Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker
Although they're nasty and somewhat indiscriminate, they have been used in the past...
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Aside from Japan's Unit 731's experimentation with bioweapons in China during WW2, when have biological weapons been used in modern warfare?
I tend to agree that bio-weapons weren't used on any significant scale in the Twilight War. First off, nukes and natural epidemics exacerbated by malnutrition, exposure, etc. would reduce population density to the point where bioweapons wouldn't be particularly effective. By the same token, by early 1998 or so, military units are smaller and more dispersed, making bioweapons a less efficient option than tactical nukes, chem weapons, or even conventional artillery.
However, if used
before the nuclear exchange began, bioweapons would have been
much more efficient killers, for the reasons stated by previous posters. However, with all three NBC genies out of their respective bottles, the global casualty rates would surely exceed what's described in canon. It's essentially overkill.
On a side note, in a T2K PbP campaign in which I play, the PCs may have discovered a crude attempt to introduce cholera into regional water supplies. They recently found a cache of urine jars that may contain naturally-occurring cholera bacterium in an underground bunker belonging to a cult-like bandit group in northeastern Poland. This after having encountered a couple of groups (one bandit, one civilian) suffering from a mysterious illness.