Weapons of mass destruction come in many shapes
and forms, but for the poor souls who stand on their way, they all usually spell the same
thing: The end. In their defense strategies against such large-scale
facilitators of mayhem, NATO classifies WMDs in four categories: Biological, chemical,
nuclear, and radiological. Militaries and other uncomfortably interested
parties have been looking into these tools of terror, and the results have been as varied
as they have been horrifying. Here’s a look at some of the most frightening
weapons of mass destruction human ingenuity has managed to cook up. 10. VX gas VX gas is a particularly nasty nerve gas that
the United Kingdom cooked up in the 1950s, specifically for chemical warfare. Despite its name, the substance is not a gas
as much as an oily, odorless, and tasteless amber liquid that needs to be sprayed on the
targets, but don’t take that to mean it isn’t dangerous. Essentially a super-powerful pesticide, the
VX gas can be sprayed all over the place as a fine mist that will enter the body through
the usual orifices or by just straight up going through the skin, and its effects are
worse than those of sarin gas. Its effects also accumulate over time, so
even if you survive the initial attack, the gas substances break up so slowly in your
body that the effects accumulate over the attacks. VX can also be used to contaminate food. As for the actual effects, the gas functions
as a typical nerve agent: It prevents the operation of an enzyme that acts as your muscles’
and glands’ off switch, so your body is constantly “on,” and will eventually tire
to the point that you can’t even breathe anymore. The symptoms are essentially the worst, sweatiest
stomach flu you’ll ever experience … if you’re lucky. Fatal doses will cause all that, and convulsions,
unconsciousness, and death via respiratory failure. Fortunately, the gas is a pretty heavy no-no
these days thanks to United Nations International Chemical Weapons Convention treaty, and the
CDC notes that its only suspected use was during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. 9. Salted bombs It’s easy to think that nuclear weapons
are all pretty much the same: Big bang, mushroom cloud, huge, destructive blast, tons of radioactive
fallout. However, these tools of utter carnage and
misery are actually surprisingly (and terrifyingly) customizable. One of the prime examples is the salted bomb,
a very special nuke that’s achieved by adding a little bit of gold, cobalt, or a heavy metal
called tantalum in the mix. Since tantalum is named after Tantalus, a
villainous character from Greek mythology, it’s clear that this particular WMD is not
even trying to be subtle: Its goal is to focus not on the size of the bomb’s fallout, but
instead its ability to “salt the earth” (hence the name) by vastly increasing the
bomb’s release of radioactive fallout. This would essentially render the area inhabitable
for a huge period of time. Basically, “normal” atomic bombs will
not turn the area into a Fallout game — even Hiroshima had its lights on the day after
the bomb hit — but a salted bomb is designed to do just that. The technology for the salted bomb has been
around since the Cold War, but for obvious reasons, no one has ever tested one atmospherically,
and no country publicly admits to having even built one. However, reports from 2018 indicate that China
has been testing technology that technically doesn’t count as a salted bomb, but seems
awfully close like the tech that could be applied to building one. 8. Blue Peacock nuclear landmines Another product of the British war machine,
the Blue Peacock system was so absurd that it seems like something right out of a video
game. It was a Cold War-era nuclear landmine that
was designed as a last bastion of defense if the Soviet Union invaded Britain: The British
troops would give ground to the Soviets, but leave a series of Blue Peacocks behind, set
to explode on timers. The idea was to bury the 10-kiloton atomic
devices underground in strategic locations, wait until the Soviets had established their
field headquarters, supply chains and the like right overhead, and then … BOOM! A significant problem in the equation was
the exact manner of making the thing explode on enemy soil. An eight-day timer relied heavily on guesswork
regarding the conflict’s timeline, and both remote controlled and manual detonations proved
tricky because the buried bomb would grow too cold for the triggering mechanism to work. In 1957, someone came up with a novel solution:
Chickens. By placing a bunch of chickens inside the
bomb’s casing and providing them with just enough food to keep them alive for the desired
period of time, their body heat should be enough to keep the mechanism at working temperatures. Eventually, someone probably had to read this
proposition out loud to the higher-ups, who pictured large chunks of the British coastline
as radioactive craters littered with feathers. This went roughly as well as expected, and
the project was quietly scrapped after a couple of prototypes. 7. Novichok agents When many other countries were slowly starting
to realize that they might be doing better things with their time than designing horrifying
poisons, the Soviet Union was happily churning out more and more terror chemicals. Novichok agents are a series of terrifyingly
effective chemical weapons that are specifically designed to be both destructive and difficult
to detect, and even though the bulk of them were developed in the 1970s and the 1980s,
the Western world only learned of their existence in the 1990s, when a defector named Dr. Vil
Mirzayanov revealed them to the world … and later wrote a book detailing their chemical
formula, because apparently some people will do anything for a publishing deal. There is a long list of Novichok agents, and
no one (outside those in the know, that is) seems to be certain just how stable and dangerous
they are, let alone how widespread their use can be, though their potency and the rumors
that they can be distributed in many different forms that include dust and liquid seem to
indicate that they’re significantly more dangerous than VX gas — the current ballpark
figure is that some strains are roughly 5-8 times stronger. There’s a long list of other question marks
regarding the substance(s) as well, seeing as Russia directly denies the existence of
Novichok and it’s unclear whether some other party might be manufacturing it. What we do know, however, is that a substance
recognized as a strain of Novichok was used in the 2018 poisoning of former Soviet spy
Sergei Skripal and his daughter, and two other people were later exposed to the perfume bottle
containing the substance. Fortunately, three of the exposed people survived
the ordeal … although at least one of the survivors struggles with his health and is
certain that the Novichok in his system will kill him within a few years. 6. Dirty bombs A dirty bomb is not a nuke. In fact, it’s technically not even a weapon
of mass destruction — it’s technically in a sub-category called “weapons of mass
disruption.” Still, it warrants its place on this list
by being one of the most dangerous things out there — not because of the destructivity
of a single bomb, but because there are so many potential people out there who could
make one. A dirty bomb is basically a conventional explosive
that has radioactive material strapped to it, which sounds exactly as low-tech as it
is but can theoretically provide all the long-term awfulness of a proper nuke. A dirty bomb explosion might only kill a few
people on the get-go, but it could spread so much radioactivity that the short and long-term
health problems for the people it affects would be terrifying. Evacuation, relocation, demolition of the
contaminated buildings and subsequent cleanup could easily cost billions of dollars, and
the damage to the infrastructure could be catastrophic. However, the true horror of dirty bombs is
how (relatively) easy they are to manufacture. There are literally millions of suitable radioactive
sources around the world, and a whole lot of them are poorly guarded. According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative
nonprofit organization, even isotopes used in blood transfusions and cancer treatments
in hospitals all over the world could technically be used to build one of these monstrosities. 5. Cyclosarin If sarin is one of the more famous toxic warfare
agents, cyclosarin is its lumbering younger brother who started hitting the gym and emerged
as the monster version of its more famous sibling. It’s a hyper-toxic organic phosphate most
famous for its military use in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, when Iraq (allegedly) produced
it in mass quantities. Cyclosarin is a sprayable liquid with a sweet,
peach-like smell. When in contact with the body, it’s rapidly
absorbed through the skin, eyes and membranes. Regular clothing does little to stop it, and
it can also be mixed with food and water for a stealthier approach. To top this all off, the substance is also
flammable, with a relatively low flashpoint of 201.2°F. Cyclosarin’s effects are similar to other
nerve agents, with all the muscle and gland trouble and leaking orifices that you’d
expect and dread. However, this particular substance comes with
a twist: It’s considered the least lethal of nerve agents, which still makes it highly
dangerous, but combined with the fact that it’s also one of the most persistent means
that while a victim might not die of it, the symptoms and recovery will likely take months. In a demonic stroke of awful genius. this would both take the victims out for an
extended period and tie up a significant amount of enemy infrastructure. 4. Rinderpest and Rice Blast Not all weapons of mass destruction are designed
for immediate loss of human life, but instead plan for the long term loss of life. A prime example of this is rinderpest, an
incredibly dangerous livestock disease that humanity has fought for 5,000 years, and has
finally been able to eradicate from earth in the 2010s … at least in its naturally
occurring form, that is. Rinderpest has caused immeasurable amounts
of human suffering because of the famines it tends to cause by keeling over entire herds
of cattle at once, so of course several countries have researched its potential use in biological
warfare. Some people believe that the disease has been
weaponized at least once, when rinderpest suddenly spreaded in Ethiopia during the 19th
century. If taking out the enemy’s livestock is not
horrifying enough, imagine what eradicating their crops would do. The oddly cheerfully named rice blast is a
nasty fungus that’s capable of destroying entire crops, to the point that even in its
naturally occurring form it destroys enough rice to feed 60 million people every year. In the 1960s, the U.S. government experimented
with rice blast warfare on at least two sites in Okinawa, though fortunately, the country
ended its chemical weapons programs in 1969 before anyone had the time to develop a world-eating
super fungus. 3. The M28 Davy Crockett nuclear rifle If you were a nuclear scientist with a virtually
unlimited Cold War-era budget and an intimate knowledge of modern action movies and video
games, the weapon you’d design would almost certainly be some variation of the M28 Davy
Crockett. There are many ways to describe it, but really
just one that makes it justice: It’s a nuclear warhead affixed to a grenade launcher. Sadly, it didn’t take its video game design
all the way through and make it hand-held; realizing that the weapon’s wielder was
unlikely to be Duke Nukem, the designers equipped the “rifle” with a tripod and recognized
that it took a three-man crew to operate it. There was also a larger M29 variant that could
be mounted on a jeep. The sub-kiloton warhead could technically
wreak havoc within the enemy troops with a three-pronged attack of explosive blast, fire
and radioactivity, but the rifle’s mere 1.25-mile range left something to be desired
when it came to safety of the crew operating it, which is why the military recommended
it should only be fired with slopes or hills between the crew and the target. Despite the problems of firing wildly inaccurate
mini-nukes at an unseen enemy, the military actually manufactured multiple Davy Crocketts
and started distributing them to the troops in 1961. However, common sense eventually prevailed
and the weapon was retired a decade later without ever seeing action. 2. The Tsar Bomba The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings are absolute
tragedies that should never be forgotten, but from a purely technical standpoint, there
are atomic bombs that are far more dangerous than the “Little Boy” and “Fat Man.” In 1961, the Soviet Union decided to test
a massive bomb called the “Tsar Bomba” (the Tsar’s bomb), a 26-foot, 27-ton monster
that didn’t even fit inside the massive, pimped-out Tupolev plane designed to carry
it to the designated point at the sparsely populated Novaja Zemlya peninsula. The very dropping of the bomb was a 50/50
suicide mission, and every precaution, no matter how absurd, had been taken: The plane
was painted white to “lessen the effects of radioactivity,” the bomb was equipped
with a giant one-ton parachute to give the plane a chance to get to a safe distance before
the Tsar Bomba would detonate at 13,000 feet. The plane carrying the bomb survived, but
it’s pretty much the only thing that did. In a blink of an eye, Tsar Bomba released
57 megatons of energy. That’s 10 times more than all the ammunition
and explosives used in the entirety of WWII, which, as you’ll remember, included two
nuclear bombs. In fact, the Tsar Bomba was a whopping 1,500
times more powerul than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined. The five-mile fireball of the explosion could
be seen from 630 miles away, and a cameraman would later compare it to Jupiter (yes, as
in the planet Jupiter). The mushroom cloud was 40 miles high and 63
miles wide, and the entire peninsula (which was sparsely populated, but not unpopulated)
was devastated. A village 34 miles away from Ground Zero was
utterly destroyed, and districts as far as hundreds of miles away reported physical damage
to buildings. Radio communications were down for a full
hour. These days, the Tsar Bomba is considered to
have been a desperate show of strength, because the U.S. had been well ahead of the Soviets
in the nuclear race. However, even the Soviet leaders balked at
the Bomba’s original design, which was supposed to be a hulking 1,000-megaton bomb. as opposed
to the realized Tsar Bomba’s “measly” 57 megatons. Yes, despite the utter destructiveness of
this weapon, they were barely testing it at half of its full capacity. 1. Design viruses As terrifying as traditional big guns such
as the Tsar Bomba may seem, experts think that it’s increasingly evident that the
future of weapons of mass destruction is viral … and they’re not talking about computers. Thanks to the emergence of the gene-editing
technique CRISPR, it’s becoming more and more evident that eventually, some hostile
agency will figure out how to create terrifying combination viruses that can be unleashed
upon the unwary world as biological warfare. Thankfully, this agency is unlikely to be
a country, since almost every state in the world has signed up for the 1975 Biological
Weapons Convention that explicitly forbids the use and development of such weapons. Still, that doesn’t mean that any number
of people or organizations with access to CRISPR and enough knowledge couldn’t eventually
manufacture, say, an artificially modded smallpox to unleash upon the unwary world. That’s not just speculation by us, by the
way — high-powered tech people like John Sotos and Bill Gates have specifically warned
the world about this kind of threat, and in case you thought this is just a recent thing,
Soviet-era bioscientists already warned the world about the dangers of engineered chimera
viruses.
