Dear Scumbria:
Chemical weapons require huge amounts to be effective over wide areas (to cover 1 km^3 requires an amount of 1gm in theory but, in practice requires several kg). To kill 100,000 people needs a volume of around 1,000 km^3 or several tons of even the deadliest nerve gases. That is the reason in Japan, terrorists dosed confined areas only.
As for biological weapons, the problem has always been control. If you are willing to die, this is less of a problem. However, biologics have a nasty habit of mutating to get rid of any controls on them, thus the use can kill even your own people even if they are far away. Global transport makes this even more problematic that a carrier could infect your population and thus, any reason for their use becomes worthless. Yes, they can be dangerous, but only idiots and fools would use this technique, movies to the contrary.
Yes, the problem with the first is that not enough would die but, it is somewhat controllable and the second is the chance that too many of the wrong people would die. At least with explosives you have control and the probable chance that many in the target would die without risk to the wrong people (your cause).
Enough said.
Pete |
