Atomic Bomb In WWII

[GKC]

I’m X Army, I know how the war machine works so I have some qualifications on this matter, don’t discount them. My argument if taken seriously 60+ years ago results in an entire city never being destroyed. The results would have been the same, the war would have ended, this time with less bloodshed, this time we are not considered the bad guys because we at least warned them of what was to come, this time we wouldn’t be still paying for that mistake.

You can choose to play arm chair general all you want, the facts are the facts, and they are grim. I would hate to think the majority still thinks it was OK to make this call here, that we have not learned from our mistakes, that we are losing lives to this day, all due to people like you that opt to make themselves appear to be within the popular consensus.

Thank you for your service to the country.

I’m retired Air Force. I helped build the war machine, including working, many years after the fact, with folks who worked on the Manhattan project.

The facts are the facts, and they are indeed grim. Any alternate approach would have resulted in more casualties and more deaths. We learned a good deal from history and it includes that fact, in particular. Nothing in your post to which I originally responded suggests you have any familiarity with the historical situation. That conclusion may be erroneous, but it is inevitable, on the face.

The subject is a hobby area of mine, and one upon which I have a moderately extensive library (true of many topics, that). I became interested in it while in the Air Force and have pursued it for years.

I find that facts are useful in a discussion like this, to leaven the abstract opinions. My basic recommendations are to read Frank’s DOWNFALL and Newman’s TRUMAN AND THE HIROSHIMA CULT (particularly his chapter on why a demonstration was an exercise in futility). Or, if you need to keep the reading closer to your assumptions, Alperovitz’s THE DECISION TO USE THE ATOMIC BOMB.

GKC

 

[wabrams]

The targets were not at all military or tactical, they were only meant as a display of power, nothing more.

You are completely wrong. Those 2 cities were chosen because one was home to the 7th Army and the other a major port, plus both cities had a huge military/industrial centers.

 

[Brian_Millar]

The facts are in place well after the war ended. Japan had alot of potential, yet no way to deploy them due to lack of resources. They still rely heavily upon importing for basic raw materials even to this day. What needed to be addressed was not about who had the stronger war machine as much as getting past their code of beliefs, this end was not about how much killing was to be done but more along the lines of breaking their moral. Again, back to sludge hammer effect verses tactical.

 

[GKC]

Brian Millar;3782072:

The targets were not at all military or tactical, they were only meant as a display of power, nothing more.

You are completely wrong. Those 2 cities were chosen because one was home to the 7th Army and the other a major port, plus both cities had a huge military/industrial centers.

Hiroshima was home to the 2nd General Army, which was the source of the reinforcements for Kyushu, which so alarmed planners, from Jun 45 on.

GKC

 

[Brian_Millar]

Sure, there are assets they had there, the same with the industrial centers of Germany which were also bombed into submission.

We can analyze this situation better 60+ years later because we have more information that has been declassified to work with.

Here is the results from their tactics. They used civians as human shields of sorts. This same tactic is being used in Iraq. They used suicide techniques which were effective against us. The same tactic is being used in Iraq. Our new policies are actually derrived from the old, it’s standard procedure when facing opposition from snipers to wipe out the entire building, going floor to floor, killing every single person that is in it regardless of their status.

You see now why we didn’t win the war, we only provided an effective set of techniques to use in opposition to us our current enemy is now using. We are making it worse with the illegal tactics we are using against them. This is turning into a nightmare scenereo because we have not learned from history, we are doomed to repeat it, this time with an enemy that is not sectioned off from the rest of the world.

 

[JimG]

Our new policies are actually derrived from the old, it’s standard procedure when facing opposition from snipers to wipe out the entire building, going floor to floor, killing every single person that is in it regardless of their status.

As far as I know, this is not current military policy. I would like to hear from someone with recent military experience or knowledge who can state what current battle tactics are.

Also it should be noted that current military tactics make use of “smart bombs” and individual targeting rather than targeting entire cities as was done in WW-II. This is a vast improvement over WW-II practices from a moral standpoint.

 

[Brian_Millar]

As far as I know, this is not current military policy. I would like to hear from someone with recent military experience or knowledge who can state what current battle tactics are.

Also it should be noted that current military tactics make use of “smart bombs” and individual targeting rather than targeting entire cities as was done in WW-II. This is a vast improvement over WW-II practices from a moral standpoint.

I was alarmed about this policy myself, the source is from a relative that has served his tour of duty in Iraq. He was sent home after an IUD blew up the hum-v he was driving, he was sent home without even getting any kind of medical benifets what so ever even though he now is deaf in one ear and has shrapenal riddled throughout his body. The policy is illegal, the same as the scandal they had at the detainment centers, the soldiers are following those illegal orders. I remember clearly from my training how they emphasised that if you are given orders that are against army regulation you are not obligated to follow them, there is no excuse in my book for these actions.

I agree with you on the smart bombs, that is a better way of going at it.

 

[jman507]

As far as I know, this is not current military policy. I would like to hear from someone with recent military experience or knowledge who can state what current battle tactics are.

Also it should be noted that current military tactics make use of “smart bombs” and individual targeting rather than targeting entire cities as was done in WW-II. This is a vast improvement over WW-II practices from a moral standpoint.

Unfortunatly with that advance techonology comes big problems. On one hand WWII was a total war; if we had that today, chances are it’d just be replaced by a major thermonuclear war. On the other hand that probably will scare most nations from trying that again, and increase the number of limited wars instead where it is good policy to use smart bombs. One problem though is it would be much easier to have a small group or minor power to use a WMD, then what? That is not to foget your in the fog of war at that time too, and you don’t have 60 years to figure things out.

 

[JimG]

One problem though is it would be much easier to have a small group or minor power to use a WMD, then what? That is not to foget your in the fog of war at that time too, and you don’t have 60 years to figure things out.

Yes. During the cold war, I believe that there were actually several instances where U.S. intelligence radar detected USSR launches, which were computed as potentially targeting the United States, but which eventually resolved into failed test launches, satellite launches, or test launches down a test range. With strategic weapons on constant alert, that sort of problem has to be resolved within minutes. If it was going to be a real war, we were going to launch retaliatory strikes before the incoming missiles hit; if it was a false alarm, a false retaliatory strike would have been disastrous.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Yes. During the cold war, I believe that there were actually several instances where U.S. intelligence radar detected USSR launches, which were computed as potentially targeting the United States, but which eventually resolved into failed test launches, satellite launches, or test launches down a test range. With strategic weapons on constant alert, that sort of problem has to be resolved within minutes. If it was going to be a real war, we were going to launch retaliatory strikes before the incoming missiles hit; if it was a false alarm, a false retaliatory strike would have been disastrous.

What happened in each case is that the scenario for war suggests the data has to follow certain “trends”.

So, if the number of incoming warheads is 8. And then one second later it’s 88. And then one second after that it’s 888. And one second after that it’s 8888. And then one second after that it’s 88888. And then one second after that it’s 888888. Etc. [Turned out to be a radar reflection off the moon or some such thing.]

Then a quick call indicates there are no confirmations from any other detection system.

The system was never on a “hair-trigger” with automatic launch on the first indication. The procedure was always to determine if the indications were real.

There was always a common sense factor.

That was one of the reasons for the “triad” of offensive systems: the manned bombers, the submarine based Polaris (and successor) systems, and the land-based ICBM’s. The calculus for the Soviets to take out all of them simultaneously made it impossible. Taking out one would provide a “protective” warning for the others.

The bombers could be airborne in a minute or so … B-47’s took off at 15 second intervals … several were on the runway at one time. The later B-52’s took off at 8-second intervals. Also with several on the runway simultaneously. And at certain times, bombers were on airborne alert.

What this meant was there was never a need to panic because there were always enough delivery systems available regardless of the circumstances. No Soviet first strike could take out all of the U.S. nuclear deterrent. And they knew that. And that was why we had so many nuclear warheads and bombs and so many different delivery systems and vehicles. The operative assumption was that enough had to survive to deliver. And so we bought enough to assure enough would survive. Some would always be in the wrong place, in training, in transportation, in maintenance, etc. So all of that had to be factored in.

During WW2, we had a lot of experience with losses and we knew that we had to order a lot of systems to have enough available if the need arose.

By having large numbers, as we did, then there would never be an issue of not having the assets and resources where they were needed when they might be needed.

So, although sometimes the popular media might create alarmist scenarios, in fact there never was any such science fiction / political fiction scenarios.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Of course, what I just wrote below does not allow that an act of treason might betray the entire system. But then we wouldn’t know of such an act of treason until all of our systems vaporized at one time.

And at that time, we would have lost. We would have been totally vaporized … but just us. Not the Soviets, in that case.

Which is why the need for redundant systems.

More later.

 

[beeliner]

1. The targets were not at all military or tactical, they were only meant as a display of power, nothing more.
2. The lives lost afterwards clearly outnumber the lives that would have been lost in a conventional attack on the country.

There is no question that reasonable opinon can differ on this subject, but those claims are just plain wrong.

1. All five of the target cities clearly qualified as military targets; in fact, that is the reason they were chosen.
2. That is also ‘clearly’ wrong. As Truman pointed out many times, one of the main reasons for the A-bombings was to minimize casualties, both military and civilian, compared with a potential land invasion.

 

[didymus]

I’ve just been catching up on my podcast-listening and CA Radio did a show on Memorial Day with Jimmy Akins on the Just War theory.

Check it out.

 

[JimG]

What happened in each case is that the scenario for war suggests the data has to follow certain “trends”.

Yes, I agree with your analysis in this post. What I had in mind primarily was the Minuteman missile force during the cold war. Those ICBM’s had a “countdown time” of less than 1 minute. Actually 32 seconds for MM-1. It would be possible for a crew on alert to be instructed to insert keys, (but of course not turn them!) due to possible but unverified soviet launches. When verification confirmed a false alarm, the alert status could be backed down.

 

[catholicbuckeye]

I struggle with this. Is a land invasion truly less evil? We would have had to destroy and capture cities as well. Would the Japanese have used a scorched-earth policy? I think a full-force land invasion would have resulted in more innocent loss of life than the two atom bombs did.

I do as well. The loss of like is atrocious. True, it is small compared to the 45,000,000 who had gone before them (I think under 250,000 were killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki) - I guess I just can’t help but wonder if there were some way to mkae the point of the power of the bomb w/o loss of life, e.g. a barren area of Japan?

 

[VociMike]

I do as well. The loss of like is atrocious. True, it is small compared to the 45,000,000 who had gone before them (I think under 250,000 were killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki) - I guess I just can’t help but wonder if there were some way to mkae the point of the power of the bomb w/o loss of life, e.g. a barren area of Japan?

If you’ve seen pictures of the test site at Alamogordo, there wasn’t much damage at all. A little bit of sand turned into glass, and lots of scrub brush got incinerated, but that was it. This would hardly have been enough to convince the Japanese leaders in power to surrender unconditionally. After all, they weren’t even convinced after Hiroshima.

And imagine the backlash if the demonstration bomb had not gone off.

 

[GKC]

Oops. Double post.

GKC

 

[GKC]

If you’ve seen pictures of the test site at Alamogordo, there wasn’t much damage at all. A little bit of sand turned into glass, and lots of scrub brush got incinerated, but that was it. This would hardly have been enough to convince the Japanese leaders in power to surrender unconditionally. After all, they weren’t even convinced after Hiroshima.

And imagine the backlash if the demonstration bomb had not gone off.

You are correct. As is massively documented. And imagine a faulty bomb, smased to bits, presented as a present to Prof. Nishina, head of the JApnese atomic bomb project.

A young physicist (named Wilson, I think) who had declined to work for the Manhattan project, on moral priciples, was in Japan about 15 years after the war, on an unrelated physics project. He talked with a number of Japanese scientists, who happened to have be working in various military areas during the war. Curious, he asked what sort of a demonstration would have been necessary to convince the Japanese war leaders that they should give up, short f dropping the bomb on a target, expecting a response of “Off shore high altitude burst” or something like that. All he spoke with were quite puzzled, at the question, and his failure to appreciate the nature of the war, as Japan saw it, and how the country was run. Wilson concluded that any such concept of the utility of a demonstration reflected a gross misunderstanding of Westerners, of the Japanese mind. The quotes are in Newman, op. cit., chap. 4. Whatever his name was.

And, as noted, the bomb was demonstrated. About 1500 feet above and 800 feet north west of the Aioi bridge. It didn’t change the war leaders’ minds.

GKC

 

[Al_Masetti]

If you’ve seen pictures of the test site at Alamogordo, there wasn’t much damage at all. A little bit of sand turned into glass, and lots of scrub brush got incinerated, but that was it. This would hardly have been enough to convince the Japanese leaders in power to surrender unconditionally. After all, they weren’t even convinced after Hiroshima.

And imagine the backlash if the demonstration bomb had not gone off.

You’re right. The tower burst for the first atomic bomb test caused very little damage on the ground. If memory serves, the stubs of the tower’s legs are still there.

I have walked the target area for the Frenchman’s Flat (north of Las Vegas, Nevada) test of the 280 mm Atomic Annie atomic cannon test. It also was an air burst and there is no crater.

After WW2, the U.S. conducted a large number of atomic bomb tests. One of the tests involved an air burst over a fleet of surplus Navy ships. There was no damage to the ships. It was startling to say the least. Everyone was stunned. They had expected that the test fleet would be demolished.

So then they put a nuke underwater, suspended from a barge moored among the test ships. The blast lifted the ships out of the water and demolished the whole fleet.

You’re right. Some nuke test results are unimpressive.

One anti-nuke speaker goes around telling how his brother was at ground zero in Hiroshima. What he doesn’t talk about was that his brother was in the basement of the house and survived.

Nuclear weapons effects are very peculiar. And need to be studied carefully and in detail, rather than being reacted to emotionally.

[The Japanese Navy had a nuclear weapons program that was separate from the Japanese Army program. Supposedly they did a test firing of a nuclear device in August 1945, just before the surrender. Off the coast of Wonson. Which is probably why the Soviet Union raced down there to seize the nuclear weapons lab. But one could consider that if the WW2 had dragged on a while longer, the Japanese Navy could have produced another device, installed it in a submarine, and detonated it under the U.S. invasion fleet. It would have been a complete 100% slaughter.]

 

[GKC]

You’re right. The tower burst for the first atomic bomb test caused very little damage on the ground. If memory serves, the stubs of the tower’s legs are still there.

I have also walked the target area for the Frenchman’s Flat test of the 280 mm Atomic Annie atomic cannon test. It also was an air burst and there is no crater.

After WW2, the U.S. conducted a large number of atomic bomb tests. One of the tests involved an air burst over a fleet of surplus Navy ships. There was no damage to the ships. It was startling to say the least. Everyone was stunned. They had expected that the test fleet would be demolished.

So then they put a nuke underwater, suspended from a barge moored among the test ships. The blast lifted the ships out of the water and demolished the whole fleet.

You’re right. Some nuke test results are unimpressive.

One anti-nuke speaker goes around telling how his brother was at ground zero in Hiroshima. What he doesn’t talk about was that his brother was in the basement of the house and survived.

Nuclear weapons effects are very peculiar. And need to be studied carefully and in detail, rather than being reacted to emotionally.

[The Japanese Navy had a nuclear weapons program that was separate from the Japanese Army program. Supposedly they did a test firing of a nuclear device in August 1945, just before the surrender. Off the coast of Wonson. Which is probably why the Soviet Union raced down there to seize the nuclear weapons lab. But one could consider that if the WW2 had dragged on a while longer, the Japanese Navy could have produced another device, installed it in a submarine, and detonated it under the U.S. invasion fleet. It would have been a complete 100% slaughter.]

No remnants of the Trinity tower are left. A second tower, of instrumentaion was also destroyed.

I have never heard of any Japanese test, in all my readings. In fact, IIRC, Japanese work was suspended in April/May, to a lack of uranium or pitchblend. The German sub delivery didn’t make it.

GKC