Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: mipoikel on June 27, 2009, 04:46:21 AM
-
Top secret War Office papers have revealed a strange and macabre weapons project tested by the Allies during World War II.
Lethal clouds of tiny poisoned darts were to be tipped with mustard gas to kill enemy troops without damaging nearby buildings or equipment.
Read more here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8119653.stm
-
Guys played Indians too much, imho. Or found really good weed somethere. :huh
-
Can you image what the Nazis would have done if we used chemical warfare.
-
Can you image what the Nazis would have done if we used chemical warfare.
Die?
-
The Nazis invented nerve gas in WWII and produced a sizable stockpile of weaponized chemical weapons. The only reason they weren't used was that Hitler abhorred chemical weapons because he was himself a victim of a mustard gas attack during WWI. He ordered they only be used in response to an Allied chemical attack. If the Allies had used their, by comparison, primitive WWI chemical weapons it could have changed the outcome of the war. Germany would have had a huge advantage.
-
The Nazis invented nerve gas in WWII and produced a sizable stockpile of weaponized chemical weapons.
To give some numbers:
In spring 1944 the Luftwaffe alone had 658,000 chemical bombs in stock, about 100,000 being filled & ready for use.
Research & production went on throughout the war and stopped only as late as March '45
-
From a military point of view one could say that Hitler was stupid for not letting his generals use these weapons. From a humanitarian point of view it is one of the very few things Hitler did that we can be thankful for.
-
thats interesting. nowadays you could still use it though tipped with an advanced sedative.
-
Why are we talking about German chemical weapons, when the Allies had BAT BOMBS?
-
:lol
-
The Nazis had a huge lead over us in the nerve gas catagory. They just didnt know it. It was they who discovered and weaponized Tabun, Sarin, Soman. At least in artillary shells tho Im not aware of the exact numbers they had available. They did figure out how to do it tho.
-
Why are we talking about German chemical weapons, when the Allies had BAT BOMBS?
That would be a biological weapon. It wasn't as effective as the U.S. thought it would be.
-
That would be a biological weapon. It wasn't as effective as the U.S. thought it would be.
Actually it was neither. It was simply an incendiary device with a silly delivery method.
-
Actually it was neither. It was simply an incendiary device with a silly delivery method.
It is still biological. You are using a animal in this case.
I do know that we did used biological weapon on Germany. Not sure when and how long but we drooped insects, by the millions, on there agricultural area. It was to hurt the production of food. Not sure how well it work back then but some of the farmers are a bit bitter at us now as they are still trying to fight the bugs off from crop loss.
-
That's is crazy. Brings a whole new meaning to being scared of needles
Quote from the article:
In one experiment, the Canadians had dressed sheep and goats in two layers of battledress material and positioned them across a wide area, some in trenches, to be exposed to the killer darts.
Scientists predicted that symptoms displayed by the animals would be similar to those affecting humans.
"The pulse becomes very slow and the blood pressure falls. The subject collapses and lies on its side with twitching muscles.
"Where the dose is lethal, death occurs on 30 minutes, usually preceded by convulsions."
----------
:x Not the sheep!!
-
It is still biological. You are using a animal in this case.
Nope. The animal was the delivery system, not the weapon.
biological warfare
n.
The use of disease-producing microorganisms, toxic biological products, or organic biocides to cause death or injury to humans, animals, or plants.
Bats do not fit the definition. Sorry.
-
Even if Germany had more lethal gas than the allies, it is forgotten here that from 1941'ish or so, the Allies had a much more effective delivery of tonnage.
The allies also considered using typhus by the way.
The absence of the poisoned gas warfare in WW2 would IMHO be explained with the massive terror possible, - equal of why the big ones of the cold war never went for a nuke slugout.
Oh, and one of the most common and in the beginning, a secret weapon, of the allies was something the Axis didn't have. Heavily used to bring great results, starting in 1944 or so, - PENICILLIN.
-
In one experiment, the Canadians had dressed sheep and goats in two layers of battledress material and positioned them across a wide area, some in trenches, to be exposed to the killer darts.
Scientists predicted that symptoms displayed by the animals would be similar to those affecting humans.
Those damn Canadians never DID have any respect for the sheep.
-
Angus, that's naive. A single 500 kg bomb of nerve gas has the potential to kill thousands of people if dropped on a city like London. The German nerve gas was heavier than air and persistent, meaning it would creep down into cellars, bomb shelters and the underground where it would kill the mass concentration of people hiding there. The gas was persistent for weeks if not months meaning it would remain in cellars and craters and the sewer system killing anyone unfortunate enough to flush the toilet. Against mustard gas or other WWI poison gases you could defend yourself by using a gas mask and lots of clothes and the gas would dissipate fairly quickly. There was no such defense against the nerve gas; it is odorless, invisible and is absorbed through the skin in seconds. When you notice the symptoms you're already dieing.
A single 100 bomber Luftwaffe night raid on London with nerve gas bombs would have killed hundreds of thousands of people and made London a ghost town for weeks or months. There is a very good reason why this weapon is considered a "poor man's nuke" and why it is now classified as a weapon of mass destruction, a class previously reserved for atomic weapons only. In many ways nerve gas is even more insidious.
-
Are you talking of Sarin or??? Anyway, where were the Germans positioned with that stuff when the Allies were bombing the crap out of them (Hence the hauling ratio) and where was their knowledge of what the allies had?
Would have been one scary warhead on a V-2 though, and then a question of what the countermeasures could have been.
Allied surrender, - I think not.
And Naive.....thank you but I think not.
-
Oh, and don't forget about Anthrax. The effects on an urban area would be staggering, while the main reason for not using it (From the allied side) that it's catchy and would likely spread and pollute well into the occupied countries.
In short, my point was that already in WW2, the Germans and the Allies alike had the power of mass destruction. Both of them. Neither one knew how far the enemy was in the business, and mustard gas being the most probable led to the mandatory military gas-mask.
No-safe against anthrax, nor even Zyklon-B if you just used tons of it. It will kill you through the skin as easily as mustard gas would actually......
Just another naive point.
-
Tabun (1936), sarin (1939) and soman (1944). The Germans started weaponizing tabun in 1939. The western allies captured about 250,000 tons of chemical weapons during their advance through Europe. It is unknown how much the Soviets captured during their advance, but they dismantled the tabun factory in Dyhernfurth and brought it with them to Russia.
Tabun is toxic even in minute doses. The number and severity of symptoms which appear vary according to the amount of the agent absorbed and rate of entry of it into the body. Very small skin dosages sometimes cause local sweating and tremors accompanied with characteristically constricted pupils with few other effects. Tabun is about half as toxic as sarin by inhalation, but in very low concentrations it is more irritating to the eyes than sarin. Also, tabun breaks down slowly, which after repeated exposure can lead to build up in the body.
The effects of tabun appear slowly when tabun is absorbed through the skin rather than inhaled. A victim may absorb a lethal dose quickly, although death may be delayed for one to two hours. It should be noted that a person's clothing can release the toxic chemical for up to 30 minutes after exposure. Inhaled lethal dosages kill in one to ten minutes, and liquid absorbed through the eyes kills almost as fast. However, people who experience mild to moderate exposure to tabun can recover completely, if treated almost as soon as exposure occurred. The LCt50 for tabun is about 400 mg-min/m3, so a 500 kg bomb would contaminate a volume of air of about 1.2 million cubic meters or 40 million cubic feet (at 90% aerosol efficiency) where a lethal dose would require one minute of exposure. Since tabun is heavier than air and persistent it would blanket the ground covering about a square kilometer to a square mile depending on terrain.
Treatment for tabun poisoning is often three injections of a nerve agent antidote, such as atropine. Pralidoxime chloride also works as an antidote; however, it must be administered within minutes to a few hours following exposure to be effective. None of these antidotes were available during WWII.
Why the Germans didn't use chemical weapons has already been posted in this thread.
-
Yeah, "Operation Vegetarian" :lol
-
For comparison the LCt50 for mustard gas is 10,000 mg-min/m3.
-
From a military point of view one could say that Hitler was stupid for not letting his generals use these weapons. From a humanitarian point of view it is one of the very few things Hitler did that we can be thankful for.
Is this the answer you mentioned?
The commonly accepted historical explanation is that the German intelligence didn't know (or did Canaris filter that one out? We'd never know...) how well ahead they were in chemical warfare. So what they expected was that if they got really dirty, they'd get the same payback.
Which was in a sense right, since the British were were well enough stocked with Anthrax in the late war to lay waste to the German population. Only problem was that it would carry on to other countries. But surely deadly enough. Chemical vs bacterial, - both dirty.
And heavy bombing of mustard gas...well....not good.
Then the bat bombs. Was actually a nasty idea and did work. Very much more effective than incendiaries if I remember right, and incendiaries were the ones that caused the most catastrophic firestorms of WW2 urban bombings. Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo.
-
No this:
The Nazis invented nerve gas in WWII and produced a sizable stockpile of weaponized chemical weapons. The only reason they weren't used was that Hitler abhorred chemical weapons because he was himself a victim of a mustard gas attack during WWI. He ordered they only be used in response to an Allied chemical attack. If the Allies had used their, by comparison, primitive WWI chemical weapons it could have changed the outcome of the war. Germany would have had a huge advantage.
-
Uhm.. it wasn't just Hitler that was against using chemical weapons.
After the bombing of Dresden, Josef Göbbels demanded retaliation strikes on English Cities using Tabun during a conference on February 19/20 1945. He was opposed most notably by Großadmiral Karl Dönitz as well as the Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command, Alfred Jodl, who argued the drawbacks would outweigh the pros.
From a military point of view one could say that Hitler was stupid for not letting his generals use these weapons. From a humanitarian point of view it is one of the very few things Hitler did that we can be thankful for.
hmm... I can't remember any higher echelon Generals demanding large scale operations using Chemical weapons, or any plans in doing such a thing that were prohibited by Hitler. Or maybe I just missed something?
-
"The United States began producing chemical weapons late in the conflict. they established the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) and first participated in a chemical weapons attack with the British October 13, 1918. One of the casualties of that attack was a young infantryman named Adolf Hitler. The gas inflicted such pain that Hitler had to be evacuated to Germany. The attack may have saved countless lives because it cemented in Hitler a lifelong hate of chemical weapons which influenced many policies in the second World War.
The beginning of modern chemical warfare unequivocally begins in the German search for new Pesticides in the 1920s and 1930s. With the loss of territory after World War I and Germany's desire to lessen its reliance on food importation, the German leadership emphasized the need for new Insecticides to increase production. Chemist Gerhard Schrader was tasked with finding new non-flammable, non-harmful Insecticides to elimante the treat from the bool weavil (Tucker, 2006). Schrader synthesized a series of "organophosphates" - organic molecules with a central Phosphorous atom and four atoms extending off of it. Schrader made the [organophosphates more potent by adding cyanide. These molecules had undesirable side effects on the chemist including blurred vision, dilated pupils, and eventually became sever enough to warrant hospitalization (Tucker, 2006).
As Schrader continued work on this cyanide-containing compound, the unpleasant side effects continued to manifest themselves at the slightest whiff of the vapor. Further toxicological testing on mice, guinea pigs, rabbits, apes, and others reveled a frighteningly high level of toxicity to this new [insecticide] tentatively named Le-100 (Le as an abbreviation for Leverkusen, the German city where it was synthesized). Very small amounts led to vomiting, bronchial tube constriction, diarrhea, paralysis of breathing muscles, and eventual death. This made Le-100 far too toxic to use as a commercial insecticide, but the findings were passed on to the German government's War Office.
A good number of people in the War Department felt that chemical weapons were a viable military weapon. Gas had recently been used with good results by the Italians in their march on Ethiopia and its Emperor Haile Selassie (Tucker, 2006). The German government took over production of Le-100, renaming it Tabun, an invented word with no particular meaning. The field testing of Tabun were successful and it was shortly declared the German chemical weapon of choice. The German authorities designated the somewhat reluctant [IG Faber] to build a plant capable of producing 1,000-2,000 metric tons of Tabun per month (Tucker, 2006).
As Tabun was entering widescale production, Schrader had returned to his laboratory at the German Army's Gas Protection Lab (he had been moved from Leverkusen here after he synthesized Tabun) and was working on a new set of Insecticides using [flourine] rather than cyanide. During the latter part of 1938, Schrader synthesized a compound that proved to be 5-10 times more lethal than Tabun and would name it Sarin, which was an acronym for the four scientists most closely associated with the compound - S chrader, A mbrose, R udiger, and L IN de (Tucker, 2006).
World War II
Hitler's aversion to chemical weapons continued throughout the second World War. Against the wishes of many of his high commanders, Hitler wanted to use chemical weapons only in retaliation against a similar attack. However, he continued to push the German military to produce and stockpile weapons to ensure German superiority should the Allies commence chemical warfare (Tucker, 2006).
The Germans had a large head start on production, though they were not entirely convinced of this. Otto Ambros, a leading German chemist who had been instrumental in synthesizing Sarin, believed that the Allies had independently discovered some sort of nerve agent because of similar insecticidal research they were conducting prior to the war. Even if the Allies did not have it, Ambros felt that "in the event that Germany were to use this special gas, other countries would not only be able to imitate it quickly but could produce it in considerably larger quantities" (Tucker, 2006). The immense production capabilities of the Allies and the fact that they had immense stockpiles of artillery and bombs with mustard and Phosgene in which to retaliate with provided a sufficient deterrent to the German use of chemical weapons.
The Allies did not in fact have anything near the lethality of Tabun or Sarin. The closest compound the Allies could produce was DFP which could, at high doses, produce unconsciousness. The US Office of Scientific Research and Development and universities throughout the States synthesized over 200 Organophosphates including many with [flourine] yet none approached the toxicity of Tabun or Sarin (Tucker, 2006). The British scientists at Porton Down discovered Tabun in 1944 after the army raided a building holding German munitions. They extracted the liquid, analyzed it, and tested it on laboratory rabbits amazed at its lethality.
The only deliberate use of gas in World War II was extensive Mustard Gas use by the Japanese during their 1937 invasion of Manchuria. Some studies have claimed that more than 2,000 separate incidences of poison gas use in that campaign, though that number very well could be inflated (Hutchinson, 2006). Numerous instances are recorded that either side in the European theater, the Allies or the Axis, were on the verge of using gas at some point but retreated."
-
Hitler authorized the use of chemical weapons once during the war; against the fortress of Sevastopol because it proved so difficult to defeat. There were other unauthorized uses, mostly on the eastern front, but nothing major. Even as the Allied troops stormed ashore in Normandy Hitler refused multiple requests from his commanders to deploy gas to counter the invasion.
-
I have high doubts either side would have even considered using such weapons. The consiquences of mistakes would be devastating. An example-
A large formation of B-17 flying over Fortress Europe are ready to deliver a massive payload of Anthrax/Nerve Gas/Mustard Gas/whatever. They are about 18,000 feet when a lone B-17 is hit in the cockpit by a chunk of flak and the thing goes spiraling in....over a city like Brussels, Gronignen, Alkmaar, or Chartres. Thousands would have died. The effects of chemical weapons over civilian population of occupied, not German, but occupied cities would, I think, ruin the U.S.'s future relations with those countries, and perhaps even cause hostilities when liberated.
-
Guys played Indians too much, imho. Or found really good weed somethere. :huh
In the bathhouse too dang long!
-
All boils down to them both having a wildcard of a WMD. The Germans didn't know how the balance was, neither did the allies, but what they DID know is that by only applying what they had in 1916 would be enough to make things wilder than one could imagine.
The Gerries could have mustard gassed London in 1940, only to have the same amount on Hamburg etc, they could have nerve gassed London in 1944, but by then the British could have Anthraxed the whole of Germany into a wasteland. No predicting of the outcome, - well either a defeat or a completely phyrric victory....or a mutual defeat....
Just like a big nuke war.
But Penicillin....now that was one you could use ;)
-
They could have nerve gassed London in 1940. However, even in 1945 with Germany in ruins Hitler said no.
-
Well, he didn't like mustard gas. In HIS cities for sure.
-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Raid_on_Bari
Some interesting trivia that I found doing research for an FSO setup.
-
Saw it. There was readiness for using the stuff. And then the typical mandatory gas-mask that most or all servicemen had to carry....and never used. (Well, throw the mask and use it for storing cigarettes)
If mustard gas was used in some proper dose, the mask would not save you. Well, your lungs would not blister on the inside, but your skin would burn. Through clothes. Enough skin burned and you die, - way before that you are capable of just about nothing.
Recently read a book that had some things about nerve gas. From Adam Hall about the spy "Quiller"
-
During the Great War mustard gas was lethal in only 1% of the cases. The remaining 99% were only injured by it, like Hitler was. Horrible injuries, but in most cases only temporary. The reason the crew of the John Harvey and those Italian civilians died was because they didn't know what they had been subjected to. Most if not all of them would have survived it they had been given a bath or shower immediately after exposure; even so less than 20% of the known victims died, and they were hit with 120,000 lbs of mustard gas. If it had been tabun, the number of victims would have been 100-fold and the death ratio would have been close to 100%.
-
My point in posting that was not to debate the details of the Bari incident, but merely to show that the U.S. had it in theater, and was prepared to use it if they deemed it necessary.
-
And Anthrax...80% or so. To begin with. Also including lifestock.
Use Anthrax and you crash the food program with just a little of it. However it's hard to stop, and the effect will last for a very very very long time.
In short, powerful enough to "nuke" a nation into the stone age.
And it doesn't work immediately. Will take just a few days, - imagine tabun with a delay fuse...
Now to the Tabun....
- Very absolutely poisoned.
- Hard to handle (keep)
The Germans had quite a plant to produce it and it ended up being ready, but in 1940 it would have been Sarin, and then only in the late autumn? Now they could have used it and would have been able to carry enough to kill insane numbers, - it might have been able to bend the UK perhaps. But then there is the scary factor, - the UK responding with whatever (unknown) they had, and/or the rest of the world turning against Germany in a whiff.
Only mustard gas, which "During the Great War mustard gas was lethal in only 1% of the cases. The remaining 99% were only injured by it, like Hitler was. Horrible injuries, but in most cases only temporary" would have been a very bad thing on an urban area. Urban areas are after all, much more windstill than the open fields of WWI.
Oh, and a blunder...."less than 20% of the known victims died" (mustard gas) and "If it had been tabun, the number of victims would have been 100-fold".
I presume you mean (as in the end of the sentence) "the death ratio would have been close to 100%." I would not doubt that, since the Tabun is very...something...nasty.
Anyway, getting back to the mustard gas, try and ponder on what 1.500 tonnes of it would do if dropped on an urban area in windstill in the timeframe of an hour or two. Nothing nice I think.
-
You're getting your poisons mixed up. :)
Tabun is the first nerve agent that went into production in 1939. The Germans didn't start sarin production until 1944, and only a small amount was weaponized before the end of the war. Sarin is about twice as effective as tabun, but not as persistant.
Now to the antrax: Antrax has been used as a biological weapon since ancient times to kill livestock and horses, and is described to have killed 40,000 horses and 100,000 cattle in the possession of the Huns during their movement across Eurasia in 80 AD. Antrax wasn't properly weaponized for use against humans during WWII. The 1944 British project was aimed at Germany's livestock, not people. Infected cow patties are not going to infect many people, or start an epidemic.
When Antrax was weaponized in the late 1950s or early 60s they found that gas masks or even just breathing through a damp cloth will protect a person from an anthrax attack. However, anthrax is extremely persistent and would cause random cases of the illness, perhaps even small outbreaks for decades after an attack. Antrax is deadly against an unprepared population and thus perfect as a terror weapon, but as a weapon of war it is very limited in its usefulness.
HOW TO WEAPONIZE ANTHRAX: (This is not a secret, it was printed in TIME)
1 DRY THE SPORES
If they are grown on a culture medium, anthrax spores need to be dried. Because they are so durable, they can be freeze dried, heat dried or spray dried
2 MILL THE SPORES
Once the spores are dry, they are ground down to the smallest possible particle size, anywhere from one micron (one spore) to 20 microns. The process adds electrostatic charges to the particles, which makes them clump together
3 NEUTRALIZE THE SPORES
Chemicals such as bentonite or silica are added to remove the electrostatic charge and allow the tiny particles to float in the air
...AND HOW IT DOES ITS DEADLY WORK
In order to cause disease, at least 8,000 to 10,000 spores need to lodge deep in the lungs, in the tiniest air sacs known as alveoli. The warm, moist environment, and possibly the concentration of carbon dioxide in the lungs, stimulates the bacterium to emerge from its protective spore. As each bacterium reproduces, it releases toxins, which eventually spread throughout the body and destroy tissue and organs.
Oh, and a blunder...."less than 20% of the known victims died" (mustard gas) and "If it had been tabun, the number of victims would have been 100-fold".
I presume you mean (as in the end of the sentence) "the death ratio would have been close to 100%." I would not doubt that, since the Tabun is very...something...nasty.
I meant that instead of 600 known victims there would be 60,000 victims (100-fold), and instead of 80 dead it would be close to 60,000 dead (close to 100%). They could treat mustard gas poisoning and managed to save 80% of the exposed. They couldn't have treated tabun poisoning.
-
Anthrax is a natural dieseas that does occur in livestock too.
-
Anthrax is natural. So is Botulin. And nasty enough.
Recently, close to where I live, a water channel opened close to an old anthrax grave of stock (1940 if I recall) and some spurs managed to get into the drinking water of a group of a few horses. 100 % death. The carcasses were burned and the whole area sealed off for quite a while.
In many places on the continent of Europe ages ago (and perhaps the UK), where anthrax-infected cattle were dug down, threes (oak?) were planted to mark the spot. The spot not necessarily being in a good place, which explanes the odd oak (?) still standing in the middle of a huge field. The idea was to mark the spot for further generations.
(My memory, not Wiki, but would be interesting to know.
Anyway, a wiki one on anthrax...:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak
"All workers of a ceramic plant across the street fell ill during the next few days. Almost all of them died in a week"
More (another article though)
"At least 94 people were infected, of whom at least 68 died"
"Anthrax was first tested as a biological warfare agent by Unit 731 of the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria during the 1930s; some of this testing involved intentional infection of prisoners of war, thousands of whom died. Anthrax, designated at the time as Agent N, was also investigated by the allies in the 1940s. The British army tested experimental anthrax weapons on Gruinard Island, off the northwest coast of Scotland, in 1943. Gruinard was burned over at least once, yet as of the late 1980s, it was still too heavily contaminated with spores to allow unprotected human access, indicating the hardiness of anthrax spores."
Now Sarin and Tabun. I mixed them up, since what I can find mentions Tabun getting ready in 1942, Sarin in 1944. Tabun was troublesome to deal with so I am curious to know if there were ready devices for serious aerial bombardments in 1940 :eek:
Dang, sometimes I bless the windy lowlands where I live :D
-
The Sverdlovsk anthrax leak was weaponized anthrax, not anthrax infected cow patties which the British stockpiled a few million of. Infecting prisoners is also very easy, but no practical method of weaponization was found during WWII, which probably is the only reason the Japanese didn't use it.
The Germans started production of tabun in 1939 at their pilot plant near Munster-Lager, and started construction of a larger production facility in Dyernfurth-am-Oder (now Brzeg Dolny in Poland), on the Oder River 40 km from Breslau (now Wroclaw) in Silesia. The Dyernfurth production plant wasn't operational until 1942, but by then the Munster-Lager plant had produced 70,000 kg of tabun, or in other words somewhat more than the total mustard gas bomb cargo of the John Harvey we discussed earlier. By the end of 1944 the total tabun production is estimated at 30,000 tons.
The Luftwaffe could have nerve gassed London in 1940, but it would have been a limited attack... However, perhaps one attack would have been enough.
-
Personally I think the dart idea is a poor one as wherever we used it. we would probobly end up sending in our troops where they would inadvertently get stuck by them themselves by the remaining darts that didnt hit anyone whenever they had to "hit the deck"
Bad enough they had unexploded ord ,mine fields and booby traps to contend with let alone hundreds of thousands of itty bitty darts lying around all over the ground.
-
"The Luftwaffe could have nerve gassed London in 1940, but it would have been a limited attack... However, perhaps one attack would have been enough."
I know they had some nerve-gas, but they had a problem just containing it. Did they have the devices ready for transport and dropping it from aircraft?
Wonder if Hitler knew this to detail. What he would have assumed (if I try to put myself into his boots) is that the British would have gone "dirty" as well. The minimum of that would have been mustard gassing of the easiest targets, depending on weather and range, as well as anything they possibly had, - since he didn't know that.
So, - it's a call for "go dirty or not", and it work exactly like the balance of terror in the cold war.
-
I know they had some nerve-gas, but they had a problem just containing it. Did they have the devices ready for transport and dropping it from aircraft?
Yes. Tabun was loaded into standard prewar C-series of chemical dispencers, usually the C250 bomb, and later in the war also in the AB-series of sub-munitions dispensers. Tabun wasn't more corrosive or difficult to handle than mustard gas. It was during production that the chemicals used to make tabun was so difficult and dangerous to handle. At the end of the war in Europe almost 71,000 bombs containing tabun had been seized by the British in Germany, these were stored in the open at RAF Llandwrog, near Caernarfon, until 1955/56 when, in Operation Sandcastle, they were transported to Cairnryan and scuttled at sea in three ships 120 miles (190 km) north-west of Ireland. I wouldn't go fishing there.
-
What I recall is that it was highly corrosive, - and with the lethality vs mustard gas therefore equally difficult to handle as it's effectiveness. Weren't the tanks lined with silver or something like that?
Anyway, curious to know if they had it ready in aircraft bombs and then which squadron would have been assigned.
-
The intermediate products of tabun were corrosive, and had to be contained in quartz or silver-lined vessels. Tabun itself (the finished product) was less corrosive than mustard gas.
I don't like speculating half as much as you do Angus. Which unit would have gotten the dubious honor of delivering chemical weapons during the Battle of Britain is not really that interesting. Any KG could have done it.
-
Well, speculation makes a lot of fun, and gives you lots of angles. Speculation is in itself a process of the data available ;)
Anyway, even less corrosive than mustard gas, the danger IF it gets out is so very very much more. Hence my speculation of it it was ever ready to be loaded into aircraft bombs. Were the bombs ready? If the bombs were standard, then of course any KG could have delivered them.
To make things clear, (from my speculations), I do not debate that had the Germans wanted to use this during the Blitz and decided so some time before, they could have. It's whether they had this at short readiness for air-bombing that makes me scratch my head, as well as who was pressing who and where in the high command about that deal....
-
Standard C-series bomb. Same as used for all the other chemicals they used including smoke and phosphor. The process of filling the bombs were dangerous of course, and there were several deaths at the production plants, but once the bomb was sealed it was as safe to handle as any other bomb. I don't think the Germans had any form of chemical weapon at "short readiness" at any time during the war; only in closely guarded storage depots. It would after all require a Führerbefehl to deploy these things.
-
Interesting. Thank you!
I am trying to dig up two interesting books I have, they are in German and from a series of WW2 related material available at some railway station book-stores in Germany when I was working there in 1997 or so. The subject was exactly secret weapons of WW2, one about the allied ones, and one about the German ones.
I was actually sitting on the toilet while reading about sarin :devil
-
I was actually sitting on the toilet while reading about sarin :devil
How very appropriate! :D
-
Oh, it wasn't THAT bad :angel: