What if the Paris gun fired gas shells

There would be a lot of dead Franks in Paris, and the Entente would start dropping chemical warheads on German cities from the air.
 

Deleted member 1487

There was no need, because German bombers could have delivered those shells if they wanted. Actually the French were considering using bio-warfare on German cities during the war in 1916, but were stopped by knowing the Germans could retaliate against their cities. By the end of the war all major western powers were bombing each others cities, so the fear of MAD was definitely there in the escalation to gas bombing of population centers.
 
Hardly effective, a conventional explosive shell could do more damage. The effects of a single 21 cm shell filled with mustard gas - or some other agent - would be almost negligible. And impacts were too far apart to deliver anything like a pattern.
 
Hardly effective, a conventional explosive shell could do more damage. The effects of a single 21 cm shell filled with mustard gas - or some other agent - would be almost negligible. And impacts were too far apart to deliver anything like a pattern.

Not to mention didn't the Paris Gun have a fairly slow rate of fire?
 

MrP

Banned
While the above posters have pointed out that it would hardly be useful (with which conclusion I agree), the point should be made that the gun wasn't particularly apt for its duty IOTL. Given its actual impractical nature, I'd imagine that the technological concern of designing specialised gas-bearing shells (in addition to OTL's rounds) would be more of a concern than whether it would be a sensible military exercise. I don't recall ever seeing a treatment of the Gun (though books on WWI are so numerous and my library so comparatively scanty that I urge you not to draw the conclusion that no such paper exists) which would answer the question of whether such an idea was considered during the war.
 
The 'Paris-Geschütz' actually were three separate guns IIRC, but only one of them was active at a given time. And the rate of fire was very low.
 
perhaps anthrax would be more effective.... i have read stories about the germans coming up with plans to poison all the allies horses with it?
 
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