Support for nuclear weapons

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Anything nuclear is a possible deterrent. Being sure to keep the delivery range greater than the blast radius, to be sure.
 
The Atomic Veterans know a lot about that, but in some instances, only minimal protection was provided for those just outside the blast radius. Better to take out chunks of your enemy in certain predetermined zones than fight them in more densely populated areas.
 
Better to hit them from further out. Hence, Army doctrine moved to missiles.

They did keep the w33 and w48 shells around, for the more mobile 8 inch and 155mm tubes, for longer than I knew, though. Annie lasted only 10 years and 20 units.
 
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At the time, we did with what we had. The idea that the Russians would move west was a concern since World War II. Missiles only made things worse.
 
edwest211 said:
The atomic cannon was a credible deterrent. Otherwise, it would never have been deployed. Ever since 1945, the Russians were always a threat to the West.
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This idea reinforces my belief that the A-bombing of Japan, while perhaps a tactical victory, was a strategic blunder of immense magnitude. The uranium bomb should have been reserved for one purpose and one purpose only: to prevent the USSR from ever developing this weapon.

The USA’s sole possession of the A-bomb meant that, as long as this was so, the Russians could not threaten the west. The USA wasted its advantage by nuking Japan. If US casualties were a concern, then that invasion could have been left for the Russians (and don’t try to tell me that they were not both willing and capable.)

It’s too late now, of course, but we still have a viable alternative to the coming global nuclear war, and that alternative is unilateral nuclear disarmament. We can live under the Russian nuclear umbrella. Our failure to take advantage of this opportunity will we still can will most certainly lead to our living like rats in radioactive holes in the ground.
 
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We were both aware of the Soviet nuclear weapon program and the Soviet spying on the Manhattan Project (though not of the extent). The estimated time, in 1945, that we thought the Soviets would need to produce First Lightning was 5-10 years, consensus was on the shorter period. Our military and esp. the capability to deliver the minimal number of bombs we had in inventory, before 1950, was limited. No matter what we did, the Soviets would have their bombs, when they did. Japan didn’t take our only bombs, and didn’t tell the Soviets that they would work. Trinity did the latter.

Genie -bottle. No trip back. Stick to creative Scriptural exegesis. History is not your field.
 
I don’t understand your thinking. As someone who studies World War II technical history, a few things. For Japan, we had two bombs: one containing uranium, the other containing plutonium. The Russian atomic program received a big advantage after the war but I will not go into it here. The Russians had an “iron curtain” which meant spying was limited and aerial overflights could and were shot down in some cases. For security purposes, Russian research buildings had totally generic markings and designations. For example: “Building 18.” It could have trucks coming in day and night but the contents were in crates or covered, and research scientists dressed as generic Soviet workers could go from building to building. Only those with higher security clearances would know what was going on in Building 18 or 19 and so on. The Russian atomic program started somewhere between 1942 and 1943. Did anyone know where the research was taking place, where the uranium was coming from, who the key scientists were? Not by coincidence, US intelligence began cracking Russian codes in 1943.

So, based on what I know, much like the American and German atomic projects, there was no one site to destroy. There were multiple sites. The extent of the German project did not become known until the late 1990s. So dropping even one atomic bomb on the Soviet Union shortly after the end of the war would have had one effect: World War III. Soviet forces massed along the Eastern part of Europe would have moved West with conventional forces and taken all of Continental Europe and England.

Unilateral nuclear disarmament is out of the question, for now.
 
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Russkies went the implosion device. Not for nothing had Greenglass provided the lens sketches.

The uranium device was obsolete, after Hiroshima. Only 3 (I think) other gun devices ever exploded by the US.
 
It is my understanding that the USA’s developement of atomic weapons languished after the nuking of Japan, perhaps because of a public backlash against the use of those devices on a defeated nation. It is also my understanding that the A-bombing of Japan angered Stalin and that the USSR then redoubled its own efforts to develope the bomb. It seems to me that, without the nuking of Japan, the USA would have had about a five year lead over the Soviets in the developement of nuclear weapons. In my uneducated opinion, this lead would have been sufficient to build enough inventory of A-bombs to either force the Russians ot abandon their own program or else to destroy that program outright before it became a threat. The dire consequences painted of the Soviet retaliation for nuclear attacks against their facilities are hypothetical. Even if true they are certainly preferable to the present situation of an ongoing nuclear stalemate that’s going to end in disaster.

As for unilateral nuclear disarmament being “out of the question,” who says so? We are a free country and we can do what we think is best. We do not owe a nuclear umbrella to anyone. If the Russian nuclear umbrella can be good enough for us, then it can be good enough for the rest of the world.
 
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Again, where is this going? High-ranking people in the military and intelligence community make the assessments and advise the leadership about this. The average citizen is not part of this. The peasants in the US have no access to the current threat levels posed by the two major powers: the Russian Federation and China. We could not stop the Russians in the 1940s and we could not stop the Chinese in 1964 after they detonated their first nuclear device. And China can afford half a billion casualties with a population of over 1 billion. Not so the Russian Federation which is at 146.8 million if you include their recent annexations.

The Russian nuclear umbrella is for Russia, not us. And China is a potential threat to Russia.
 
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Your understanding is deficient. US military across the board languished. de-mob is the standard posture after a war. And butter, not guns normalization rules.There was no public backlash against the use of the bombs, until the generation that saw that was passing and the revisionists raised their heads. Stalin was not angered by the bomb. He knew we had it, and that it would be used. He did attempt to move up the opening of Soviet hostilities against Japan, and did so, by roughly 5 days, to get as much mileage in territory, and influence, prior to the Japanese surrender, as possible. The war ended with them occupying as much of Manchuria, China and Korea as they desired, which fact was known to be something we could not prevent. They were there. The Soviet effort on the bomb was a full out one, and would have resulted in them getting the weapon, despite anything we did. They had our history, thanks to the espionage, to guide them.

Your knowledge of the state of the nuclear deterrent (or offensive weapon to bend the Soviets to our will, after WWII is likewise deficient. I mentioned the state of SAC under Kenney, and the paucity of both weapons and delivery systems, You present a remarkable assumption of what the country would have permitted, in the form of a new war against our former ally. And what effect that might have had on a totalitarian power with massive conventional military might and sitting on the east side of Europe.

You also, ironically, advocate what was one of the major points of the revisionists: that Truman had used the bombs to intimate the Soviets, and conduct postwar nuclear diplomacy, wielding the threat of a nuclear big stick. Both of which were nonsense.

Best stick to Scripture. Folks have been digging predictions out of it for many, many years. No reason for you not to play.
 
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“The peasants in the US . . .” ?? Yikes ! Ed, the last time that I looked the USA was still a democracy. If the majority of the people in the USA come to see through their government’s lie that nuclear weapons are necessary for our safety, then that majority has the power and priviledge of electing leaders who will carry out their will. And who says that the Russian nuclear umbrella is not for us? It could be if we would only accept it.

And who says that the USA could not have stopped the USSR’s developement of nuclear weapons? The USA could have done this if it had been less focused on gaining a tactical victory over Russian expansionism and more focused on the strategic danger of the USSR’s nuclear program. The five year head start in the development and refinement of nuclear warheads was a big one, but the USA chose to waste this advantage on a short term victory.

Finally, are you completely blind to the fact that golbal nuclear war is in our Holy Scripture? It is there and it is coming. None of us will like the results.
 
The USA, for whatever reason, decided it would not or could not stop the development of an atomic bomb in the Soviet Union. There is a lot of material from the time period that is still classified in the US. Access to Russian archives is limited and sporadic. Even those who have access cannot access certain archives. General Patton and Winston Churchill both spoke about the Russian threat right after the war. General Patton wanted to go in after the betrayal of losing Eastern Europe to the Russians. Countries that we and our allies - certainly not the Russians - had liberated. During the war, on the Eastern Front, one in three soldiers fighting the Russians were not native Germans. And as the war ended, the vast majority who could, surrendered to anybody except the Russians.
 
MonteRCMS said:
Where does it say that it was the job of the USA to land at Normandy beach?
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Or where does it say that it was the job of the USA to send the Marines to Tripoli to eliminate the ongoing piracy from the Barbary States? Yet Thomas Jefferson decided to do it. And the U.S. did send armed forces to Normandy. I sometimes get the impression that if others had been in charge, the US might have allowed the pirates free range, and Europe would have been left to fall to Hitler, in the name of non-interference and isolationism.
 
FDR told the American people that he will not be sending our boys to fight in a European war. The Japanese I understand but Europe? FDR said no.
 
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