Ping!
Posted on 05/18/2004 9:23:50 AM PDT by Living Free in NH
Breaking news ... nothing follows
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I was just looking for that. I wasn't able to find exact amounts other than 5 lunch box size containers that contained the binary form. Also, the quality of the sarin was very poor in the Japanese subway attack. There is speculation that this was for the safety of those planting it or some other reason. The result of that release was 12 dead and 5500 injured.
See post #22 for a pretty good guess. It was reportedly a binary shell. That shell would be designed to mix the two contained chemicals in a planned manner upon firing. The fact that it was blown up as part of an IED probably disrupted the mixing process and only a little nerve gas was produced.
Actually, close to 6,000 people were sickened by the sarin on the Japanese subway, and about a dozen died, per this Reuters article: http://www.apologeticsindex.org/news1/an010918-11.html
I hate to say it folks, but I think this was just a test run as to how we'd react. If there was a snitch involved in uncovering this WMD, I hope we have him in custody.
The nerve gas sarin was released in commuter trains on three different Tokyo subway lines by a terrorist cult group. Sarin was concealed in lunch boxes and soft-drink containers and placed on subway train floors. It was released as terrorists punctured the containers with umbrellas before leaving the trains. The incident was timed to coincide with rush hour, when trains were packed with commuters. Over 5,500 were injured in the attack. A subway station close to SLIH was one of several sites hit simultaneously in the attack; therefore, many of the victims were sent to SLIH
If these shells were to be used doctrinally, the Sarin containing rounds would be interspersed with HE rounds when the observer called fire for effect.
One shell would cause very little damage outside the immediate area (less than 50m plus or minus counting wind) but used in the doctrinal fashion the presence of the chemical would not be apparent to an unprotected enemy until a chemical alarm sounded or soldiers were observed suffering effects.
Sarin, being a non-persistent agent, could not be used effectively to contaminate an area for the purpose of blocking movement, although if chemical alarms sounded a prudent force would assume protective posture immediately and determine the type of agent before proceeding thus enabling the possibility for it to be used for the purpose of slowing down your enemy even if not fired directly on them.
If Sarin were used in the doctrinal manner described against an enemy not in chemical protective posture the artillery barrage would have an enhanced effect on its target even if they have cover. Used properly it could easily make the targeted unit combat ineffective which is why in the gulf war soldiers advanced in MOPP level II.
I could go on but others know more than I.
We now have a quantity of sarin: 3-4 LITERS of the stuff.
All we really need now is to know when it was manufactured...
I'm not an expert but my understanding is that a few dozen of these shells going off in a small area will cause some major MAJOR problems. One shell in an open air scenario isn't that bad comparatively speaking.
But let's not forget that Hussein wasn't even supposed to have ONE. So you know there are definitely more out there.
Ping!
That's almost as bad as the claim making the 'Rat rounds that Rummy planted the shell on his last visit. I suspect we'll hear even more outlandish claims as this story grows legs.
This shell was meant to mix 2 precursors while spinning in flight. Simply slapping a detonator on it for use as an IED meant that you get a small explosion and a poorly mixed batch of sarin. Probably lousy dispersal, too.
In a true binary artillery shell the intent is that the vials/compartments containing the precursors break when the shell is fired and are then mixed by the spin placed in the shell by the rifling in the gun tube. Normally such rounds are detonated by a time fuse as an airburst. The explosion vaporizes and disperses the mixed agent.
It did explode, but the contents may not have been completely mixed. An artillery shell, well the more modern ones, uses a binary warhead, wherein two precursor chemicals are mixed by the action of firing the shell. Since this shell was not fired, the only mixing that probably occurred was after the bursting charge went off. Normally the function of that charge is to produce of cloud of sarin vapor, the sarin having been created by the mixing at firing. In this case most of the precursor chemicals would not have been mixed, merely dissipated by the explosion. I've read reports that indicate that much sarin, if properly dispersed, could kill 80,000 people. (Although that degree of "proper dispersion" would seem highly unlikely).
If the shell was not marked as a chemical one, it's possible that the scrotes who converted it to an IED did not know what they had. If they did know, I would have thought they'd have tried for a more effective use, although they may not have understood enough about how it worked to know that it would only work properly if fired from an artillery piece.
3-4 liters of Sarin can kill a bunch of folks.
Yesterday one of the generals over there spoke to a Fox reporter, and said he thought it was binary. Haven't seen anything more on this, though.
Was it straight sarin or a binary agent (where two chemicals mix to form sarin)? Binaries are much safer to handle of course. According to at least one blogger, Iraq had declared that it did not have binary sarin in artillery shells.
My guess, given the limited symptoms, was that it was binary. Some mixing occurred and a small amount of sarin was released, but a shell with 3-4 liters of straight sarin would likely have killed anyone exposed to it.
Don't be silly. It's just one shell the Iraqis accidentally found in a dump. They didn't know what they had or what they were doing. < /sarcasm >
3 minutes is an eternity on FR! LOL!
Not according to dawn, per his/her reply #23 of this thread, there were "a relatively few number of casualties".
I heard this shell was dual chambered shell, that required the impact of firing to properly mix the agents.
Blowing the shell up dispersed the agents in opposite directions.
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