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this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2024
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Okay Cicero, let's get you back to your isolated country estate
The reason chemical weapons are banned is because (they're monstrous and) they're useless. You can fire a chlorine shell and if the wind is juuust right, it'll kill anyone within a few meters. You know what else will kill anyone within a few meters? A normal artillery shell.
Except, chlorine gas can be blocked by an airtight gas mask and a chemical suit. They cost less than $500 for complete immunity to the weapon. Good luck finding a $500 flak vest that'll stop a mortar though. And meanwhile, if you want to press the attack and benefit from your chemical weapons, there's one slight problem before you advance: there's a bunch of chlorine gas in the way.
In other words, it's an unreliable and inferior weapon that gets in the way of modern military doctrine. Although there are some good niches in shitty armies by dictators who are too paranoid of coups to give their junior officers any independence or proper kit. Like the Iraq army that the US army utterly steamrolled in 2005.
Clearly you've never been in the military. Let's say the enemy one day drops leaflets saying they will gas your position every 12 hours at 8 AM and 8 PM every day. You're prepared with your gas mask and full NBC gear every 12 hrs. No danger at all right? Wrong. Even if nobody dies at all from the gas, the act of putting that stuff on twice a day will quickly give someone PTSD.
What if I forget or lose my suit?!? What if I oversleep my alarm?!? Are those army dudes at the treeline? I can't see out of this thing! I can't breathe! Fuuuuuck!!!!! The psychological effect is arguably worse than the weapons themselves seeing as the psych patients don't even have to be hit by it to feel lifelong damaging effects.
Well, if there's an element of surprise you can do some serious damage. This is also why nobody uses bright green, smelly chlorine anymore. PugJesus covered the real logic.
You were close to right, though. Upvote just to offset all the downvotes.
Far from useless against unprotected troops - especially in area denial and degrading enemy combat effectiveness. The real issue of practicality is that they're a matter of mutual deterrent - if Side A starts using chemical weapons, Side B may decide to start as well. But as you mentioned, we've solved the issue of protective equipment pretty thoroughly, so in all but the most lopsided of conflicts (Iran-Iraq War, Syrian Civil War, police against protesters), escalation does not actually give either side an advantage beyond the initial shock, and introduces a lot of unnecessary defensive and offensive logistics, the total effect of which is likely difficult to determine. How many millions of dollars of chemical shells are worth keeping a platoon of soldiers in gas masks for a few hours longer? How many millions of dollars of chemical shells are worth the enemy shelling you in turn and forcing you to spend valuable resources and logistics lines on NBC gear? Who comes out with the advantage in this asymmetric exchange - the one with more resources, or the one with fewer? Nightmare to tell.
Russia currently is using chemical weapons effectively in Ukraine - namely, tear gas. Great for disabling dug-in enemies so ~~mobik meat cube ingredients~~ mass infantry assaults can advance. We (the West) also use chemical weapons effectively - we claim WP as a smokescreen, but its application tends to be very, uh, 'dual-use' in smoking troops out of entrenched positions. In both cases, the effectiveness relies on deniability and prevention of escalation.
Fun fact about tear gas - they'll spray down protesters with it, but if it was used in warfare it would pretty obviously break the principal of not using maiming weapons, which was laid down in the Hague convention and mostly continues to be respected by big militaries.
Tear gas was one of the first chemical weapons deployed in WW1, even.
"Can't be a war crime if it's not during war time!" - Cops
(unironically I actually understand the rationale, but it remains absurd on its face)
Yeah, "mostly" was pretty load bearing there, haha. It's just odd that enemy soldiers end up having more rights than civilians in certain contexts.
Prison escapes being highly illegal in some jurisdictions is another example.
Disagree. Gas is perfect for underground bunkers. Being heavier than air it will sink down into the bunker and displace oxygen. Sure you can wear a suit, but for how long? And do you have enough suits for everyone?
On the bright side, think of how clean all our pools are going to be with all this chlorine everywhere.
I mean, if you have undisputed access to the ventilation that's far from your only option to flush people out.
I really enjoy the smell of a perfectly balanced pool in the summer.