On Mar 3, 7:16*pm, " wrote:

"Poison gas" was used extensively during the Great War. One of the
post-war conclusions was that it was more trouble than it was worth
and had only limited tactical value. The environmental conditions had
to be just so, and often the burden placed on friendly troops reduced
their own combat effectiveness.

The reason the Axis was so reluctant to employ such weapons was more
practical than moral -- contrary prevailing winds, and a tactical
emphasis on the offensive made gas unattractive as a battlefield
weapon.

The only great unknown is why the Germans didn't use it in the last
throes of the Reich.


That is a mystery.

There are very few weapons which use cannot be justified in one
extremity or the other.


I suppose there is always the "desperate times call for desperate
measures" argument. But the kind of horrible, painful death you get
from poison gas just seems to put it into a different category.

Despite all the bad press, MAD worked, and kept the nuclear option the
untapped resource.

Dan-

Except for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But as bad as they were, more
Japanese were killed by the incendiary bombs we dropped than by the
atomic bombs.

There were plans being made in the American military to use atomic
bombs to soften up the beaches if it became necessary to invade
Japan. They didn't realize the effects the radiation would have had
on our troops when they came ashore. That would have been a
catastrophe for both sides.

Surprisingly (to me), the most expensive weapon system America
developed during World War II was not the atomic bomb. It was the
B-29 that dropped it.

Phil