WW2 with chemical weapons from the start

cloistered scholar

What kind of POD is needed for chemical weapons to be used during the war?

Would gas help the Germans take cities like Stalingrad?

Could gas be restricted to the battlefield, ie no dropping gas on London?

Which side has the most to gain in this scenario?
 

MUC

I think you need to define "from the start". Does that mean September 1939? And to what extent would CW be used?
 

Garrison

Donor
If Germany uses gas in 1939 or 1940 that will have a massive influence on US public opinion and it means the gloves are off when it comes to defending France or preparing against a possible invasion of Britain. The caveat is that even when the Soviets were storming towards Berlin and Hitler was prepared to engage in a scorched earth policy the Nazis didn't use chemical weapons. If they didn't use them when the 'slavic horde' was advancing through Germany I cannot imagine a circumstance where they would.

As for the British and the French even when the British were issuing millions of gas masks on the assumption that gas would be used and France was falling chemical weapons weren't deployed. I don't think the issue was morality, it was that stripped of all the horror stories gas just hadn't proven all that effective as a battlefield weapon in WWI.
 

CaptainCalvert

My suspicion is that WW1 experience revealed the limitations of gas warfare to outweight the benefits. Besides, why go to the trouble of handling chemical weapons, working out wind and hoping the defenders don't have effective protection when mechanisation means you can more readily destroy most bunkers and forts with 6" guns (and a few 88s) and without leaving a toxic environment for your own troops? The importance of speed and mobility is clearly expressed in Achtung Panzer, while gas is more of a tool for supporting direct assaults rather than an aid to rapid attacks, initiative etc.
Perhaps too in an era when many believed the bomber would always get through, the inability to protect civilans due to shortage of rubber for gas masks may also be a factor.
 
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TDM

Kicked
CaptainCalvert said:
My suspicion is that WW1 experience revealed the limitations of gas warfare to outweight the benefits. Besides, why go to the trouble of handling chemical weapons, working out wind and hoping the defenders don't have effective protection when mechanisation means you can more readily destroy most bunkers and forts with 6" guns (and a few 88s) and without leaving a toxic environment for your own troops?
Perhaps too in an era when many believed the bomber would always get through, the inability to protect civilans due to shortage of rubber for gas masks may also be a factor.
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basically this,

Chemical weapons were nasty and shocking in WW1 when used well and in flattering circumstances (i.e. static trenches) but even then they weren't actual game changers.

But in WW2 no one want's to fight the style of war where Chemical weapons are at their most effective i.e. static trench warfare.

Of course some countries wanted to kill civilians and chemical weapons can do that if deployed under favourable circumstances, and of course chemical weapons were used like that to kill very large numbers of civilians in WW2 it's just they were deployed in a way that maximised their potential for killing i.e. in the death camp gas chambers.
 
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MUC

The issue here is what happens if Germany decides to use chemical weapons when it starts hitting cities and industrial centers.
If we set the start date at September 1939, then that would mean chemical weapons would be used during the Siege of Warsaw. By the Luftwaffe and/or by army units using artillery shells. Casualties will be high and certainly public opinion towards Germany will shift, as others noted. This will bring the US closer to joining the war at an earlier date.
If the Luftwaffe keeps using chemical weapons during the invasion of the Low Countries and France, it could mean that they are deployed during the bombing of Rotterdam.
 

pjmidd

Trouble is to get the Germans to use chemical weapons first , this has to be another Hitler is not Hitler thread thus changing everything else. Given his experiences in WW1, Hitler is not first using chemical weapons ( in warfare , still a monster elsewhere ). As nobody else in Europe was willing to use them on their own territory except in extremis ( Churchill on the Landing Beaches if the Germans got across the channel for example ), you need a big POD which would have major changes to events apart from the use of chemical weapons.
 

Post

Curtain Jerker said:
This article on why modern armies don't use chemical weapons anymore is an interesting read.
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Tnx, it is.

The summary:
Quite frankly, we don’t use chemical weapons for the same reason we don’t use war-zeppelin-bombers: they don’t work, at least within our modern tactical systems.
(...)
it isn’t that chemical munitions do nothing, but rather they are less effective than an equivalent amount of conventional, high explosive munitions
(...)
the moral calculus isn’t the dominant factor: battlefield efficacy – or the relative lack thereof – is.
Click to expand...
 
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