No Holds Barred?
The 60th anniversary of the US nuclear attack on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is upon us. Virtually the final horrible act of a horrible war. Was World War 2 a no holds barred conflict? Not quite. During WW2, both the Allies and the Euro Axis Powers possessed sufficient chemical weaponry to annihilate most of the major urban centres. Millions of casualties were possible. The Allies maintained vast stocks of “conventional” weapons, while the Germans built up stocks of the newer nerve agents.
Mindful of the effects of mass chemical attacks during WW1, both sides chose not to use such weapons on each other. It was their version of MAD. It was sufficient to deter even the Nazis.
The penny ante efforts of small-scale cultists are not really applicable.WW1 used simple chemical weapons – the effectiveness of industrial-scale nerve agents has never been fully tested in combat.
http://www.vectorsite.net/twgas1.html#m1
The Germans conducted the first chlorine gas attack on 22 April 1915, against French and Algerian troops facing them at Ypres in Belgium. The Germans set up 5,730 cylinders of chlorine gas and opened their valves. 180 tonnes (200 tons) of gas were released, forming a dense green cloud that smelled of bleach and rolled into Allied lines. The results of the gas attack were devastating. The French and Algerian soldiers choked, their lungs burning, and slowly died. The gas cloud tinted everything a sickly green. Those who could escape the cloud fled in panic. Before dawn on 24 April, the Germans poured gas into Canadian lines, with similar results.
Allied casualties in the two days of gas attacks were estimated at 5,000 dead, with 10,000 more disabled, half of them permanently.
Gas was estimated to have killed about 100,000 men and injured a million.
Correct. I beleive chemical weapons are largely ineffective. I was never concerned about them. The possibility that they had a nuclear program was my major concern. Iran obviously does and europe has wasted two years in pointless negotiations, when it’s obvious that iran wants weapons and not nuclear energy — 1) they’re siting on one of the largest oil reseves in the world 2) they haven’t built reactors and 3) are enrinching uranium.
Iraq probably had more to do with giving an F*ck You to OBL. He wants us out of Saudi Arabia and he’s our enemy, so let’s double our presence in that area.
“ineffective”
http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/mom/vx/VX.htm
In the liquid form of VX, it is absorbed through the eyes or the skin of the victim. It takes an hour or two to take effect and its effects result in death. The gaseous form is more deadly than the liquid form and acts almost immediately on the victim. The effects are worst when it is inhaled and death is an end to the suffering.
The LD50 can be as little as 10mg for humans.