Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military From: cga66@ihlpy.att.com (Patrick V Kauffold) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: biological weapons Message-ID: <1990Aug24.033925.70@cbnews.att.com> Date: 24 Aug 90 03:39:25 GMT References: <1990Aug22.025029.15519@cbnews.att.com> Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 55 Approved: military@att.att.com From: cga66@ihlpy.att.com (Patrick V Kauffold) > From: Eric Price > > With all the talk about the possible use of chemical wepons > in the Persian Gulf, can any one out there give me any information > on germ warfare. The B in CBR, ie what sort of nasty sh*t do > we, the USA, or any one else have, that is hi-tech type biological > weapons, not your everyday Anthrax type stuff. Here's some stuff from memory. Almost any good disease can be turned into a biological agent, depending on whether you want to kill or disable, and the target (human, animal, plant). Major targets of biologicals is the plant and animal life in an enemy country; wipe out the food supply. Anthrax is one I remember which will wipe out cattle; then there was rice blight (target obvious). People are a bit tougher, particularly if they are immunized (like troops). So what you do is to make the diseases more virulent. (Recomninant DNA would be good for this, no? Probably, but we have foresworn bio-war.) Some I remember are anthrax, plague, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, rabbit fever. Delivery can be airborne spores (anthrax), vectors (ticks, rats), aerosols, or covert contamination (water supply). Incidentally, don't put anthrax down; this is a very hardy organism, and the prognosis is really bad if the infection is pulmonary. Purpose against people is similar to chemicals; create a lot of casualties and make the enemy use up resources taking care of the casualties. Advantages: relatively cheap, high terror potential. Problems: difficult to deliver with precision, not very effective against immunized enemy, not effective if enemy has sophisticated health care and good public health; invites serious retaliation, obvious political problems. Takes too long to have an effect, thus can be countered;i.e. you have plenty of time to push the button before you croak. There are a couple of weapons which are somewhere in the gray area; not exactly chemical, not exactly biological; these are the psycho- agents: LSD-25, psylocibin(sp?), and my personal favorite, BZ. These make you crazy! BZ had some promise, as it sort of keeps you breathing, heart beating, but everything else goes into Charlie status. LSD was discarded because the effects were "unpredictable". Military weapons must be predictable. Recall also that US policy has always been that we would not put any chem/bio weapon in the arsenal that did not have a good defense. US development always had defense as a primary focus. Soviet policy stressed offensive capability, and they did at one time have agents for which they had not found a defense. I don't know if this is still the case.