why were Gas attacks not used ever by any of the armies in WWII like happened in WWI?

Question

was gas attacks even more deadly than bombs?

also, had they invented bombs that actually detonated large gas attacks by WWII? why the Nazis hadnt thought of using these? or the Allies?

please xplain what you can.as to how and why they were used in WWI and why stopped after?

did gas attacks kill most of the people in WWI? how and why it was so effective?

thanks for your answers!

Answer 1

Both sides had the option. Neither side used it.



It was a bit like the cold war. The US and the USSR during The Cold War both had atomic bombs. Though they came close, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, to using them, neither side did (fortunately.!)



I saw a photo recently of a prototype plane planned for use over Britain's coastal defences, on the beaches. They converted a Lysander by adding a Lancaster bomber's tail and turret and it was supposed to be able to spray the beaches with machine gun fire and drop poisonouse gas too.



That was never used either.



This is Wiki on Poison Gas in WW.11.



Nerve gas was also available to governments in World War Two. One of the first to be developed was Tabun by German scientists. Nerve gases attack the body’s nervous system. The symptoms are nausea, vomiting, muscular twitching, convulsions, cessation of breathing and death. Sarin and Soman were also developed as nerve gases. Of the three nerve gases named here, Soman was the most deadly. From inhalation, it is only a matter of seconds before a victim goes into convulsions. The US Army Manual TM 3-215 estimated that a victim of Soman would be dead within two minutes.



There is no doubt that most protagonists in World War Two had stockpiles of poison gas. By 1945, the Germans had 7,000 tons of Sarin alone – enough to kill the occupants of 30 cities the size of Paris. The Americans also had sizeable quantities of poison gases stockpiled. Britain experimented with anthrax on remote Scottish islands to see its impact on the animal population there. All countries that possessed poison gas in any form also had the potential to deliver it on an enemy.



With such potency and the ability to change the course of a battle why wasn’t poison gas used – even as a last resource? It would appear certain that the fear of retaliation was the reason and the fear that the enemy may well have developed a poison gas more virulent that anything the other side had. So in a war where atomic weapons were used, napalm, phosphorous, unrestricted submarine warfare etc, where civilians were seen by some as legitimate targets, no side was prepared to risk using a weapon that had been so feared in World War One.

Answer 2

Gas was deadlier than ordinary bombs/explosive in settings like the trenches in WWI, then the soldiers could shelter deep underground and avoid most of the blast and if they were in trenches they had shelter as long as the explosive did not detonate in their trench. However gas was more difficult to escape, being heavier than air it lingered and stayed close to the ground drifted with the breeze into trenches and bunkers. Gas bombs wouldn't necessarily be as effective as explosives in bombing houses and urban areas, then high explosives would do more damage to buildings and life and by the early 1940s both sides had developed bombs that were capable of causing far more damage than gas bombs.



There was also the risk that if it was used against a civilian target that the otherside would retaliate. I've no idea how many people it killed it WWI, but it certainly wasn't the biggest killer - for one thing it could only be used when the wind was in the right direction and even when it was strong winds would cause it to disperse too rapidly. There were cases (on both sides) where it was used and the wind direction changed causing it to be blown back in the direction of the sender!



Nevertheless there were fears that it would be used and every British civilian was issued with a gas-mask, including babies.

Answer 3

It was outlawed but it was not completely abandoned. I know the Japanese used it, at least in China. Those who suggested it was more effective in the static trench warfare of WW1 probably might have a point. Though if that were a major reason for the abandonment of it I'm surprised the German's didn't try it at Stalingrad. The two sides there were dug in facing each other for a long time. Certainly the Nazis had no compunction about poison gas and certainly produced a lot of it for use in the death camps.

Answer 4

The use of aphxiating gas was against the geneva convention since 1927 but more to the point it was a taboo weapon.



There was one incident in Bari, Italy on 2 December 1943 where mustard gas was accidently unleashed. The Americans shipped mustard bombs on one of their boats, the "John Harvey" (Britain and USA occupied this part of Italy then) for apparent potential "reprisal" gas attacks against the germans. It was top secret but before the mustard bombs could be unloaded there was a german air raid and the ship sustained enough damage to ignite the mustard bombs and kill everyone on board the ship. The allied military personnel killed by their own mustard gas were around 600 but the civilian casualties were never released and thought to be higher. Since the allies, in particular Winston Churchill, didn't want the presence of mustard gas known as it would give the germans propaganda material, many civilians didn't realise what was wrong with them and didn't get the proper treatment.

Answer 5

With their primitive but effective sarin gas and their not so primitive and highly effective V-2 rockets the German Supreme Command could have turned Europe and Asia into a graveyard. Only fragmentary evidential records are left to ponder as to why this was not attempted. Minster Speer skirted the issue in both his books-deciding to only discuss his attempt to kill the Fuhrer-that I have never really believed. Jodl's diary has some scribbles about masks for entire population of Berlin-then more of his bastardized hieroglyphs on production of Vergasen Sie und Raketenaufstellung-loosely translated to gas and rocket deployment or something. The entire subject was verboten at the tribunals so it's up to the informed to speculate.

J.P O'Donnell put a footnote in Der Bunker that always intrigued me. He said that MAD-the ReganEra term of "mutually assured destruction"-he died in 1990-kept "the gas in it's canisters" He knew that that type of gas is deployed in explosive shells-Of course he knew that-so the term "it's canisters" is just more foolsmate for the foolhardy.

I could write and speculate on this for page after page but I still believe the most obvious answer is the correct one-the Fuhrer just didn't want to do it.



sp



One other thing: The Reichmarchall in one of the last shorthand records of the briefing conferences(March 1945) said while discussing one of the Indian legions(The Reichnfuhrer SS battalions he threw together) that he(Goring) hoped they would "pick up one of those exploding gas shells we were making" so they "would not be eating anymore"

For all it's worth-at that point they were all quite mad.

Answer 6

Germany initiated gas warfare in WWI but didn't do it again in WWII because Hitler, who experienced gas attacks as a soldier in the first war, had an aversion to gas warfare. And as another poster wrote, it wasn't the most effective means of attack anyway.

Answer 7

One thing missed by the other posters is that the Japanese DID conduct gas attacks in the war against China. They also conducted biological warfare (plague) attacks.

Answer 8

"I quite agree that it may be several weeks or even months before I shall ask you to drench Germany with poison gas, and if we do it, let us do it one hundred per cent. In the meanwhile, I want the matter studied in cold blood by sensible people and not by that particular set of psalm-singing uniformed defeatists which one runs across now here now there."

- Winston Churchill

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHU407A.html

___________



Allies would lost Second World War had Hitler used deadly nerve gas

http://news.oneindia.in/2010/05/15/allieswould-lost-second-world-war-had-hitler-used-deadlyn.html

Answer 9

I think each side was afraid of the consequences if they were to have done so. No, gas attacks did not kill most in WWI. Idiotic frontal attacks against entrenched positions killed most. Machine guns and artillery were very effective. Gas masks were somewhat effective against gas attacks.

Answer 10

Only a good idea as long as the wind don't change direction. This did happen in ww1

Answer 11

They did, they used Tabun Gas in the field and killed jews with chlorine