Instead of resorting to awful weapons which cause maiming and death, why not use strategic methods of disabling enemy soldiers through induced arthropod-madness?
The first stage of Warfare Tacticks would be to drop pictorial leaflets displaying on the front page an enlarged image of a tick on a crimson background. The leaflet could then unfold into a triptych which displays a sequence of pictures depicting: a) A man of apparent good-health, dressed in the defender's uniform, looking frantic as he is covered and alive with a swarm of ticks; b) A smiling offender's medic, proffering a can of clearly labelled 'Tick Relief' (in defender's language); c) A relieved-looking, tick-free (though weltered with welts) defender, relaxing in a putative offense's hospital (though looking rather wan and bloodless).
After the informative leaflets have been dropped, with instructions for surrender on the opposite sides of the pictorial triptych, the second stage of the offense would begin. Large military planes, ordinarily used to drop explosive munitions, would instead be packed with a number of sealed, tick-life-sustaining crates which would be filled brimful with a horde of hungry ticks. A short time after the informative leaflets have been dropped upon the defenders, the military planes, outfitted with a nightmarish mass of starving little monsters, would then drop these crates as close as possible to the proximity of the defending troops. The crates could be outfitted with a timing device to allow them to burst open at a low altitude, thus dispersing the ticks in a wide shower as they descend the rest of the distance to the land. The defending troops would soon have to contend with a rain of voracious ticks, perhaps hundreds of thousands, both descending from the sky and converging from the fringes of the fall in a swarming tide of bloodlust towards the hapless defenders.
A follow-up of offender troops could then (wearing hazmat suits, of something similarly and/or relatively tick-proof) come to the aid of the defenders, who very likely would be too busy contending with the distraction of the arthropod-offense to react with violence, except to the ticks devouring them, to the offensive troop action. The optimistic result: conquest of territory with as minimal a loss to human life as possible. The pessimistic result: The ticks utterly massacre the defenders, drinking them dry before the 'Tick Relief'-wielding offenders arrive.-- idyll, Mar 20 2003 Entomological Weaponry Lecture http://www.ento.vt....re15/bombgoals.htmlWho knew? [idyll, Oct 06 2004] This is exactly the sort of misuse of ticks I was worried about.-- bungston, Mar 20 2003 How about warfare wart-juicers?-- idyll, Mar 20 2003 This idea sucks. (+)-- Worldgineer, Mar 20 2003 Let's not get ticked off, now, [Worldgineer].-- idyll, Mar 20 2003 I first read this as 'TicTacs.' When you're invading another country but don't want to trash the place or insult the citizens, it's always helpful to have fresh breath.-- RayfordSteele, Mar 20 2003 I think mosquitoes might be a better idea - they are self-guiding and already airborne.-- Worldgineer, Mar 20 2003 Ah, but mosquitoes are frail creatures. A qualifying attribute for this kind of dispersal would be an organism's overall hardiness; ticks serve as excellent candidates for this duty, being very sturdy and pugnacious little wretches.-- idyll, Mar 20 2003 [RayfordSteele]: A mouthful of TacTicks might, conversely, be ruinous as a first impression.-- idyll, Mar 20 2003 (pictures last statement, shivers in disgust)-- Worldgineer, Mar 20 2003 random, halfbakery