Nerve gas discovered earlier

What if;

1. Tabun was discovered in 1899. Its discovery is not kept secret

2. The USSR discovers VX in 1936

3. France discovers VX in 1936

Each scenario is separate from each other.

I suppose I will justify why this isnt ASB.

First. Tabun. Look at Schraders work and one thing seems apparent. Even though I am no chemist.

All the materials for the preparation of tabun predate WWI. The process is quite simple. Pure luck on the part of any chemist could have found tabun much earlier..

VX. If we say that tabun did not need a 1930s discovery date. Maybe either the French or Soviets get lucky with the discovery in the 1920s of tabun.

VX. And sarin. They are harder to discover than tabun. However, discovering tabun sets you down the path.

VX (reference patent US 3,911,059 by the US army) requires two items that I think also need to be discovered. N,N-diisopropylaminoethanol (reference patent 1,282,202 by the French ministry of the army) and dichloromethylphosphine. Sarin requires 1 item for its preparation, methylphosphonic dichloride. However, if tabin were discovered. It would set the clock for discovery of sarin and VX. Also. The VX preparation is more complex than sarin or tabun seemingly.

My main question is how does the first scenario affect WWI. How do the last two scenarios taken separately potentially affect WWII.

I think that Stalin would have used VX during Barbarossa had he had it. He would have been mad not too. I wonder if it could have thwarted the Nazis much sooner than Moscow?

WWI. Likewise I could see tabun being actually used. And in truth its use might actually break the deadlock of war?
 
The key requirement for an early discovery of tabun is simply realizing that it kills people. It was first synthesized in 1898 (although the structure was assigned incorrectly) but the batch was small and the toxicity wasn't noticed. Later, Schrader prepared tabun again and, since he was interested in organophosphate insecticides, he discovered tabun's toxicity.

IMO, if anything is unrealistic in your post it's the 37-year gap between discovering tabun and discovering VX. If pursuit of tabun as an insecticide occurs in 1899, then discovery of the other G-series agents would take about 8-10 years. That is two PhD theses, and that's the speed academic research moves at. Say 5-6 years if it's an industrial lab. Tabun has three possible sites of substitution; the research would consist of making every combination you can think of. In the 8-10 year timeframe, I'd give them a 90% chance of discovering sarin and soman (which have F instead of CN).

The V-series agents have a P-S bond and installing that bond is a bit of a leap, but not daunting. You tend to try sulfur derivatives after trying a lot of oxygen derivatives, but that's not what's happening here, as the V-series agents still have a P-O bond. The sulfur atom replaces the CN of tabun or the F of sarin; there are logical reasons to try sulfur at that position, because the sulfur, like the F or CN group, pulls electron density off the phosphorus atom. That encourages the interaction between the nerve agent and the serine (-OH) residue on acetylcholinesterase that causes the fatal effects of these agents. See the wiki article "Nerve agent" for more.

I hope that helps -- a lot of this sort of chemistry is based on following hunches and much of the above could be wrong.
 

Oh that helps terrifically. Thank you. Very interesting. I hadnt read the history of tabun on wikipedia (I read Schraders patents a bit and some of his academoc work) and this info was right there all along! Completely missed it. And I think Ambros mentioned that to Hitler but I assumed he was making it up. Wow.

I might make a TL where tabun is discovered and its affects in WWI. That sounds very interesting to me.
 
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