How come, outside of a few incidents in Crimea, chemical warfare wasn't widely used in the European theatre of WW2?I doubt you can argue fear of retaliation, restraint or international law, when Nazi Germany was undoubtedly engaging in a genocidal war of extermination against the Soviets and no mercy was warranted.
Its just not that effective
ussr and germany were collaborating very closely during the 30s something people easily forget
>>18223402It was logistically retarded, Hitler had a personal autist aversion, and fear of Allied gas on German civilians was 100% real.
>>18223402Juice ain't worth the squeeze. It requires a gigantic commitment to cover an area large enough to even be of relevance only to be nullified by a gas mask. Of course there are other types of gases which are not consumed by breath, however gassing an entire area would make it impssible for your own troops to attack and hold the area. It's just better to field your aircrafts, artillery and whatever with conventional explosives: Cheaper, more effective and they don't linger around for weeks in the area your soldiers want to capture.
Chemical weapons are not very useful in most military contexts. At least the chemical weapons available at the time were not. Gas weapons were feared, because turning the very air into poison is scary, and the gas was not always visible so you could have no warning until you suddenly can't breathe. Terror for civilian populations was even worse because unlike soldiers they weren't given gas masks. But the problem with gas weapons is wind. Wind wrought havoc on attempts to use gas weapons on the battlefield, frequently blowing the harmful vapors toward friendly troops, or simply dispersing the agent before it could have any real debilitating effect. Even if you tried dropping it from the air, far enough away that it couldn't possibly hit your own men, the problem of the gas being blown randomly by the wind means you cannot really count on it having the desired effect. You'd have to rely on a large amount of poison, and somehow control the area enough that enemy troops could not simply avoid it, and build up a high concentration of poison to ensure it actually has effect.Except now you have an area that your own men also cannot safely enter. If you had simply used the resources expended to make the area too toxic for anyone to enter, to instead heavily shell the place, your men could walk in and take it afterward without worrying about dying if they take off their gas mask.
