Matrix Games Forums

About 4 years ago I was working in my store and had a conversation w/ one of my 80something male customers. he had hsi veteran hat on and so I chit chatted w/ him. I did ask him where he was located in ww2. he said he was assigned to a chemical weapons battalion stationed on Tinian island. I said" wait a minute, we did not use cw in ww2".

His reply" true, but we had a whole island in the pacific loaded w/ mustard gas to use on the japs if we had to invade them"
He also said his squad was the crew that loaded the bomb on the enola gay. He said the chemical battalion was assigned the maintenance chores associated w/ taking care of the attomic bombs.

As time has gone by I suspect the allies had a chemical response to the japs if the japs used cw/bw in operation Olympic. So I requested a scenario for the optional use of cw/bw/aw for both sides.

Bigred.

My initial response was that there would have to be research on the weapons and units - as well as consideration of effects.

Turns out the US started WWII with one cw unit - the 2nd Chemical Mortar Battalion - a redesignated 1st Chemical Mortar Battalion (1935) -
formed three more in 1942 (3rd, 81st and 84th) - and eventually 71 & 72, 80th, 82nd to 100th of which 99th and 100th were redesignated AAA bn.

They used a single weapon - a 4.1 inch mortar - derived from a WWI 4 inch Stokes Mortar. The CW round weighed 13 kg. Range from 1943 was nominally 4400 yards (4460 listed for the CW round, 3932 for White Phosperous, 4013 for HE). First technical issue: the WP and HE were so effective it is not clear that CW would actually cause more casualties! Weapon weight 131 kg (333 pounds). Crew ("squad") 7 men. ROF nominal 5 RPM (80 / hour sustained) by 1944.

UK had a similar weapon ML 4.2 inch Mortar from 1942. 4160 yards/10 rounds /min sustained (20 in first minute). weapon weight 602 pounds

Russia had a 107 mm (that is, 4.2 inch) M1938. 170 kg. 15 rounds per minute (initial?) 6900 yard range.

It appears the Allies concentrated cw delivery in a single caliber of weapon - at least on the ground. Several US Army commanders refused to allow a division in combat without a cw battalion. However - not for offensive cw purposes - merely because the mortar was so useful with WP and HE. Offensive use was contemplated for Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet - as Big Red reported above.

My first thought with respect to modeling use is that it is similar to bw. I already developed a model of the 25kg Uji bomb for Japan -
this is an anthrax weapon using fleas as a vector (delivery vehicle) - inside a ceramic bomb which breaks on impact. It obviously has
no AP value so AP and anti armor values should be 0. The anti-soft value is the one that does the work. "Damage" done by the
anti-soft value can be considered to be both direct damage - in particular due to casualties - but also abstractly - "repair" of damage
models "decontamination." Experimentally I used an accuracy = 80 (how hard is it to get near the target? Not hard - but not certain
either) and an anti-soft value = 70 (a complex but theoretical value basically related to expected casualties from a 25 kg device).
It appears the 13 kg CW bomb (mortar rounds are called bombs) would be slightly less effective per round - but a single mortar would
deliver more bombs than an entire Japanese bw aircraft (which was a light plane - modeled by the Ki-35) - in a few minutes. Working
out the valuses still to come.

They also had it ready for usage in 105mm howitzers and air bombs

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/med ... trv699.pdf has more info on it

Ironically, I'm working for the pharma industry and one potential project I am looking into is bendamustine a type of mustard gas that works on certain types of cancers. It was discovered due to the Bari explosion in 1944. The USS Harvey had 2000 M47A1 mustard gas bombs ( http://www.swf.usace.army.mil/pubdata/f ... emical.PDF ) , each holding 60–70 lb of mustard gas, and it blew up during an airraid in the middle of the harbor. Every person on board was killed and lot of the rescuers, but it was discovered in long term studies of Bari shoreline natives that they had very few cases lymphoma. It was eventually linked to the cytotoxic effects of mustard gas

Cid,

I would suggest you take a gander at this book, Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947 by D. M. Giangreco; he had a whole chapter dedicated to what, how and responses to that both the Allies and the Japanese had with regards to the use of Chemical Weapons. Giangreco, found research at the NARA and US Army History Center that basically had the Joint Chiefs had gained authroization from Truman and from congress about using Mustard Gas, Phosgene, and a slew of others that were in stock pile. Some of those weapons were going to be stock piled at one of the Jima islands just off the coast and when ready they were going to be delievered ashore. The biggest question was about who the guinea pigs were going to have all these motar shells and chemical spray tanks on the AKA and how to postion the ship in the proper location in the invasion box so that if the ship was hit by a Kamikazi weapon and release had happened it would harm the rest of the invasion force. Giangreco had suggested that via his references research the Japanese would have had infected bodies intermixed with the rest of the civilian population or even had suicide attackers that would be purposedly infected with with a BW in the hope that they would get close enough to have a chance to infect the Allied Armies. However, if I remember right (I don't have the book in front of me); Giangreco had basically found plenty of research that said although they had the capability the reality of mass suicide of BW infected citizens probably would have resulted in them infecting the home guard and home citizens first. Ditto with the questions of CW usage on both sides, that CW heavily depends on kowing the weather and when the invasions were being time; there is a good chance that it would have been like Battle of Loos where the Brits killed as many of thier men as they killed Germans. I was also reminded that in J.R. Skates book, Invasion of Japan: Alternative to the Bomb; the Japanese stock piles of CW was actually on the Mainland of China and not in the home islands. So anything that was there was not enough to respond to even a fully loaded AKA of what the Allies could bring to the conflict.

Also take a look at what listed over at the History website of the US Army with regards to the US Chemical Weapons Battalions from thier creation as the Chemical Weapons Service in 1916 and to thier landings in places like Sciliy, Anzio, Normandy, Dragoon since the motars were not only effective in provided chemical smoke and WP rounds but also as noted in your posting that the 4.2 was an effective heavy battery motar using just HE.

As to the useage of BW or even CW in the game, how could you effectively model it? Some of the BW systems take days or even a couple of weeks before they start to kill or injury, how could you make that happen? Some CW weapons as instant kill but a majority even by 1945 would have only caused some minor precentages of deaths on inital release and a few more from catastrophic injury, but anything else would have lead to a nuisance to a prepared troop (like it was expected of the Allies in the Invasion). Also, how would you model effectively mis-usage where the chemcial weapons come blowing back onto your own troops?

As to Unit 731 and thier ability to develop weapons to deliver

Clearly there are limits to what can be modeled. Some US ideas from the Cold War era were very mild - intended more as economic warfare than as battlefield weapons. [I find the B-77 balloon delivery system - using feathers as vectors - targeting crops and animals - very peculiar; yet it was 1/6 of the offensive Army BW budget of 1950; it would have no value as a battlefield weapon at all] The Japanese found anthrax - which they used in some quantity - to be a two edged sword: when it got away due to wind shifts, IJA officers complained "it is worse than the enemy" - and further use was banned (although the stocks were not destroyed until after the Soviet invasion of Manchukuo). CW was held until summer 1945, when, separately, both the Army and the Navy destroyed what stocks they had in the home islands to insure no one could use them. Ironic, given the Allied choices re atom bombs and cw - although it is hard to see how either is worse than the firebombing campaign vs cities? [Three bomber raids were worse than Hiroshima or Nagasaki - Hamburg, Dresden and the really bad one - Tokyo. Curtiss LeMay responded to technical failures in the "precision bombing campaign" with a program to burn out "every square mile of Japanese urban area" - and it would have been 100% by 1 November.]

So I am limiting weapons of interest to those with immediate impact on the battle area. [After all, radiation effects also can be delayed. But losing 100,000 people in a moment is something you notice - even if many more are later affected] It seems to me that cw, bw and rw weapons are all not good at penetrating armor - so AP values on the order of zero are in the right range. The effect that is greater is soft effect. In RHS, I use a function of device weight for soft effect: for GP/HE bombs and shells it is the square root of weight times a constant of 4 (the constant may change as test data accumulates, and was originally 2). For CW and BW it is somewhat greater, based on modeling of casualty rates compared to that for GP/HE bombs. But surprisingly not much greater.

The biggest problem isn't getting these things to cause more casualties. It is that first use is more effective than later use. Once an army gets used to the idea this is happening, countermeasures reduce the impacts. For that reason, I feel it is better to model the effects after the first day rather than on the first day - since they are more typical.

Another problem is - how do we simulate own forces losses? I guess the player request - that the other side be able to retaliate in kind - is one answer. But in a game I design, there is always a chance ANY weapon will hit own forces. With wmd, the chances of a wind shift are significant, and would tend to do what happened to IJA in China - discourage such weapons.

I do not like wmd personally - either from the point of view of being on a battlefield or from the point of view of political justification for the war effort. It appears they are not particularly effective at winning battles. But I will at least consider a request for a capability. I have a single BW in RHS now - the Uji bomb of 25 kg - to evaluate the concept. If there is to be a massive capability on both sides, I am inclined to create a special mod for that - so it doesn't impact "normal" games radically.

ORIGINAL: icepharmy

They also had it ready for usage in 105mm howitzers and air bombs

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/med ... trv699.pdf has more info on it

Ironically, I'm working for the pharma industry and one potential project I am looking into is bendamustine a type of mustard gas that works on certain types of cancers. It was discovered due to the Bari explosion in 1944. The USS Harvey had 2000 M47A1 mustard gas bombs ( http://www.swf.usace.army.mil/pubdata/f ... emical.PDF ) , each holding 60–70 lb of mustard gas, and it blew up during an airraid in the middle of the harbor. Every person on board was killed and lot of the rescuers, but it was discovered in long term studies of Bari shoreline natives that they had very few cases lymphoma. It was eventually linked to the cytotoxic effects of mustard gas

thanks

The article includes the following - very similar to what I concluded two days ago:

During the 1930s, the CWS stockpiled the chemical
weapons used by World War I ground forces in
preparation for a future war. These were primarily
Livens projectors, Stokes mortars, and portable cylinders.
In addition, there were chemical shells for
75-mm, 105-mm, and 155-mm artillery pieces (Figures
2-22 and 2-23).
The production of the new 4.2-in. chemical mortar
eventually made that weapon the key ground
delivery system for the CWS.


As well as this - again similar to my own views -

an article on bacterial warfare for
The Military Surgeon that began:
Bacterial warfare is one of the recent scare-heads
that we are being served by the pseudo-scientists
who contribute to the flaming pages of the Sunday
annexes syndicated over the Nation’s press.75(p189)
He then proceeded to point out the difficulties of
trying to weaponize biological agents. For example,
bubonic plague would create significant problems
for friendly troops as well as the enemy:
The use of bubonic plague today against a field
force, when the forces are actually in contact, is
unthinkable for the simple reason that the epidemic
could not be controlled. Infected personnel captured
would provide the spark to set off possible
outbreaks of pneumonic plague in the ranks of the
captors. Infected rats would also visit and spread
the condition. An advance over terrain infected
with plague-bearing rats would be dangerous.
Therefore, except as a last desperate, despairing
hope of a rapidly retreating army, the use of plague
by forces in the field is not to be considered.75(p202)
After dismissing the causative organisms of malaria,
yellow fever, anthrax, and other such agents,
he concluded:
I consider that it is highly questionable if biologic
agents are suited for warfare. Certainly at the
present time practically insurmountable technical
difficulties prevent the use of biologic agents as
effective weapons of warfare.75(p207)

Note the effective use of bw at Nomanhan was indeed a defensive
use on ground being conceeded to the enemy. Stalin prepared
plans to do the same in Western Russia if Moscow fell. [Imagine
doing that in a populated area with one's own population - vice
a desert like Mongolia!] Modern Russian bw doctrine is to use it
during and after a nuclear attack - to take down the medical
infrastructure of the enemy and delay recovery. [Lovely]

ORIGINAL: YankeeAirRat
As to the useage of BW or even CW in the game, how could you effectively model it?

Shoot, ok, I will put on my rational hat for this one. Lot of what's in here comes from DoD thinking in the 1965-1975 period. Where appropriate, I will note conclusions developed by Aeling, Corp, Alexandria, VA (where I worked). I will send you a PM that has book, chapter and verse, for every citation that is publically available (damn near all of them), and what website hosts them (some of them need you to sell your first born to get a DoD account, but hey ...)

Back in the day, CW and BW were two completely different things. Granted, there was some stuff we would now consider BW, but back then they considered CW. These are terms that have meaning today, but meant nothing, back in the day. It didn't much matter if it was a Sulphur Mustard-T blister agent, an Ethyl, Methyl, Phenyldichlorarsine, or a nerve agent in the yl-methylphosphoronyl-zl group. It was all in how you kill the Bad Guys in front of you, right now.

Chemical warheads were considered tactical weapons. The effects of these weapons were viewed as 'prompt', much like the ordinary shells they fired. CW was a battlefield article. The good Lord be praised that nobody opened that Pandora's Box, but they didn't, so many of us are alive because that didn't happen and our fathers or grandfathers didn't choke their lungs out or lay twithching in neuralogical degradation.

Biological weapons are a bit different. They are not 'prompt'. They are not intended to be deployed on an invading army. They are intended to be deployed on an enemy population. They are intended to indescrimitely kill as many men, women, children, kittens, puppies, moles, birds, squirrels, armadillos as they they possibly can. Some old-time CW agents (the more nasty nerve agents) have been moved up into the BW list (at least in the US).

BW (as opposed to CW) didn't really come into the military consciousnes till about 1953, and then it was a nascent opportunity. No, I'm afraid that classical CW is still with us and we can see its effects every day in lovely places like Libya and Syria. And we will see it again and again, possibly the next time Russia, or China, wants to discipline a recalcitrant province.

That's CW, and that's how the world views CW these days. It's kind of ok, so long as it's in your yard, and you can put up with the student protests (in some other country, of course). But BW is a whole different universe. Just think about it, clearly.

It seems to me that cw, bw and rw weapons are all not good at penetrating armor

That would be a mistake. Taking them in turn:

CW: needs a sealed environment to exclude any aerosolized agent, which we can provide in Cold War and later enclosed vehicles, but we still rely on personal protection for troops in softskins. In WWII, not only is there increased use of softskins in comparison to later forces, but many armoured vehicles are open-topped, while even those that aren't still don't have sealed environments and need the crews to expose themselves both tactically (commanders and drivers operating heads out) and for maintenance, resupply and rest. Even if an armoured vehicle provided immediate protection against contact agents like Mustard, the entire exterior of the vehicle would be contaminated, exposing the crew as soon as they open any hatch.

BW: No WWII biological weapon was effective within tactical timescales. Weaponized Anthrax is dispersed as airborne spores, and the same comments WRT sealed environments apply as for CW. Anthrax spores can just as easily contaminate vehicle exteriors, uniforms and so on as can Mustard and other persistent CW agents.

RW: 'dirty bombs' need to be separated from criticality incidents in terms of prompt lethality, and even criticality accidents need not be immediately fatal - the famous case is the death of Louis Slotin during the Manhattan Project (though post-War), 9 days after exposure. It was fairly rapidly disabling, but Slotin was literally holding the core when it happened and of the other 7 people in the room with him only two suffered sufficient exposure to trigger radiation sickness. 'dirty bombs' by comparison do not involve criticality, but rely on direct exposure to alpha, beta and gamma emitting particles (and for the first two the particles need to be ingested for full effect, though high energy beta particles can cause skin burns). Even a concentrated medical gamma source, like that involved in the Goiânia accident (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident) only killed 4 people out of the several hundred exposed, and they had had direct, prolonged contact with the exposed caesium and none died promptly. Essentially dirty bombs aren't tactically useful, but may have an area denial function. WRT armour, you would again need a sealed environment to exclude exposure to dust particles.

Looking at actual plans for use, AIUI, the US, while not a signatory to the relevant conventions, had promised no first use of chemical weapons, while Japan was well aware of the US superiority in chemical agents and was determined not to give them any excuse to claim a right of retaliation. Parts of the US command structure advocated first use, but only parts.

The other thing to remember with US CW troops is that the Chemical Warfare Service (the Chemical Corps post-war) manned the 4.2" Mortar battalions, which were dual-roled, both with chemical delivery and conventional fire missions. The presence of the Chemical Warfare Service battalions at the front is not indicative of a pro-use policy.

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: YankeeAirRat
As to the useage of BW or even CW in the game, how could you effectively model it?

Shoot, ok, I will put on my rational hat for this one. Lot of what's in here comes from DoD thinking in the 1965-1975 period. Where appropriate, I will note conclusions developed by Aeling, Corp, Alexandria, VA (where I worked). I will send you a PM that has book, chapter and verse, for every citation that is publically available (damn near all of them), and what website hosts them (some of them need you to sell your first born to get a DoD account, but hey ...)

Back in the day, CW and BW were two completely different things. Granted, there was some stuff we would now consider BW, but back then they considered CW. These are terms that have meaning today, but meant nothing, back in the day. It didn't much matter if it was a Sulphur Mustard-T blister agent, an Ethyl, Methyl, Phenyldichlorarsine, or a nerve agent in the yl-methylphosphoronyl-zl group. It was all in how you kill the Bad Guys in front of you, right now.

Chemical warheads were considered tactical weapons. The effects of these weapons were viewed as 'prompt', much like the ordinary shells they fired. CW was a battlefield article. The good Lord be praised that nobody opened that Pandora's Box, but they didn't, so many of us are alive because that didn't happen and our fathers or grandfathers didn't choke their lungs out or lay twithching in neuralogical degradation.

Biological weapons are a bit different. They are not 'prompt'. They are not intended to be deployed on an invading army. They are intended to be deployed on an enemy population. They are intended to indescrimitely kill as many men, women, children, kittens, puppies, moles, birds, squirrels, armadillos as they they possibly can. Some old-time CW agents (the more nasty nerve agents) have been moved up into the BW list (at least in the US).

BW (as opposed to CW) didn't really come into the military consciousnes till about 1953, and then it was a nascent opportunity. No, I'm afraid that classical CW is still with us and we can see its effects every day in lovely places like Libya and Syria. And we will see it again and again, possibly the next time Russia, or China, wants to discipline a recalcitrant province.

That's CW, and that's how the world views CW these days. It's kind of ok, so long as it's in your yard, and you can put up with the student protests (in some other country, of course). But BW is a whole different universe. Just think about it, clearly.

That is how thought it was viewed in the real world. I also know that application of CW was very hard to properly employ from the readings that I have done, becaue you have to account for weather, you have to account for how long the stuff sticks around, and the biggest one from what read is how to keep the agent from being eaten up by an detonation that is to disperse the agents. Which is why even though during the Cold War there was weapons like the 105/155/203mm round, LANCEs with CW warheads weren't that highly thought of compared to rounds like BigEye or spray tanks.

As to BW all one need to do is look at the Spanish Flu and see how it affected the world.

As to the Tactical vs Strategtic weapon desigantion that is something which I have seen debated in everything from Foreign Journal to JFQ and everything in between.

ORIGINAL: YankeeAirRat
As to the Tactical vs Strategtic weapon desigantion that is something which I have seen debated in everything from Foreign Journal to JFQ and everything in between.

That is so true. One of my best friends in high school, Richard Donlon (Dickie Doo), wanted nothing more than to work at State. He went to Tufts. I was an Okie, and went to the Tute. He was a suit and I was a uniform. He made his dream, and was a Deputy, Under Assistant Something for somewhere, when I was working for NIS at Aeling.

We went round and round on this very issue. There was some serious oysters and crabcakes (and booze, lots of booze) consumed in Georgetown during our evening ramblings. We never really agreed, but we learned to think clearly about our position. Lots of Richards thoughts ended up in Foreign Affairs Journal. Mine ended up in Melvin Laird's circular file.

Maybe that's a reflective value on their respective worth, but I don't know. Kinda lost touch with Dickie in the past 10 years, but this thread sent a prompt. He's still a hot property in the State Department. Maybe he can get me a date with Hillary?

[ed] no, scratch that. Hillary's not my type. She really needs to do something with her hair. Reminds me of my Organic Chem Prof at Bates. She was kinda cute, but her hair was a flat, greasy, mass !!, and that dress !! Ugh !!!

As to the Tactical vs Strategtic weapon desigantion that is something which I have seen debated in everything from Foreign Journal to JFQ and everything in between.

It is all perspective. One person's tactical weapon can easily be construed as another persons strategic weapon.

Reminds me of the joke of the little boy that goes up to his dad and he says "Dad?, What's the difference between Potentially and Realistically?" To which the father replies "Well son, go ask your mother if she would sleep with Robert Redford for a million dollars. Then you ask your sister if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars. Then you ask your brother if he would sleep with Tom Cruise for a million dollars." So the boy goes up to his mom and asks her if she would sleep with Robert Redford for a million dollars and the mother replies "Oh my god, of course I would, he is so good looking!" So the boy moves on and asks his sister if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars, and she replies "He is so fine, of course I would!" Then last but no least he goes up to his brother and asks him if he would sleep with Tom Cruise for a million dollars, his brother says "Of course I would, who wouldn't for a million bucks?" So he goes up to his dad and says "I think I learned the difference between potentially and realistically" "Well what's the difference?" says the father. "Well, potentially we're sitting on 3 million dollars, realistically we're living with 2 sluts and a fag!"

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: YankeeAirRat
As to the useage of BW or even CW in the game, how could you effectively model it?

Shoot, ok, I will put on my rational hat for this one. Lot of what's in here comes from DoD thinking in the 1965-1975 period. Where appropriate, I will note conclusions developed by Aeling, Corp, Alexandria, VA (where I worked). I will send you a PM that has book, chapter and verse, for every citation that is publically available (damn near all of them), and what website hosts them (some of them need you to sell your first born to get a DoD account, but hey ...)

Back in the day, CW and BW were two completely different things. Granted, there was some stuff we would now consider BW, but back then they considered CW. These are terms that have meaning today, but meant nothing, back in the day. It didn't much matter if it was a Sulphur Mustard-T blister agent, an Ethyl, Methyl, Phenyldichlorarsine, or a nerve agent in the yl-methylphosphoronyl-zl group. It was all in how you kill the Bad Guys in front of you, right now.

Chemical warheads were considered tactical weapons. The effects of these weapons were viewed as 'prompt', much like the ordinary shells they fired. CW was a battlefield article. The good Lord be praised that nobody opened that Pandora's Box, but they didn't, so many of us are alive because that didn't happen and our fathers or grandfathers didn't choke their lungs out or lay twithching in neuralogical degradation.

Biological weapons are a bit different. They are not 'prompt'. They are not intended to be deployed on an invading army. They are intended to be deployed on an enemy population. They are intended to indescrimitely kill as many men, women, children, kittens, puppies, moles, birds, squirrels, armadillos as they they possibly can. Some old-time CW agents (the more nasty nerve agents) have been moved up into the BW list (at least in the US).

BW (as opposed to CW) didn't really come into the military consciousnes till about 1953, and then it was a nascent opportunity. No, I'm afraid that classical CW is still with us and we can see its effects every day in lovely places like Libya and Syria. And we will see it again and again, possibly the next time Russia, or China, wants to discipline a recalcitrant province.

That's CW, and that's how the world views CW these days. It's kind of ok, so long as it's in your yard, and you can put up with the student protests (in some other country, of course). But BW is a whole different universe. Just think about it, clearly.

This does not jive with a paper I have on the history of the US Army BW program. Nor with the policy of granting immunity to Japanese Army BW scientists in exchange for technical information and materials. [Never mind we kept catching them not revealing everything, we simply used that as leverage to get more information] Clearly Japan used BW on some scale at Nomanhan - and in China during WWII - with an intent of immediate miltiary effect. The last major attack suffered from one of the hazzards of CW/BW/RW warfare - unexpected wind shifts - and IJA generals complained "it is worse than the enemy" - which is testimony to the battlefield effect even on an unintended army. After that attacks were discontinued, although development did not stop until August 1945 - when the decision was taken to hide or destroy the evidence. [More than a little was hidden in shrines, but discovered by intreped US investigators] Outside the USA, BW was used multiple times, although sometimes targeting livestock (as in WWI in Lapland). JWE's comments seem more related to CIA BW research of the early Cold War era than of Army research. But in 1950, 1/6 of US Army research money went into a balloon using feathers to vector anthrax - the balloon an improved version of one developed in WWII by IJA - and of which several examples were in US custody. During the war, the US Army developed a 500 pound bomb carrying small "soft" bomblets to spread out and break on impact without damaging the agent or its vector (there were two agents, one of them anthrax, the other I forget). Anthrax was tested on an island in the Gulf of Panama, returned to its owners not long ago. [UK did similar tests on an island off Scotland, but with live animals as test subjects, and concluded the anthrax agent DID HAVE immediate battlefield impact] The policy of both countries in WWII - and the US in the early Cold War era - was one of retaliation in kind. While apparently CW was going to be used offensively during Olympic and Coronet, generally CW was also held for retaliation in kind. Still - it is clear from the formal Army history that the concept of BW was well developed long before 1953.

CW WAS used in the Pacific war - by IJA - in Burma. Not counting the use in research at Peng Fan (Unit 731) - where chemicals were used both experimentally and, at the end, to kill surviving test subjects, so they could not testify. Someone in Japan apparently ordered the use to stop before the Allies decided to retaliate. Also, the weapons were not very effective. IJA had developed CW grenades for anti-tank use (I have no clue why that was thought to be a good idea?).

English language history books of interest to BW include

Germs - ISBN 0-684-87158-0 2001
The Biology of Doom - ISBN 0-8050-5764-1 1999
Biohazzard - ISBN 0-375-50231-9 1998

for Japan

Unit 731 ISBN 0-02-935301-7 1989 [Illegal in Japan]
Factories of Death ISBN 0-415-09105-5 1995

As to the Tactical vs Strategtic weapon desigantion that is something which I have seen debated in everything from Foreign Journal to JFQ and everything in between.

In the world of nuclear weapons, I think the distinction is academic. US Navy warships in my day had "tactical nuclear weapons" which were so big, if you used them on a city, the people would have little idea it wasn't a strategic weapon. But we tended to think of them as ways to kill an individual submarine or a flight of airplanes. Turned out - if you knew where the sub was - you didn't need a nuke to kill it. And if you didn't the nuke didn't help - because its area of effect isn't very big in water. If you used a nuclear SAM, you destroyed the "switches" critical to modern radar antenna's working - solid state devices - and rendered yourself and all your friends blind to more air attacks! By the time we agreed to get rid of them, they were not very popular.

I have been able to determine that the US would have probably used its 500 pound bomb ( which didn't use explosive distribution - rather released many small "bomblets" that broke on impact ) on B-25s if BW was used in retaliation for attacks of that kind. [Suggested by retired Army biologist Lt Col Dick Thurston, of Tacoma, Washington]