Chemical weapons

[Grosshaus]

I agree, although CW:s had an effect in WWI they were still just another kind of artillery shell. I'd think adding them as a brigade for artillery is enough. I don't even remember them being discussed in the public all that much before the end of the war, so no social issues, like an atrocity event, needed regarding them either.

 

[unmerged(3352)]

Originally posted by Arkestra
But these are tactical considerations, not operational or strategic, and therefore outside the scope of the player's actions.

Uh...In what way would chemical weapons differ from machine guns or artillery then? Surely those must be considered tactical weapons too?

 

[Arkestra]

I meant that yes have them as a tech, but is there a need for them as a detachment, or anything more complex than that?

 

[unmerged(3352)]

Well, eh...I just realized I cant answer you the way I wanted to...

heh, never mind...

 

[unmerged(5120)]

There's another point to consider.

Chemical weapons appeared in Germany from a combination of factors.

The most important was the large German dye industry - a quasi world monopoly by 1914 embodied by the IG Farben. Those chemical factories could be converted to chemical weapons production relatively easily.

The second factor was Germany was short of nitrates, which are required for the production of modern explosives. They did have a process to extract nitrogen from the atmosphere - designed by Haber, btw - which eventually supplied them with most of the nitrogen compounds they needed for munition production, but it never was enough.

they had to fill their shells with something, and turning to chemical weapons was quite logical given the nature of their industrial base and the raw materials available.

Going back to victoria, if the economic model has enough depth to model those specificities of German industry - which I doubt, but I don't work for Paradox either - then a chemical weapons tech tree is necessary.

Otherwise, accurately modeling the specifities of chemical warfare would require a lot of rules to accomodate a situation that only lasted for about a year out of the 90-something covered by the game.

The best solution is probably to give Germany an one-time random event activated by a battle in Europe in the last decade of the game that would give them a large combat bonus for about a week over a single province. It would reflect the conditions of 2nd Ypres quite accurately, with the bonus almost as much a surprise to the German player as the initial success was to German commanders of the time.

 

[Killerjes]

Chemical weapons should be in the tech tree, maybe as some advancement in munitions.
The choice of using them might even have some political implications? Although Grosshaus seems to think otherwise - I'm prett blank on that subject...

 

[unmerged(14071)]

I think that CW should be the Nukes of Vic.

very hard to get, but great to use when researched

 

[unmerged(15967)]

Originally posted by Zorn
I think that CW should be the Nukes of Vic.

very hard to get, but great to use when researched

They didn't have nearly that much effect, and were not nearly as expensive either.

 

[Rundris]

The British had plans to make mustard gas bombs around 1919. They never happenned, but I could see extending the chemical weapon tech tree to include them.

I suppose you would start with gas cillinders, that are released on the battle field, then gas artillery shells, then improved gas artillery shells, then gas bombs, then maybe improved gas bombs.

What if in WW1 one side started dropping mustard gas bombs on enemy cities? Probaby would have made them world enemy number 1 for sure, but probably would have had some other significant impacts.

Anyway in games like this, a player playing against the AI usually gets way ahead of where they are supposed to be historically, and extending the tech tree a bit would probably make it interesting.

Maybe it would just make it weird, since the programmers would just have to guess at what the implications would have been. It's just a thought.

 

[Tamerlan]

Although very deadly, I am not sure current "WMD" had much an unbalancing effect between 2 modern armies of that era. However, I wonder a bit if the use if these weapons against natives armies wouldn't be extremly "powerful". I mean in colonial warfare...

 

[Rundris]

Well that was Churchill's plan in 1919 to control the colonies, he was going to use mustard gas bombs on them. He thought it would be more economical than normal weapons.

They never got the mustard gas bombs made but they did use mustard gas artillery shells on the Kurds in 1923. They found that normal bombs and machine guns on airplanes were far more effective, and that was basically the end of chemical weapons in western countries.

So, it turned out gas was ineffective againsts colonies, at least when compared to aircraft with conventional weapons.

 

[Nikolai II]

Originally posted by Tamerlan
Although very deadly, I am not sure current "WMD" had much an unbalancing effect between 2 modern armies of that era. However, I wonder a bit if the use if these weapons against natives armies wouldn't be extremly "powerful". I mean in colonial warfare...

Well, IRL Italy had to resort to chemical weapons in Ethiopia to be able to win, so obviously chemical weapons should have an impact upon natives, but to do so they basically have to be delivered by aircraft.

 

[Morpheus506]

I think if they included nukes in HoI they'll include gas, etc. in Vic.

 

[Rundris]

Well I'd never heard of the Italians using mustard gas in Ethiopia so I looked it up and turns out they did drop 600 pound mustard gas bombs from aircraft on the Ethiopians to great effect.

While reading this though I also learned that the Spanish actually used aircraft dropped gas-bombs supressing the berber rebellion in Morrocco in 1921. So I guess they did work against a colony there.

Also, I read that by 1918 in WW1, 1/4 of all artillery shells launched were chemical shells. Chemical weapons in WW1 caused 100,000 deaths and 1 million injuries.

Also apparently Britain used chemical weapons in 1919, intervening in the Russian civil war.

Anyway, it seems like they were used enough to be in the tech tree.

I'd really like to see mustard gas bombs at the end of the tech tree.

 

[unmerged(13037)]

Gas actually killed very few people. Some of the post WW1 theorists who wrote in the inter-war period felt that gas was a more humaine weapon than machine gun and artillery. Certainly Liddel Heart felt that Gas and mobile warfare was preferably to static trench warfare which killed millions.

Trouble was - it wasn't very good if the wind changed.

 

[Morpheus506]

Gas didn't kill too many people, maybe, but it screwed up the lungs of a lot of people even with the use of gas masks.

But, that is beside the point. Gas should be part of the tech tree no matter what.