nelson_p@apollo.com (08/09/90)
From: nelson_p@apollo.com
[ for submission to sci.military]
With all the talk about a war with Iraq I had a couple of
questions.
1.) The Iraqis have surface-to-surface missiles for use
against land targets. What, if any, means do we have
to shoot them down in flight?
2.) The Iraqis use gas warfare. The chemical warfare gear
that I've seen NATO use looks heavy, cumbersome, and hot.
Since temperatures in the desert regularly exceed 100
degrees this time of the tear how well can soldiers fight
when equipped for a gas attack?
---Peterhenry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (08/15/90)
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) >From: nelson_p@apollo.com > 1.) The Iraqis have surface-to-surface missiles for use > against land targets. What, if any, means do we have > to shoot them down in flight? The best of the antiaircraft systems, notably the Patriot SAM, nominally have some antimissile capability. How well they will work in a shooting war is an open question. (Past experience with peacetime-developed missiles in real warfare has not been encouraging.) > 2.) The Iraqis use gas warfare. The chemical warfare gear > that I've seen NATO use looks heavy, cumbersome, and hot. > Since temperatures in the desert regularly exceed 100 > degrees this time of the tear how well can soldiers fight > when equipped for a gas attack? Not well. This is true almost regardless of temperature, actually. The primary benefit of gas warfare against well-prepared troops is the loss of fighting effectiveness due to protective gear. It does not cause very many actual casualties unless used against "softer" targets. Late in WW2, the Allies seriously using 48 hours of mustard gas as a pre-invasion bombardment for Japanese-held islands, to reduce the all-too-high effectiveness of the defenders by making them spend two days in gas gear. Fears of German reprisal against British civilian targets got the idea shelved. Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry