WI chemical weapons were not banned ...

Deleted member 1487

Unless the Allies discover nerve agents ITTL they are in for a very rude surprise come 1940 and on. They probably will get there too eventually, especially if they are able to capture any German weapons and analyze them. The Eastern Front is going to be an even bigger nightmare than IOTL, though with the Soviets lacking the ability to make more than mustard gas will hurt them. Still they will have a pretty damn large stockpile of area denial weapons, which their artillery doctrine will absolutely mesh well with. Defenders will really have a hard time given that they can and will face weapons that will make fixed defenses uninhabitable extremely quickly or outright death traps in the face of nerve agents. City fighting is going to get a lot easier for an attacker and become a nightmare for civilians and defenders. Assuming butterflies don't change the outcome of fighting up to 1941 place like Leningrad, Stalingrad, and even just pocket battles are going to face quick liquidation in the face of the ultra persistent mustard gas the Germans had as well as Tabun, but the latter wasn't in mass production until 1942 as I recall. Since in 1941 the provision of equipment wasn't exactly the greatest on the Soviet side even WW1 agents like mustard gas are going to probably be used against troops that don't have sufficient access to gas masks and other protective equipment, which really doesn't bode well for their troops. But when the Soviets can mass artillery they will certainly get revenge by the mass use for their own mustard gas...which ironically would be made on equipment provided to them in the 1920s by the Reichswehr/IG Farben as part of their previous military cooperation.

The moral of the story is WW2 ITTL would make OTL look sane by comparison.
 
i could imagine that warfare will be heavy influence by use Chemical weapons
special the infantry need protection gear for combat in toxic environment

there is burning question with this kind protection gear the soldier is save.
but what about unprotected civilians in areas were enemies dropped the C-bomb ?
 
Didn’t the Soviet Unions opinion on the nature of WP differ from the United States?

OTL then meets the criteria.
 
^ but how will they deliver it ? their methods are probably limited to artillery and mortar while US can use its airpower to devastating effect

Supply chemical weapons to the VC and deploy them via infiltrators. The potential for such weapons used by insurgents in terror applications is mindnumbing to say the least. Deployment of chemical weapons by US forces will likely hasten US exit from the war due to domestic pressure caused by insane amounts of civilian casualties when used against town strongholds. Use against North Vietnamese cities will carry the risk of open war with china regardless of their acceptability.
 
The Germans had the world’s best chemical scientists, but never really invested hard in the area of chemical weapons in the 20s (when the government didn’t have the cash) or even really the 30s when they wanted a stockpile just in case, but weren’t really spending in search of a game changing offensive weapon for the next war.

An end to WW1 before the horror of gas warfare becomes apparent is probably the best way to keep it around as a heavily invested in area at least for Europeans.

Imagine WW2 with far heavier expenditures in the area of chemical weapons in the pre-war years and nations with no taboo on using them from the start. You could have VX like gasses by the 40s.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Supply chemical weapons to the VC and deploy them via infiltrators. The potential for such weapons used by insurgents in terror applications is mindnumbing to say the least. Deployment of chemical weapons by US forces will likely hasten US exit from the war due to domestic pressure caused by insane amounts of civilian casualties when used against town strongholds. Use against North Vietnamese cities will carry the risk of open war with china regardless of their acceptability.
But US can easily claim victory and withdraw earlier from Vietnam
 

Khanzeer

Banned
i could imagine that warfare will be heavy influence by use Chemical weapons
special the infantry need protection gear for combat in toxic environment

there is burning question with this kind protection gear the soldier is save.
but what about unprotected civilians in areas were enemies dropped the C-bomb ?
Well maybe There will be a plethora of different kinds of chemical agents and protective gear depending what that militia country or Insurgent forces can afford

These agents will also be particularly useful in modern siege warfare, sapping the strength of defenders as they are limited in resupply and in a confined environment
 
You need pretty sophisticated gear, and the training on how to use it, to deal with a chemical environment especially the things like nerve gas. Additionally you need replacement chem suits, gas mask cartridges etc. The logistics of this are not simple. Sure SOME of a VC force can have suits etc, but not all of them and training will be an issue. The problem with nerve agents is they are not a gas but a liquid, dispersed in a fine aerosol, and you need specialized munitions to do this, realistically large caliber mortar shells at a minimum. Nerve gas grenades are potentially possible, but the volume of agent is small and would only work in an enclosed area if you are close enough to chick a gas grenade in a bunker you are close enough to use conventional explosives.
 
^ but how will they deliver it ? their methods are probably limited to artillery and mortar while US can use its airpower to devastating effect
Artillery rockets. A similar tactic to that used in the ME.
122mm rockets weigh 50-75kg and can deliver >25kg of CW agent. Easily transported, little infrastructure needed, can be fired in salvoes after sufficient delay for those setting them up to leave the area. A nightmare for garrison and rear echelon troops, constant fear of attack, need for CBW suits, loss of effectiveness due to the suits when worn, decontamination requirements at cetera.
 
Saddam used them against the Kurds in 1991 before 'NATO' got wise and deployed troops in the North.

My cousin was in Four-Five Commando RM who were deployed as part of Operation Haven (Spearheaded by 3 Cdo Brigade RM) and wrote to me regarding his experiences*. And I recall him talking about how they had patrolled through villages full of dead civilians where Nerve gas had been used. It had happened some weeks before they had arrived and no one had been brave enough to bury the dead.

So. More of this would occur. Great.

*Which included fishing with Russian Hand Grenades and looting.....I mean to say liberating a military depot looking for Chinese AKMs (because they had the fitted folding bayonets) - but that's another story.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
War is nasty business and it's always the innocents on both sides that suffer

What would be the preferred agents for COIN work ? Heavy more persistent agents ?
 
Persistent agents used along the Ho Chi Minh Trail would be an effective use of chemical agents, and not likely to cause the sorts of ugly civilian casualties otherwise likely as the areas were relatively unpopulated. Dumping persistent agents on the docks in Haiphong would also be effective, making transport of goods difficult, however civilian casualties would be significant and also issue with deaths among merchant crews although I expect other than WP/Chinese ships nobody would go there. Similarly persistent agents along the rail line to China would be useful. These are fixed and known targets that can't move, and will strangle the North, and therefore NVA troops in the south as well as supply to the VC.

Basically you would use non-persistent agents against identified troop concentrations and persistent agents against logistic/base targets or to create no-go zones. The effort and logistic requirements to decontaminate affected parts of the trail or a port would constitute a huge burden, and since resources are limited divert even more resources away from the fighting units.
 
@Khanzeer : Yes the Soviets had persistent agents, in a WP-NATO war where WMD were not off the table, they would be used to hit supply depots (like POMCUS sites), HQ/communication nodes, and transportation nodes. You really, really don't want to use persistent agents any place your forces are going to be going through before the agents degrade.
 

Deleted member 1487

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For most munitions, the marginal cost of making them suitable for gas is not large - for some the expense is significant but only some very specialized warheads. After all in WWI untold numbers of gas shells were flung around, and the Italians used gas both artillery and bombs against the Ethiopians as did Japan against the Chinese.
 
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