Comment by someotherperson

> That's not how it works? That's all I get? I'd refer you to the site guidelines, barging into a thread and going "NO U" is not a real conversation.

There's no point in detailing beyond that. Respectfully, it's like someone suggesting quicksand is a good way to stop tanks because they watched it in a cartoon. I'll add some commentary in good faith but I'm not going to comment beyond this.

The fact of the matter is that the amount of chemical product you need to try to slow down the enemy is so insanely large that it just doesn't make sense to use -- it doesn't make sense to produce, it doesn't make sense to prepare, it doesn't make sense to bother firing.

I invite you to pick your chemical weapons agent of choice (sarin, chlorine, whatever is the one), pick a spacial size you want to attack an enemy in and then do some back of the napkin estimations at how much of that chemical weapon product you would actually need in order to disperse enough in that area to achieve your objective. I don't want you to account for failed launches, or wind, temperature and so on, let's assume that every munition fired will go to the exact spot it needs to be and disperse perfectly.

You'll very quickly realise that chemical payloads are wholly useless. We're talking about in the magnitudes of hundreds or even thousands of rockets to clear out a small area.

Perhaps it made sense in trench warfare 100 years ago, but it doesn't make sense to use against a guerrilla (or even conventional) force in any modern time.

> We don't see people deploying chemical WMDs not because they are too expensive but because of political reasons, and after that, because they don't have them due to disarmament treaties. All it takes is someone deciding they really want to win for all of it to change. You can deny a huge area for weeks with a few chemical warheads. You can make a city inhospitable using less materiel than it'd take to flatten it.

None of this is true. Sorry, but it's just not. And hopefully following the exercise above you'll come to see it that way as well.