Facts about Sarin, Binary Agents, and 155mm Shells
Command Post Blog
I’m donning my hat as someone who took a RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) Advanced course on NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) warfare many years ago.
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Sarin is a Nerve Agent. Unless the dose is massive, it works by paralysing the muscles that keep you breathing.
It is similar in chemical composition to many pesticides,
which are also Organophosphate compunds. In fact, Sarin
was first developed as a pesticide, and any factory
capable of making commonly used Organophosphate pesticides
(such as Malathion and Parathion) is also easily
convertible to one making Sarin, often no conversion as
such is neccessary, just change the initial ingredients
and the settings. What makes a perfectly legitimate
pesticide factory into a WMD factory are facilities for
filling shells, bombs and rockets, or storing weapons-
grade chemical munitions.
Sarin’s chemical formula is C4-H10-F-O2-P .
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The weaponised form is known as GB. (Parenthetically, all gas weapons have a 2-letter code, from CS for ‘tear gas’ through to ‘VX’ for a very nasty persistant nerve gas). It’s not really a gas, it’s a liquid that vapourises at room temperature. Fog and Mist are similar, they’re not gasses, they’re actually lots of water droplets suspended in air. GB is similar in effect to the other so-called ‘G-agents’ Tabun(GA), and Soman(GD).
GB is non-persistant; that is, a few minutes after it’s been released, it’s relatively safe to enter the affected area. Persistant weapons (such as VX) contaminate the area so it’s dangerous for weeks or months.
Chemicals such as GB and VX are (obviously) very dangerous to handle and to store. They also degrade over time. But it’s possible to use only slightly less effective Binary Agents that are much safer to have around, and last longer in storage. Instead of one deadly poison, you have two much less dangerous chamicals. When mixed thoroughly (and possibly heated) the two chemicals combine to form the agent - usually GB or VX, plus a few incidental byproducts.
A binary artillery shell is projected from an artillery piece with an acceleration of over 100g, and spins at thousands of RPM. It also gets very hot, from the flame of the propellant, but also from air friction. This is quite enough to break the membrane separating the two chemicals, and mix them very thoroughly indeed. By the time the shell reaches the target, the chamical reaction is complete, and a small bursting charge shatters the shell and spreads the fog of droplets over a wide area.
If the artillery shell is (accidentally or deliberately) detonated without being fired from an artillery piece, there is very little mixing of the chemicals. Although the chemicals are not totally safe (I wouldn’t drink them, for example), the amount of Sarin produced would be very small, and chemical wounds would be minor and easily treatable.
This appears to be what happened in Iraq recently.
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The shell itself has been identified as a 155mm shell, that is, not a common former-Soviet or Chinese calibre. (They use mainly 152mm, though 155mm Chinese guns exist). 155mm is about 6 inches, and refers to the width of the shell. 155mm is used by NATO countries, such as the USA and UK, but also by pretty much everyone else, including Serbia and Australia.
Before the weapons embargo in 1991, Saddam Hussein had the following 155mm artillery pieces that we know about:
76 French GCT Self-Propelled (SP) Howitzers
18 Ex-Iranian M109 SP Howitzers (Captured)
3 Italian Palmaria SP Howitzers
92 German FH70 towed guns
200 Austrian GHN45 towed guns
18 French Type 1950 towed howitzers
124 South African G45 towed guns
That Iraq had the ability to manufacture its own Binary-Sarin weapons and 155mm shells has been known for years, and appears in UNSCOM reports dating to 1991.
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The USA ceased producing binary-agent chemical shells due to a Congressional Mandate nearly 20 years ago.
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