Thread: Mustard gas
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Old 06-15-2021, 05:40 PM
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Originally Posted by unipus View Post
My targets are Polish coal plants/mines. I'm assuming a reticence to nuke them because they're not high priority military targets, but they are critical strategic infrastructure. If you assume you can deny them to the enemy for a few weeks/months and then reclaim them, that seems like a good use case? Especially if the war has already reached limited-strategic. The Soviets certainly had tactical aircraft capable of delivering chemical weapons; I'm sure several NATO nations must have as well.
This use make a lot of sense to me. Area denial is a major objective of chemical warfare doctrine. Usually that applies to military targets (like airfields, for example) but I don't see why it couldn't apply to economic targets as well. Total war is total war. Out of an abundance of caution, I can't see anyone willingly burning coal that was ever doused with mustard, until such time as there was really no other option. Why chance it otherwise?

I could be wrong but, IIRC, most Soviet tactical missiles (like Frog and Scud) could carry chemical warheads (I remember this was a lot of fear surrounding Iraq's potential use of said in the Gulf War). I don't know if mustard was one of the payloads.

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