How Effective Are Biological Weapons?

Discussion in 'Nuclear, Chemical & Bio Weapons' started by ESTT, Jun 11, 2017.

  1. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2009
    Messages:
    12,494
    Likes Received:
    2,421
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    And even the most informed of those that believe this are not saying that.

    Even the current theory being thrown around that it came from a lab in China is not saying it was "created" in the lab. Just that it was being experimented with in the lab and they had a containment breech. But even the belief in some in the US Government that was how it started still makes absolutely no claim it was "engineered" by China. Just a lab accident.

    You are paying far to much attention to Conspiracy Theorists.

    Also, COVID is actually not all that "lethal" at all. The death rate is only a fraction of that of the last truly global pandemic.
     
  2. 19Crib

    19Crib Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Feb 4, 2021
    Messages:
    5,644
    Likes Received:
    5,527
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    The best Bio weapon is a “less than lethal” one because of the resources a country like ours would have to devote to life saving.
    We just had a trial run regardless of the politics of “how”.
    China is believed* to consider ethnic specific pathogens as a legitimate tool of conquest.

    *We don’t know how much authority those who have advocated this have in the CCP. Given Xi Jinping’s view of Han Chinese being a distinct and superior race, as the Myth Busters would say, it’s plausible.
     
  3. Mircea

    Mircea Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2015
    Messages:
    4,075
    Likes Received:
    1,212
    Trophy Points:
    113
    The reason biological weapons are of no value is the required vector. Also, like chemical weapons, the dispersal area is incredibly small, and there's no certainty either biological or chemical weapons would be effective given the precautions that can be taken.

    In order to weaponize malaria, mosquitoes are the required vector to transmit malaria. You can see how that is a massive fail.

    Obviously, humans can be vectors of some diseases, but that also fails, as we have recently seen with STUPID-19.

    So, as far as a battlefield weapon, biological weapons just don't work, since the goal is neutralize or incapacitate the enemy, there's just no way to do that fast enough to have any effect that would provide an advantage.

    As far as strategic weapons, they fail, too.

    The purpose of strategic weapons is to destroy an enemy's ability to wage war.

    That's why, contrary to Hollyweird mythology, ICBMs and SLBMs are air-burst at high altitude and not ground-burst -- which makes "nuclear winter" nothing but propaganda -- in order to maximize damage. Yeah, it's the spherical geometry thing.

    You want the blast-wave to extend as far as possible with at least 2 psi to damage/destroy your manufacturing capacity, your manufacturing support capacity -- they produce semi-finished goods and process raw materials to be assembled into bullets, bombs, tanks and planes -- plus damage/destroy your infrastructure -- electrical capacity, water, sewage, bridges, roads, rail lines -- and kill, maim, or injure your work-force.

    So, STUPID-19 as weapon fails, because all it did was kill old people and the morbidly ill who don't produce anything anyway.

    I know some want to believe that "gain of function" = "weaponizing" but those people are ill informed.

    Messenger RNA was discovered in 1961, and in 1993 came the first approved FDA drug and now there are 10 such drugs that use RNA or mRNA, not counting the STUPID-19 vaccines.

    If you read the literature pre-STUPID-19, you'll see that mRNA holds the key to curing cancer and about a dozen other debilitating diseases, and might even lead to a vaccine for certain types of cancer.

    There are seven types of virus based on how they act in a host to reproduce. Some attach to certain cells, some inject their RNA into the cell, and some actually penetrate the cell-membrane and trick the cell into replicating the virus.

    The cure for cancer would seem to be getting a virus not lethal to humans to invade and kill malignant cells, or reprogram the cell's DNA to produce non-malignant cells or reprogram it to attack malignant cells.
     
  4. 19Crib

    19Crib Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Feb 4, 2021
    Messages:
    5,644
    Likes Received:
    5,527
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Bio weapons are for attacking the enemies rear support system. Best done so you don’t get caught.
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2021
  5. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2009
    Messages:
    12,494
    Likes Received:
    2,421
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    You are in the wrong place. The Conspiracy Theory thread is this way:



    <------->
     
  6. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2009
    Messages:
    12,494
    Likes Received:
    2,421
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Bio Weapons have largely been a chimera for over a century now.

    And no, it is of little to no use against "rear support". This is for many reasons, including immunization, natural resistance, the chance to spread, and other factors. Then add in even more importantly the incubation period and time to spread. There is a reason that even though we have over a century of chemical warfare, there has been no cases of biological warfare other than some poorly thought out and not understood ones almost 2 centuries ago.

    A "weapon" is of little to no use if you have to launch it at an enemy, then sit back and wait weeks or more for it to affect them.
     
    Mircea likes this.
  7. 19Crib

    19Crib Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Feb 4, 2021
    Messages:
    5,644
    Likes Received:
    5,527
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Accidental or not, look at the damage done to the US by Corona virus. A new one released every other year or so would destroy our political system. China CCP plays the long game.
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2021
  8. Mircea

    Mircea Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2015
    Messages:
    4,075
    Likes Received:
    1,212
    Trophy Points:
    113
    I'm not seeing any damage. If anything, you benefited because of reduced costs to Social Security retirement, Medicare and Medicaid since STUPID-19 overwhelming affected the elderly, infirm, and those who were walking medical disasters.
     
  9. Mircea

    Mircea Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2015
    Messages:
    4,075
    Likes Received:
    1,212
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Exactly. Some people just don't get it, namely the low-information voter China haters.
     
  10. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2009
    Messages:
    12,494
    Likes Received:
    2,421
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    It is not even "accidental", this was not made in a lab. It is like any of the Coronavirus that have been breaking out of that region for thousands of years.

    It is a rich rainforest environment, that is where it lives. Like most in that region, it is probably a bat virus that jumped species. SARS, MARS, Avian Flu, we have seen dozens of them in the past century breaking out from that very region. Including both the Spanish and Swine Flu. They all originated in that very region, and have been tracked for over a century.

    Take this kind of garbage to the Conspiracy Theory thread, that is where such insane speculation belongs.
     
  11. AARguy

    AARguy Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 24, 2021
    Messages:
    13,963
    Likes Received:
    6,484
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    China's COVID-19 weapon has been very effective,
     
  12. Toggle Almendro

    Toggle Almendro Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 17, 2016
    Messages:
    2,928
    Likes Received:
    721
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Hollywood does not contradict this. Nuclear attacks are often portrayed in movies as airbursts.


    That is incorrect. The threat of nuclear winter is quite real.


    Make that at least 10 PSI. Manufacturing facilities tend to be in heavily built buildings.
     
  13. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2009
    Messages:
    12,494
    Likes Received:
    2,421
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Well, the idea about Nuclear Winter was largely discredited decades ago. And by the very person that originally pushed it in the first place.

    The original team that came up with the theory was composed of 5 scientists, and this group became known as "TTAPS" for those involved (Richard P. Turco, Owen Toon, Thomas P. Ackerman, James B. Pollack and Carl Sagan). They based the computer modeling off of the expected results of a giant asteroid impact, and extrapolated what it would mean in the event of a nuclear war. And for most of the 1980's that was a major thing raised in any conversation about Nuclear War.

    Then in 1990, they started going crazy again, saying that even 100 oil field fires would create Nuclear Winter on a continental scale. Most of the Middle East and Asia would see sub-zero temperatures, torrential acid rain scrubbing the area clean of all vegetation, and global cooling of 5-15 degrees. And that was off of 100 oil field fires in Kuwait. Sagan and others suggested that even 100 fires would cause a recreation of 1816, "The Year Without a Summer" because of the Tambora explosion to be recreated in 1992.

    Well, in 1991 Iraq blew up over 800 oil wells, and most of them burned for almost a year. And of all the predictions the TTAPS team made? Not a one of them happened. No nuclear winter, no planet destroying acid rain storms, nothing.

    And here is one thing I will give Carl Sagan credit for, he later admitted that the theory was wrong, and did not hold up to real life. He repudiated it and admitted that the planet and atmosphere is way too complex for a single event like that to have such cataclysmic results. But interestingly enough, many of those that still believe in it punch the same data into modern computer modeling used to predict global warming, and actually come up with the exact same results. They all predict continental global cooling when fed 1991 data. Even though we know that such never happened.

    So anybody trying to go on as we approach the middle of the 21st century about "Nuclear Winter" really does not know what they are talking about. That theory was pretty much busted 3 decades ago.
     
  14. Toggle Almendro

    Toggle Almendro Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 17, 2016
    Messages:
    2,928
    Likes Received:
    721
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    That is incorrect. It has not been discredited.


    That is incorrect. He admitted that he was wrong about his prediction regarding the oil wells.

    He never admitted the theory was wrong for the widespread burning of large cities.

    Scientific consensus still supports nuclear winter as a valid theory.


    That is incorrect. The theory is still supported by the scientific community, and the people who support it do know what they are talking about.
     
  15. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2009
    Messages:
    12,494
    Likes Received:
    2,421
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    No, it has been discredited. Nobody seriously believes it anymore, other than those that want to believe it. And interestingly enough, even some of the original creators and supporters as I have said are now saying it was never real.

    For example, some finally bothered to actually see how it would compare to an actual "real life" event like what was theorized. The 1815 Tambora eruption. That was the cause of the "Year Without a Summer) in 1816, where temperatures globally dropped by on average 0.7c for about 9 months. And that blast vomited between 7 and 10 billion metric tons of ash and debris into the upper atmosphere, and continuing eruptions and large ash emissions continued until 1819.

    That was far more ash and debris than all of the nukes going off in a large scale 1980's era scenario, and obviously it did not create the "decade long Nuclear Winter" that the doomsayers predicted.

    http://www.textfiles.com/survival/nkwrmelt.txt

    http://texmex.mit.edu/ftp/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/nuclear.pdf

    No, it largely has been discredited, however as is often seen in other areas any who try to give a factual analysis are typically called "fascists" because they found the science behind the theory does not hold water. Even one of the earliest supporters is Dr. William Cotton, and he admitted later that the biggest problem in the predictions and his own predictions to support it did not take into consideration the "rain out" of particulates. That the primitive models they had at the time came far short of how much soot and particulates would be eliminated by precipitation, and that most of the supporters of the theory were motivated not by science but by politics.
     
  16. Toggle Almendro

    Toggle Almendro Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 17, 2016
    Messages:
    2,928
    Likes Received:
    721
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
  17. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2009
    Messages:
    25,312
    Likes Received:
    6,670
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Widespead vaccine distribution would be

    1) An indicator to your opponent that a biological attack was on the way.
    2) A perfect indicator of the timing of such at attack.
    3) A clear indicator of the type of disease being prepared for use.

    Combined those three would nullify any possible advantage of a biological attack.
     
    AARguy and Mushroom like this.
  18. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2009
    Messages:
    12,494
    Likes Received:
    2,421
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    The thing is, most people actually have no idea how a "biological attack" would have been done, even when it was a possibility during the Cold War.

    While both the US and USSR did a lot of research into various agents, primarily it was for purposes of defense. Ways to find new and more effective vaccines and protections against agents used against us.

    The only biological agent ever looked at seriously for use in combat by either side was actually anthrax. But not as a weapon to actually deploy against enemy forces, but as an area denial weapon. If there is only one way for the enemy to attack your forces and it is along a 50 mile mountain pass, you blast about 3 miles in the center with anthrax. As there has never really been an effective vaccine for it and it would contaminate not just the people but their equipment, odds are they are going to stop their advance and turn around.

    And those spores would lie on the ground for years, until when the combat was all over the winner could go back and chemically neutralize it. Generally with STB (Super Tropical Bleach).

    We did a lot of NBC training in the 1980s. And that was one thing they pounded into us over and over again. It was doubtful anybody would use biologicals against us, because the odds are high it would backfire on whoever used them. But if we saw an off-white or tan powder on the ground, turn right around and go the opposite direction and call for testing. Because anthrax spores would likely be used to keep us out of an area.
     
    Dayton3 likes this.
  19. Kisses

    Kisses Banned

    Joined:
    Feb 7, 2016
    Messages:
    63
    Likes Received:
    12
    Trophy Points:
    8
    Or ukraine....
     
    Starcastle likes this.

Share This Page