Nerve Gas Between Friends

By Reid Kirby

In the 1950s the British sought a one- On the surface, the , ton war reserve was sufficient for  ca-
month war reserve of , sualties over , square kilometers, which may appear unusual
tons of GB from the United States. At about the same time the until it is recognized there is , km to , square miles. At
British considered the lethal Q for GB to be , kg/km, com- the time it was felt the LCt for GB was  mg·min/m with a
prised of either three hundred  mm projectiles or seven  lb probit slope of  for a lethal lung effect. Assuming neutral atmo-
aerial bombs. spheric stability and  knot winds, then the Q estimates for GB
under different terrain complexes and estimates of coverage by the
The United States included the British request for GB in its  proposed war reserve are listed in the table below.
all-services estimate of , tons. At the time the United States
Air Force prefered using GB instead of nuclear weapons to counter It is evident from the table that the British were most likely envi-
Soviet aggression in Europe. The military requirement for the sioning retaliatory GB strikes against , square miles of enemy
M+ mobilization plan was for , tons of GB; requiring an cities; consistent with chemical retaliatory plans from the Second
additional , tons per year in manufacturing capacity. The World War. The number of weapons per square kilometer antici-
Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended against supplying the British pated is evidently skewed by not adjusting for the differences in
this amount of GB, noting the limited manufacturing capacity density between HD and GB. It is doubtful that the British ever
and supply of the mineral fluorspar. received this arsenal due limited supllies and policy changes.

Terrain Complex Released Q25 (kg/km2) War Reserve Coverage (km2)

Open 265 9,434

Wooded 332 7,530
Hilly 531 4,708
Urban 1,087 2,300

© 2008 - Reid Kirby, All Rights Reserved. Please send all comments or requests to rkirby@eximdyne.com.