Biological weapons refer to all kinds of weapons and equipment that kill people, livestock and destroy plants with biological warfare agents (formerly known as bacteriological weapons). It includes shells, bombs, rockets, missiles and aviation dispensers, sprayers equipped with biological warfare agents. Biological weapons can not only kill a large number of people and livestock, but also damage crops on a large scale, so as to weaken the enemy's combat effectiveness and destroy its war potential.
First, the area effect is large and infectious. The area effect per unit weight of biological weapons is large. This is because a very small dose of biological warfare agent can cause disease. Many biological warfare agents can be continuously discharged from patients, infecting healthy people around them, spreading in a large area and causing the prevalence of infectious diseases.
Second, the harm time is long. Some biological warfare agents do harm for a long time. For example, the harm time of biological aerosols to humans and animals is about 2 hours during the day and about 8 hours at night. When biological warfare agents attack insects and animals, they can form natural foci and threaten the safety of human and livestock for a long time.
Third, only kill organisms. Biological warfare agents can only cause disease or death to people, livestock, crops and other organisms, but have no destructive effect on buildings, weapons and equipment.
Fourth, it is greatly affected by natural conditions. Biological warfare agents are living microorganisms or macromolecular substances with biological activity. Natural conditions such as temperature, sunlight and precipitation can affect their activity.
In addition, biological weapons also have the characteristics of strong pathogenicity, difficult detection and low production cost.