Chemical warfare

[James Langham]

Latest file covering chemical warfare.

[dragoon500ly]

Excellent work! I always look forward to your posts.

[leonpoi]

This is excellent. I like the MOP suits fatigue rule because it's nice and easy (I had a whole bunch of crap rules, this is nice because it ties back into a core game mechanic).

One question, a gas mask works for 24hrs. Is that continuous use or once "opened"

Thanks.

[James Langham]

This is excellent. I like the MOP suits fatigue rule because it's nice and easy (I had a whole bunch of crap rules, this is nice because it ties back into a core game mechanic).

One question, a gas mask works for 24hrs. Is that continuous use or once "opened"

Thanks.

Don't put your rules down, it's not the first draft of mine...

I believe the filters last 24 hours of use - less against certain agents. Can any CBRN expert help here

[dragoon500ly]

Depends on the chemical agent used.

The M17A1 filters were rated for up to 24 hours in a contaiminated area with nerve gas. Blood agents rapidly eroded the filters, they were supposed to be good for no more than 4 hours and were to be replaced as soon as possible after exposure to a blood agent.

The general rule of thumb was to get out of the contaiminated area as soon as possible and regardless of agent used, replace the filters.

Tankers would carry an ALICE rucksack loaded with two spare MOPP suits, a spare pair of rubber gloves and booties and three spare sets of filters.

[James Langham]

Depends on the chemical agent used.

The M17A1 filters were rated for up to 24 hours in a contaiminated area with nerve gas. Blood agents rapidly eroded the filters, they were supposed to be good for no more than 4 hours and were to be replaced as soon as possible after exposure to a blood agent.

The general rule of thumb was to get out of the contaiminated area as soon as possible and regardless of agent used, replace the filters.

Tankers would carry an ALICE rucksack loaded with two spare MOPP suits, a spare pair of rubber gloves and booties and three spare sets of filters.

Thanks, I'll change the text for the next for the next version to make it clearer.

[dragoon500ly]

Flipping through the old journal...

If you get hit with nerve agent, the antidote is atropine...and you have two minutes to apply the antidote to atropine, the 2PamChloride injector.

There is no antidote for blood agents...the running joke was the cure for a blood agent is the M-1911A1.

The sad thing is that if the Soviets had ever made the decision to go, their pre-war plans called for chemical strikes from the very beginning, ranging from persistant nerve gas on the REFORGER equipment stockpiles and airfields to the use of non-persistant nerve gas and blood agents on the frontline troops and along the autobahns and choke points. Along with the occasional tactical nuke on Pershing, Lance and land-based cruise missile sites.

I'm afraid that if World War Three had kicked off, there wouldn't have been any "controlled" use of nukes. It would have been tactical exchanges rapidly escalating to a strategic exchange.

[dragoon500ly]

And here is the Mission Oriented Protective Posture (MOPP) as used by the US military.

MOPP Level Zero: The protective mask, chemical protective helmet cover, skin decon kit and detector papers are carried in the mask carrier. The overgarment, overboots, and gloves are stowed nearby.

MOPP Level One: The overgarment is worn. M-9 detector paper is attached to the overgarment.

MOPP Level Two: The overboots are worn.

MOPP Level Three: The protective mask and chemical protective helmet cover are worn.

MOPP Level Four: The rubber gloves and cotton liners are worn.

MOPP Level Five: Not an offical level, but was often seen added to the training flyer next to the NBC room. MOPP Level Five is the famous Bend Over and Kiss Your Arse Goodbye Level.

[leonpoi]

Don't put your rules down, it's not the first draft of mine...

I believe the filters last 24 hours of use - less against certain agents. Can any CBRN expert help here

True enough I suppose .

Again thanks for the rules, I like them and I'm getting ready to implement some chemical warefare into my bag of nastiness.

24h life as a simple guidline is good enough for me.

[James Langham]

Slightly expanded (with more quotes and a bit more history). I've also clarified the life of filters as above.

[pmulcahy11b]

When I was in, they told us in Basic that "officially" the filters and MOPP Suit were good in a chemical environment for 24 hours. However, during a break, one of the NBC Instructors told us that what troops are generally not told is that the MOPP suit should be replaced as soon as possible after any chemical attack and became ineffective as little as two hours after a blood agent attack and four after a nerve agent attack. The filters in the mask might help you as little as a half an hour after a nerve agent attack and were essentially useless against a blood agent. And most nerve and blood agents worked so quickly that if you didn't already have your mask and suit on when the gas popped, you were as good as dead anyway -- atropine and 2PAM chloride weren't really very effective as antidotes. Contaminated vehicles and gear were very difficult to clean agents off of to make them useful again. He thought that the only good way to deal with chemical agents was to attack and destroy the enemy NBC units before they could pop anything.

I at first thought that the instructor was simply messing with trainees' heads, but I continued to hear such rumors throughout the time I was in the Army.

[Legbreaker]

I hit the PCs in a game I was running a decade or more ago with blood agent. The survivors never took their chem suits off ever again...

[bobcat]

basicly. the only reliable and readily available cure for chemical or biological attacks is the NATO standard M855 Ball round. (won't save ya but it stops the suffering)

[WallShadow]

Quote from a website about little-known airfields around the world. In this case, Johnston Atoll, roughly 800 miles west of Hawaii.

"Chemical weapons have been stored on Johnston Island since 1971. In 1993, Congress zero-funded the Johnston Atoll Safeguard C mission
and defined the military mission as storage & destruction of chemical weapons. Since 1990, an extensive operation on Johnston Island has performed the deactivation & destruction of 400,000 rockets, bombs, projectiles, mortars, and mines containing chemical weapons. The last of the chemical stockpile was destroyed in 2000."

No doubt the destruction operations would have been halted when the Soviets and Chinese decided to start the dance.

Gee, how'd you like to wind up there, with insufficient forces to defend the materials, and no easy way of getting off the island Or, leading a raid on the facility to get combat-leveraging weaponry in your arsenal

[Webstral]

The most effective defense against chemical agents is a robust offensive capability. Yes, the troops exposed when everyone starts using chemical agents are going to be hurting. We wont even cover civilian casualties. But once the side that originates use gets a taste, their enthusiasm for chemical warfare should diminish very significantly very rapidly.

One wonders if the Soviets have a go at chemical warfare in the DDR in response to the invasion by the Bundeswehr.