Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military From: cga66@ihlpy.att.com (Patrick V Kauffold) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Chemicals weapons in Iraq Message-ID: <1990Aug12.214422.2463@cbnews.att.com> Date: 12 Aug 90 21:44:22 GMT References: <1990Aug8.030444.25822@cbnews.att.com> Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 95 Approved: military@att.att.com From: cga66@ihlpy.att.com (Patrick V Kauffold) I suited up in 1986 at Quantico in October (temp ~85F) and it was damned difficult and uncomfortable. The mask/hood combo goes on first, of course, to provide the primary protection. The suits are foam rubber impregnated with activated charcoal, with chemical resistant cloth covering, a one-piece coverall. You put it on over your BDUs for that "layered" look. "Boots" are rubber which go on over the combat boots; you then lace up the "toe" to adjust for your side and seal the ankles. Then you put on cotton glove liners, then rubber gloves on over the cloth. This whole evolution takes ~5 minutes, with motivation and training. Needless to say, you sweat. It runs down inside the mask, in you eyes, very uncomfortable - and this is just standing around waiting to take your turn in the gas chamber. In 85 degree heat, I would guess that you might be able to route march with 60# for maybe 10 minutes on level ground; it would be damn near impossible to dig a fighting hole, even in the sand. Once in the suit, you stay in the suit until monitors have pronounced an area safe, or you are in a decontaminated enclosure. Practical matter: if you are in a contaminated area, you keep the suit on until you can leave the area. How long is that? Indefinite. You can drink from your canteen using a fitting in the mask and the corresponding fitting on the canteen - assuming you canteen has not had its surface contaminated. I tried it with the rubber gloves on - not particularly easy, but as I say, with motivation ... So you can drink; however, in 100+ degree heat (like Saudi Arabia), a trooper requires ~ 1 quart of water per hour for light activity, so you are going to be very busy with this one activity. Atropine is the antidote for nerve agents. The agents are dispersed as liquids or aerosols, by artillery/mortars or spray tanks, respectively. Not gasses, as the papers/TV are constantly saying. A single drop on exposed skin of the advanced agends (VX) will do the job (LD50); one good lungful of aerosol is probably fatal. Reaction time is measured in minutes. The official doctrine on atropine use is that you wait until you have symptoms, then you stick yourself with one combo-pen, and stick the empty on you sleeve so your buddies or medics know you have had one dose. You stick the needle in you leg, by the way. After 5-10 minutes, you should get some relief; if not, take a second hit. Repeat one more time, for a total of 3 self-administered; beyond that, you are supposed to have a medic do it as you can OD on atropine. Now you may see a tiny problem here; if you get zapped by a chemical attack without your protective gear, you may have no time at all to get into your gear and then check for symptoms. This question came up way back in NBC school, and the answer, from the chemical defense experts, was that if you think you have been attacked by nerve agent, don't wait, hit yourself with one shot of atropine IMMEDIATELY, get into your gear, and think about the second shot. This sounded like a pretty good idea to me at the time, and still does. Incidentally, atropine has some side effects that degrade your combat effectiveness, hence the doctrine that says "wait for symptoms". So if used prophylactically, you become at least a partial casualty, but maybe a live casualty. The likelihood is that an enemy will use several chemicals in combination; mustard is used to "mask" the nerve agent (i.e., you smell/detect the mustard, neglect to protect against nerve, and become a nerve casualty). Others like Adamsite might be used ahead of a nerve agent to make it difficult for you to keep the mask on. Nasty. In the current mideast war, the chemicals are useful in that, even though they might not kill protected and trained troops, they will make them almost totally ineffective. Persistent chemicals can deny use of a geographic area to the enemy (and yourself, too). So they are not totally inappropriate as a tactical weapon. The major effect of chemicals is to produce lots of casualties that have to be evacuated, taken care of, etc. So you can tie up lots of the enemy's resources with chemicals, and cheaply. Mustard is very good at producing casualties rather than fatalaties. Triage, anyone? The drawbacks is that chemicals are a bit difficult to apply, and you need cooperation from the weather. Commanders don't like them as well as conventional explosive munitions because it is hard to predict the effects (i.e., bad weather, and you are out of business; wind in the wrong direction, and you score own goal). Then there are their very negative political implications. I think the Iraquis have a version of the Scud-B, with a range of ~300 miles (Scud-B lists 100-170 mi, but I heard/read 300 miles somewhere), carries ~1800 lb warhead. BTW, the Soviets use weakened version of live agents in their training. Motivation. Pat Kauffold ATT-BL Naperville