cruise along wherever the water went; dangerous shit.... german and polish fishermen still catch shells that were dumped into the north sea and some lakes even today and get themselves poisoned

in the open, in medium weather the stuff is persistant for weeks; so it had a high value for area denial
 
The Germans win the war. Even without gas, the Germans would win the war. Using gas just makes the suffering just that more awful.

As previous posters have mentioned, with Britain out, it means there is no Lend Lease, no undeclared war on the Atlantic, and no German declaration of war against the US. It also means the Germans have all the troops they used in Africa and to occupy Western Europe available for combat in the Soviet Union along with additional Italian units (the Italians did not fight bad when they were under German command). That means the Germans have more numbers in both 1941 and 1942 and don't need to cover weak spots with Hungarian and Romanian units, they can have German units and perhaps even German reserves available.

Hitler can get a negotiated peace with gives him most of European Russia. Maybe not the AA line, but definitely Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltics, and probably the Kuban and Caucasus.

The Soviet Union will still exist although I expect Stalin to be eliminated shortly thereafter and reforms put in place. Germany will run high politically (internationally) for a while, but it just inherited a bleeding sore in holding onto all that land. Sporadic guerilla warfare will last a long time which the Germans will respond to with mass murder. "Settlement" of German peasants there won't be easy, nor do I think Hitler's expectation that there will be lots of Germans wanting to take up the role of farmers. At some point, either Hitler or his successor is going to find out that the east can only be economically beneficial if they utilize the people they have (the Slavs). Hitler's envisioned postwar settlement was never realistic,a nd his heirs are going to have a very hard problem to solve.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
If he did that then I think it likely that he would also use it on Leningrad. From an invaders point of view the nice thing about Gas is that it leaves the infrastructure intact. Just wait for the damn stuff to brakedown and walk right in, police up the bodies and restart production.

Easily could be true. A lot would depend on the Finns attitude towards gas. Of Course with Hitler, he just might use all the gas on Jewish towns in Belarus at the start of the war.
 
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