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Originally Posted by Raellus
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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As far as I know, Scud and FROG both had VX warheads as their only chemical payload in the Soviet Union (what other countries may have done with them is beyond my knowledge, particularly North Korea). The Soviets went big on nerve agents once they were developed, and had a relatively paltry mustard stockpile - somewhere around 1,000 tons out of the 40,000 tons they declared in 1997 were mustard (2% mustard and 1% mustard/Lewisite mix, with the exact mix unknown to me). About 7,000 tons were Lewisite, and the remaining 32,000 tons were nerve agents (VX, Sarin, and Soman).