Lethality of Nazi nerve gas

You're thinking VX gas, Tabun and Sarin are not persistent agents
As far as I know the G-series remain dangerous for at least a weak afterwards. It will break down into relatively inert chemicals, but there's no doubt it will complicate relief and rescue efforts in the meantime.
 
In WWI gas was much, much more likely to cause a soldier to leave the line for a while than it was to kill them. I think the whole 'they will have to put on masks' aspect mattered a lot more.

Phosgene killed 100k between 1915-1918. In a place where everyone was crammed into a tiny area and huge amounts (and concentrations) of the stuff was used at the same time. For each individual bombardment of a sector 10kms long, at best maybe 100-200 people would have died. (1000 bombardments actually seems like an extremely small amount).

Sarin and Tabun are worse, but not so much worse that the low level of concentration that an aerial bombing raid can provide is enough to kill thousands. I would say a fleet of Heinkels or Junkers' would probably cause a couple of dozen deaths, along with a lot of disruption. This is assuming the planes can drop enough gas to rival a Great War bombardment, which is unlikely.

- BNC
 
Please note that Sarin and Tabun are also contact poisons. So it would not only be a matter of avoiding direct aerial exposure but also later contact exposure. And we are talking miligrams not pounds for lethal concentrations. Germany had some 12.000kg of Tabun.
The mg value is for actual absorption values, from memory through the lungs and for the onset of symptoms - for skin toxicity the values are rather higher, roughly 1g is lethal in 50% of the population. That's the sort of density of liquid you get in a rain shower, with clothing providing a surprising amount of protection.

Also note that both are odor and colourless, so people would not know they are under gas attack. So no running for shelter or putting on gas masks(not that the 1940's versions would work).
They might not be aware that it was gas which was being used, but they would sure as hell know that they were under attack - the air raid sirens, AA guns and in the case of V-1s the distinctive engine note would all make this very obvious.

While bombers are feasible, I think the preferred delivery vehicle would be the V-1 during daylight hours. The semi-horizontal flight path would make a sort of dust cropper attack easy to engineer. 30 V-1's getting through, (30*800kg=2400kg of Gas) in a spread out formation over London would cover most of London with enough Tabun or Sarin to kill more than 20% of its population at release, and later through surface contact a further 50%.
Sorry, but your numbers are WAY out.
  • 30 V-1s getting through to actually hit London would be a major effort for the Germans - 100 fired in a day was maximum effort, and about half would typically be shot down. With the mean aiming point being some distance away from London, then 30 actually hitting London is wildly optimistic. Of about 1200 launched at London 500 hit the city (with accuracy degrading over time as the aimpoint got less and less accurate), so getting 30 V1s over London means launching 70-80.
  • The autopilot on the V-1 was simply incapable of flying in the spread formation you're suggesting - they'll be spread out randomly (CEP was 8 miles) giving hotspots and areas of no gas distribution.
  • The altitude is wrong for a spray tank attack - they cruised at 2-3,000 ft and didn't have the capability to change altitude in flight. Going in low enough to make an effective spray tank attack means they'll probably hit the Downs on the way in, and even if they don't will be right in the effective range of the light flak all the way in. If you don't drop the altitude then you'll have massive dilution problems: the gas will be reduced to a vapour hazard and almost all casualties will be well below a lethal dose.
  • German weather forecasting over the UK was awful, particularly by the time the V-1 was available - this is exacerbated by the fact that their mean point of aim was downwind of the centre of London, so the odds of them launching the attack on a day with suitable weather conditions are actually pretty poor.
  • Tabun will typically last for 24 hours under normal environmental conditions - killing a further couple of million people in this time given the way that conventional precautions against a gas attack should work very well just isn't plausible.
  • Because the hazard is mostly vapour (you need 1g on your skin for a 50% lethal dose), the existing gas masks which everybody had provide pretty good protection. That means the attack will work once - after that casualties will be orders of magnitude smaller. Worse, the RAF will respond in kind - that means Operation Vegetarian is ordered on the spot, with Mustard and Phosgene being dropped on Germany straight afterwards.
 
Look at the Tokyo Sarin gas attack.

Bad example. The quality of the chemical components was garbage, as one might expect of a terrorist organization trying to cook the stuff up in a garage. It's like comparing the reliability of an assault rifle kludged together out various spare parts by hand to one that has been finely machined, assembled, and tuned in a factory.

A better idea of the effect of employment of proper military-grade chemical agents against civilian population can be found in Saddam's use of gas in the 1980s against the Kurds or the much more recent Ghouta attack. In the latter, 15-19 rockets killed a minimum of 281 people... a death toll of 18-14 people per rocket. It is conceivable that conventional HE rockets could achieve similar death tolls... but also conceivable that they would have achieved drastically lower ones as well.
 
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The quality of the chemical components was garbage, as one might expect of a terrorist organization trying to cook the stuff up in a garage

And you think the early batches of Sarin and Tabun were much better?

Saddam had a lot of years to work on that, and that was on the shoulders of the Soviet program that debugged the process, that took over a decade after the Soviets got all the German research, plants and the techs?
 
And you think the early batches of Sarin and Tabun were much better?

The first batches the Germans made period? I can see it possibly happening, particularly since they were produced on accident. The first batches the Germans manufactured on an industrial scale to stockpile for possible military use? Definitely.

Saddam had a lot of years to work on that, and that was on the shoulders of the Soviet program that debugged the process, that took over a decade after the Soviets got all the German research, plants and the techs?

It also took the Germans years to move from the first discovery of the agents in 1938 to the first pilot production plants, during which considerable work was done on a production process that wouldn't result in a shit product. They didn't even manage to get a proper mass production facility finished before the war ended, but they had already ironed out much of the bugs. There isn't that substantial a qualitative difference between the saran the Germans had in their bunkers in 1944 and what Saddam dropped on Halabja in the mid-80s.
 
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You're thinking VX gas, Tabun and Sarin are not persistent agents
Concurred, Sarin would evaporate three time as fast as Water, so only under low temperature and humid conditions would it have a significant persistance. Tabun being more or less Water like. However, they did develop cyclosarin (GF) which were persisting 20 times as long as Water.
 
It also took the Germans years to move from the first discovery of the agents in 1938 to the first pilot production plants, during which considerable work was done on a production process that wouldn't result in a shit product. They didn't even manage to get a proper mass production facility finished before the war ended, but they had already ironed out much of the bugs. There isn't that substantial a qualitative difference between the saran the Germans had in their bunkers in 1944 and what Saddam dropped on Halabja in the mid-80s.

I agree with ObsessedNuker that the Halabja massacre is by far the best indication of an widespread application. This was done in the sun, under dry conditons (eg. almost worst possible) in repeated sorties of 7-8 planes and they achieved very effective saturation apparently by dropping bombs. From eye witnes reports it was a stampede out of the city and those left behind they perished.3-5000 dead, 5-10000 heavily injured.
 
I agree with ObsessedNuker that the Halabja massacre is by far the best indication of an widespread application. This was done in the sun, under dry conditons (eg. almost worst possible) in repeated sorties of 7-8 planes and they achieved very effective saturation apparently by dropping bombs. From eye witnes reports it was a stampede out of the city and those left behind they perished.3-5000 dead, 5-10000 heavily injured.

But they had Soviet developed&tested dispersal systems. Nazis have no sure way to get consistent release without a lot of testing first.

So you had matured agents and dispersal systems, as well as ground handling procedures. They need to do all that stuff first.
 
From all accounts, the Iraqi's used explosive delivery which is the most practical way if hampered by some inefficiency so the reference stands.
SOme of the problems with VX gas and explosive delivery is flashing which is not a problem with Tabun. Also the initial purity was about 95%.
This link contains a informative quote on the experiments. I dont have the actual book
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=101711
 
From all accounts, the Iraqi's used explosive delivery which is the most practical way if hampered by some inefficiency so the reference stands.
SOme of the problems with VX gas and explosive delivery is flashing which is not a problem with Tabun. Also the initial purity was about 95%.
This link contains a informative quote on the experiments. I dont have the actual book
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=101711

The problem is, unless stabilizers are added to the agent in the shells, it degrades in days, unless using a binary mix deployment, and then having no VT fuzing.

Using stabilizers reduces the effectiveness of the agent, as well.
 
The problem is, unless stabilizers are added to the agent in the shells, it degrades in days, unless using a binary mix deployment, and then having no VT fuzing.

Using stabilizers reduces the effectiveness of the agent, as well.

The loss rate - in the Shells - was 20% over three years???
Its true they later made a more stable mix, but that was still 80% pure.
 
The loss rate - in the Shells - was 20% over three years???
Its true they later made a more stable mix, but that was still 80% pure.

again, that was with a decade of Soviet experimentation to get stabilizers. There's a reason why both the US and USSR spent so much effort on binary storage
 
again, that was with a decade of Soviet experimentation to get stabilizers. There's a reason why both the US and USSR spent so much effort on binary storage

It was referring to tabun in WW2 Germany. Sarin is more volatile which may be relevant for your Japanese example. Also, three years is nothing in peace time, but an eternity in 1944.
 
You're thinking VX gas, Tabun and Sarin are not persistent agents

Soman can be made relatively persistent through the use of thickening additives. I would suppose that Tabun and Sarin could as well, though I don't know if the Nazis had discovered this fact.
 
Saying an agent is "persistant" or "non-persistant" is really a relative statement and an average of one at that. The reality is that the persistence of chemical agents is dependent on a huge variety of factors of which the type of agent being used is but one, which is one of the reasons why chemicals are regarded as too unreliable to be an effective tactical support tool on the offense. Similar to nukes, chemical weapons are not so much "used" as they are "unleashed".
 
Wish I had retained my training documents on chemical agents. Some of them were extremely detailed in things like persistance, nuetralizing conditions, density for effect, ect... :frown:
 
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