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biccat wrote:

AustonT wrote:FDR hadn't balked at conventional unrestricted bombing, why should he hold back with a doomsday weapon.

We only had two.

I suspect if Japan hadn't surrendered after Nagasaki and we had more, Truman likely would've authorized more bombs to be dropped on strategic sites.

Believe it or not that's not true, there was only one Little Boy but there were several Fat Man assemblies IN TINIAN. The Plutonium cores were not kept at the facility but in a matter of days more of the Fat Man bombs could have been deployed.

The date that a third weapon could have been used against Japan was no later than August 20. The core was prepared by August 13, and Fat Man assemblies were already on Tinian Island. It would have required less than a week to ship the core and prepare a bomb for combat....Production estimates given to Sec. Stimson in July 1945 projected a second plutonium bomb would be ready by Aug. 24, that 3 bombs should be available in September, and more each month - reaching 7 or more in December.

Had the war continued after the two bombings it could have gotten much, much worse. Those numbers don't include the possibility of composite plutonium/uranium implosion cores. Had little boy been discontinued in favor of an implosion type bomb like Fat Man with a composite core, the uranium in it's pit could have made 3 equivalent yield bombs.
You can temper that with the fact that in OCT 1945 there were the non nuclear components for 60 Fat Man bombs and who knows how many cores. By July of 1946 only 9 Fat Man units were on hand. There are clear indications that the US could have been dropping a nuclear bomb every other day by 1946 had wartime production continued.

AustonT wrote:Believe it or not that's not true, there was only one Little Boy but there were several Fat Man assemblies IN TINIAN. The Plutonium cores were not kept at the facility but in a matter of days more of the Fat Man bombs could have been deployed.

The date that a third weapon could have been used against Japan was no later than August 20. The core was prepared by August 13, and Fat Man assemblies were already on Tinian Island. It would have required less than a week to ship the core and prepare a bomb for combat....Production estimates given to Sec. Stimson in July 1945 projected a second plutonium bomb would be ready by Aug. 24, that 3 bombs should be available in September, and more each month - reaching 7 or more in December.

I knew we had two ready and more in production, I just didn't realize they were that close.

AustonT wrote:By July of 1946 only 9 Fat Man units were on hand. There are clear indications that the US could have been dropping a nuclear bomb every other day by 1946 had wartime production continued.

Assuming FDR had proceded in the same manner as Truman - offering total surrender and dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there wouldn't have been a war by 1946. That's basically my point - FDR couldn't have been more brutal than Truman because there wasn't an opportunity for it.

Do you think FDR would have done something different, thereby prolonging the war? Maybe not offer surrender terms?

biccat wrote:

Do you think FDR would have done something different, thereby prolonging the war? Maybe not offer surrender terms?

There are a lot of "what ifs" involved. Truman and FDR were VERY different people. Solely from the aspect of nuclear weapons you have to wonder how deeply FDR was involved in the Manhattan project, it seems he wasn't particularly involved but after Trinity maybe he would have been. Would he have countermanded Gen Groves order to continue with Little Boy in favor of composite cores; it seems doubtful but stranger things have happened). Would he have held nuclear weapons back entirely? There was hope from the FDR camp, although we will never know from the man himself, that Britain with her navy, America with her air force, and the USSR with her armies would keep the peace in the post-war era. FDR had brokered a delicate and personal relationship with Stalin, Churchill and Truman gakked all over it and the nukes made it nearly impossible to regain Soviet trust. The Soviets had been left out of the nuclear decision making process, and Stalin understandably thought he would be next.
I digress.

I do think there is a chance that FDR had he lived to say the end of 1945 could have prevented the Cold War, but would not have used nuclear weapons. Edit: That was the price to keep the Soviets on our side, we kept them out of the development and use of the bomb. When we dropped it the relationship changed, and Churchill didn't exactly love Stalin or the Soviets. I think it's likely he would have issued the Potsdam Declaration and then waited until there was no other option than nuclear weapon, maybe called Iosef up to tell him the war was about to end; no big deal we can still be friends. It's hard to tell. the decade maybe even two following WW2 could have gone a lot of ways, it was a frightening time in the world.
Edit but had he chosen to use the bomb, I have little doubt he would have waited and had more of them ready and after using H and N to test easch bomb started picking more political targets...like Tokyo or Kyoto.

Frazzled wrote:

Melissia wrote:Yes, there's always outliers who get reported on more than they should. If you want to try to argue that they're representative of all Democrats, then you should also be arguing that Curtis Knapp and Fred Phelps are representative of all Christians.

You mean like Al Gore, former VP of the United States? he's no "outlier."

Sure thing, lets take all the gak Sarah Palin said at face value as being representative of the republican party as a whole too. This'll be a fun game Fraz, one that you'll love.


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biccat wrote:

Ouze wrote:

LordofHats wrote:Some have argued that FDR would have never dropped the bomb (which is what I mean).

I hadn't considered that; and that makes the "FDR won the war" argument problematic. I think it's difficult to say any war has been resolved when later on in the conflictm the use of 2 nuclear weapons were required to finally end it for really realz.

If the US hadn't used nuclear weapons on Japan, it's very likely Japan wouldn't have capitulated to a total surrender.

The economic damage to Japan would have likely been worse had we fought to take the home islands.

The damage caused by the nukes was inferior to several previous bombing campaigns. Their effect is overstated, the firebombing of tokyo for instance was much worse. We didn't really need them, but they were expedient.

As others pointed out in terms of deaths the two atomics killed far fewer people than incindiaries or explosives.

But Japanese records indicate they were decisive in ending the war without an invasion. The spectacle of a single bomb that could destroy a city meant that conventional ideas of shelters, air defense and interceptors were worthless. Only one plane had to get through to kill thousands.

This, along with the Soviet Union breaking its treaty with Japan and invading Korea, China and some northern Islands is what finally persauded half of the war cabinet to press for surrender.

The other half however held to the notion of 100 million die together (yes, that was literally a propeganda slogan). It was only Emperor Hirohito's intervention that forced surrender.

And even then there were something like 3 separate coup attempts to stop him from surrendering.

It was very near thing.

If you're interested check out Japan's Longest Day for a detailed account.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:As others pointed out in terms of deaths the two atomics killed far fewer people than incindiaries or explosives.

Are you talking about over the course of the entire war? I'm pretty sure the reason that the nukes were such a deciding factor isn't that total number of people that they killed compared to conventional weapons, but the fact that you can kill 70,000-80,000 people (wiki) with one of them in a matter of seconds.

Monster Rain wrote:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:As others pointed out in terms of deaths the two atomics killed far fewer people than incindiaries or explosives.

Are you talking about over the course of the entire war? I'm pretty sure the reason that the nukes were such a deciding factor isn't that total number of people that they killed compared to conventional weapons, but the fact that you can kill 70,000-80,000 people (wiki) with one of them in a matter of seconds.

From late in 1944 (Nov or Dec) until March 1945 the bombing campaign against the home islands may have killed as many as 3/4 of a million people and at LEAST 350,000. and made over a million people homeless. So in the grand scheme the atomics weren't as devastating, but concentrated bombing by latewar superheavies dropped tons of bombs, this was 2. And the epicenter of Hiroshima wasn't like a bombed city, it was like the hand of God wiped part of the world away.

The first President who goes BASE jumping or Helicopter Skiing will clearly be the most EXTREME president.

Vin Diesel as XXX for President!

Monster Rain wrote:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:As others pointed out in terms of deaths the two atomics killed far fewer people than incindiaries or explosives.

Are you talking about over the course of the entire war? I'm pretty sure the reason that the nukes were such a deciding factor isn't that total number of people that they killed compared to conventional weapons, but the fact that you can kill 70,000-80,000 people (wiki) with one of them in a matter of seconds.

IIRC, the Hiroshima bombing wasn't even the most devestating bombing (in terms of loss of life) that WEEK.

Pictures of Osaka or Tokyo after a conventional/incindiary bombing looked as bad as anything in Hiroshima.

the reason Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, BTW is there weren't enough worthwhile targets still standing in Tokyo, Yokohama, etc.

Kyoto, previously spared due to its historic importance/lack of military importance was almost the target of the first bomb.

It's not the kills per "bombing" that is significant in this context, but the kills per "bomb."