|
Chemical and Biological Warfare
Phoenix Command Weapon Systems Data Supplement
INTRODUCTION
The Chemical and Biological
Warfare supplement for the Phoenix Command Combat System examines
chemical and biological warfare agents able to be dispersed as
gases, aerosols, or vapors and allows these agents to be incorporated
into simulations of modern warfare. All known CBW agents likely
to be stockpiled are detailed.
This rules set was originally
designed in 1990, but never saw print. The rules are presented
here for the first time.
Links:
- Chapter 1:
Dispersal and Protection
- Chapter 2:
Chemical Agents
- Chapter 3:
Biological Agents
- Delivery Systems Effects Tables
- Chemical Agent Effects Tables
Background:The Application of CBW
Chemical warfare in its modern form was first practiced on the
trenches of Ypres in World War I, but the use of poisons to strike
at the enemy has been employed since ancient times. The development
of Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) before Ypres, however,
remained relatively unchanged from the days of the well poisoners.
- Early Uses:
It was a detested practice among ancient Greek and Roman armies
to throw poisons, corpses, or other contaminants down wells to
deny enemy use of them. However, well poisoning effectively destroyed
the well and did not limit its attack to only enemy troops. Despite public condemnation, the tactic survived to the
middle ages.
- Another CBW tactic which saw
wide use in the medieval period was the catapulting of diseased
corpses into besieged fortresses. The disease would soon spread
among the defenders and weaken them sufficiently for conventional
forces to take the fortress. The Mongols, in their siege of the
Crimean city of Kaffa in A.D. 1346, catapulted their own plague-ridden
corpses over the city walls. The refugees from Kaffa travelled
to Constantinople, Genoa, and Venice, and they carried the plague
with them--possibly contributing to the Black Death outbreak three years later.
- The earliest use of CBW as the
sole weapon in a conflict was the attempted genocide of the Ohio
Indians by the British governor Lord Amherst. Following an Indian
rebellion in 1763, Amherst ordered two blankets and a hankerchief
from a smallpox hospital to be sent as gifts to the Ohio tribe. Within a few months, a terrible
smallpox epidemic had broken out and ravaged the tribe.
-
- Modern Era:
While the early efforts in CBW relied almost exclusively on disease
to weaken the enemy over a relatively long period of time, the
rise of the European chemical industries meant that enemy troops
could be incapacitated by new, fast-acting poisons dispersed as gases or aerosols. The entire focus of CBW shifted to the
use of chemical agents.
- By the late ninteenth century,
the entire concept of CBW was viewed almost dilletantishly by
the Europeans. No army had incorporated a "gas" or
"chemical" force, and CBW was used haphazardly, when
it was used at all. The British had authorized the use of noxious sulphur fumes in the siege of Sebastopol during
the Crimean war, and they had fired experimental shells containing
picric acid at the Boers during the second Anglo-Boer War. The
French had developed tear gas projectors and grenades for riot control during this time.
- Despite these developments,
the various European armies looked down on CBW as being immoral
and unchivalrous, an attitude that led to the 1899 Hague convention,
Article 23, which supposedly banned all projectiles whose sole
purpose was the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases.
- In World War I, Article 23 was
shown to be worthless. Fritz Haber, head of the German Chemical
Warfare Service, convinced the German Imperial Army to try his
gas weapons as a means of breaking through the Allied front lines.
The test was performed at Ypres, on April 22, 1915, when German
pioneers uncapped bottles of Chlorine gas, and allowed the wind
to carry the green chemical cloud across the Allied troops stationed
there. The initial shock of the gas attack was not exploited
by the German command, and the front lines remained unchanged.
- What had changed was the attitude
of the belligerents toward CBW. The attitudes that had brought
about the Hague convention had been thrown aside at Ypres as
the Allies set about working on gas defence and gas offence.
The following years of the war saw the introduction of new delivery
and protection systems and gases, like phosgene, chlorpicrin,
and mustard gas.
- While the armies and politicians
seemed to adopt chemical weapons, the general public viewed them
with revulsion. Chemical weapons were the first true weapons
of indiscriminate and mass destruction, and the public saw their
effects firsthand when the casualties returned home. This attitude did not stop the various
governments involved from embarking on chemical weapons programs
after the war. These programs continued despite the 1925 Geneva
convention which was supposed to ban the use of such weapons.
In World War II, chemical and biological weapons were not used.
However, both Axis and Allied powers experimented with and developed
chemical and biological agents.
- In an arms race overshadowed
by that of nuclear arms, chemical and biological weapons were
developed and stockpiled at a tremendous rate by the U.S. and
the Soviet Union during 1950-70. In spite of the arms race, CBW
was used only in the background in the brushfire wars of the
period. North Korea alleged that the U.S. was using BW during
the Korean war. Egypt was accused of using Soviet nerve agents
against royalist troops in its 1963-67 intervention in Yemen.
The U.S. used riot gases and defoliants during its war in Vietnam.
- In 1975, reports of chemical
warfare began filtering out of Laos and Afghanistan. The Hmong
tribespeople of Laos claimed that they had been attacked by CBW
agents released through aerial spraying. The chemical agent was
dubbed "Yellow Rain," but debate still rages as to
whether it actually existed. In Afghanistan, Soviet troops were
accused of using lethal and incapacitating chemical agents against
the Mujihaddeen. These reports remain unconfirmed as of this
writing. Still, it was Yellow Rain that encouraged the U.S. to resume production of chemical weapons
in the 1980s.
- During the Iran-Iraq war of
1980-89, Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian troops as
early as 1982, and continued to use them throughout the war.
The chemical agents used were mustard gas, tabun, and lewisite.
In 1984, U.N. observers confirmed the Iraqi use of mustard gas.
Later on in the war, Iraq launched lethal agents against Kurdish
villages within its own borders to deal with Kurdish guerrillas
supported by Iran.
- The Iran-Iraq war marks the
beginning of a disturbing trend of non-superpower acquisition
of lethal chemical and biological agents. More and more nations
are turning to CBW as proxies for the tightly regulated nuclear
weapons.
- There have also been cases of
terrorist groups attempting to obtain commercial CBW agents or
developing their own in makeshift labs. In November 1980, a raid
on a Paris safehouse of the West German Red Army Faction uncovered
a bathroom lab containing botulin, and in 1984, two Canadians using false credentials ordered
tetanus and botulism cultures from a Maryland research firm.
These incidents show the potential for terrorist use of chemical
and biological warfare against their targets.
-
- Author's Note: This was written before the Japanese
Subway attack where terrorists used Sarin nerve gas dispersed
into the Tokyo subway system to sow terror throughout Japan.
-
- Future wars are likely to see
greater use of chemical and biological weapons, and not only
against military forces.
|
|