If Saddam had used Chemical weapons against coalition forces in the Gulf war, how would we have responded? Would Bush have retaliated with nuclear weapons or would we have retained conventional tactics and switched strategies to destroy stockpiles of chemical weapons?
... but the Coalition armored spearheads were usually not where the artillery thought they were, and chemical rounds are very hit or miss against tankers.
Maybe true for the 'armored spearheads' but my peers in the USMC artillery saw their saw share of Iraqi counter battery fires. It was usually ineffective in terms of HE ammunition, but accurate enough for chemical ammunition.
The dirty secret about chemical warfare is it's really ineffective in most circumstances. Getting enough gas density in a small enough area is hard, and if the other side can move away from the affected area they d ...
To echo Ian_W, it rather depends on how he uses them. It’s one thing if Iraqis arty drops some phosgene on a Coalition spearhead. It’s quite another of a barrage of scuds loaded with VX lands in Downtown Tel-Aviv.
Chemical weapons work best in terms of area denial (persistent nerve agent) and attrition against fixed sites (like airfields) - these were the primary assigned usage for NATO and WARPAC in the 80s, so for an effective mass casualty attack the target would either have to be civillian or get through the PATRIOT batteries to hit forces massed in Kuwait.
.
No it is going to have to react even faster and with more force in that case. The coalition does not want Israel getting involved, as that could have very bad domestic effects on the Arab members of the coalition. So they have to hit hard enough to satisfy the Israelis, and do it quick before the Israelis have to take matters into their own hands for domestic reasonsWell on the 'bright' side, the Coalition won't have to lift a finger in that second case.
No it is going to have to react even faster and with more force in that case. The coalition does not want Israel getting involved, as that could have very bad domestic effects on the Arab members of the coalition. So they have to hit hard enough to satisfy the Israelis, and do it quick before the Israelis have to take matters into their own hands for domestic reasons
A coalition of which the US was the leading member, so it could include their forces or not.The OP states coalition forces rather than the US.
And they're going to have to act very fast indeed. Because Israel is not going to listen to any more pleas to show restraint when hundreds, if not thousands of Jews are dead on the streets of their own capital by gas launched by an Arab dictator.