WWII

[hotwheels]

Originally Posted By: Mystic
I remember you attacking me at this website several times.


I may have been arguing with what you posted, if I didn't agree with it, but I certainly did not attack you. Feel free to prove me wrong.

hotwheels

 

[Merkava_4]

Originally Posted By: mjoekingz28
Can anyone explain to me why Nagasaki and Hiroshima were the recipients of the atom bombs?

Why not Tokyo? Maybe these two cities were building crafts of war.


Originally Posted By: hotwheels
The chosen targets offered a higher strategic value primarily due to being ports and because of their massive ship building facilities. Tokyo was already bombed out at that point in time. Also, Tokyo was the seat of the government and emperor. Hard to negotiate with them after wiping them completely out.

hotwheels


Good answer!

 

[Al]

Yah, good thing for them. The US still had plenty of conventional weapons. They could have dropped 2 loads a day using Okinawa and Iwo Jima air strips with 500 B29s a sortie.

More than true. Dropping the Nukes saved millions of Japanese People and their culture. Japan would have almost not been able to functionally survive. Rebuilding would have been maybe impossible and unaffordable. They would literally been bombed into the Stone ages.

The Nuke Bomb Protesters over there (and everywhere) are clueless as to the big picture.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Originally Posted By: Mystic
Originally Posted By: hotwheels
Mystic, all this was already discussed in great detail in this thread, if you care to remember.

You assume too much about other people's knowledge and you clearly overstimate your own, as evidenced by the factual errors you post while foregoing to check YOUR facts. That you have not heard of the Tallboy bomb and its importance in sinking the Tirpitz is your shortcoming, not mine.

hotwheels



LOL!!!!!!!!!

How old are you hotwheels? 49? I am 63 and I don't have to look a lot of stuff up online about WWII. I knew about those block buster bombs perhaps before you were even born. The British developed a few different block buster bombs. Some of them were used to destroy massive reinforced bunkers. Those bombs were travelling at very high speed by the time they hit the ground after being dropped form high altitude. They were able to penetrate deeply underground and explode beneath the massive bunkers.

The British had bombers that could carry very heavy bomb loads. Some of their bombers were made of plywood. Until the USA developed the B-29 the British could carry heavier bomb loads than the USA with the B-17.


Different design requirements. The Lancaster was designed for night raids, and lightly armed. The B-17 was a day bomber, not to mention a much older design, carrying a dozen guns. (First flew in 1935.) The Lancaster carried fewer, smaller guns, and only seven crewmen.

Basically...the Tirpitz was made useless by Operation Chariot.

 

[andrewg]

Originally Posted By: Al
Yah, good thing for them. The US still had plenty of conventional weapons. They could have dropped 2 loads a day using Okinawa and Iwo Jima air strips with 500 B29s a sortie.

More than true. Dropping the Nukes saved millions of Japanese People and their culture. Japan would have almost not been able to functionally survive. Rebuilding would have been maybe impossible and unaffordable. They would literally been bombed into the Stone ages.

The Nuke Bomb Protesters over there (and everywhere) are clueless as to the big picture.


I can't agree that a land invasion of Japan would have had only one outcome. Nobody knows for sure what WOULD have happened. Nobody.
We can make an educated guess.
Literally HUNDREDS of scenarios could have occurred in a land invasion. It would have depended upon allied battle plans...the strategy....contact with allied sympathizers....negotiations while the battle was occurring...the emperor wanting to stay in power or be dethroned....etc.

And why couldn't conventional bombing continue against strategic targets and military command/control centers? I know that the B-29's were even more devastating in terms of deaths than the atomic bombs were. We could have possibly focused those bombings in areas of military leadership.

I think that Japan would have eventually surrendered. Deaths would not necessarily have been as high as millions.

Much evidence DOES exist that an overthrow of the militarists was taking hold.

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: andrewg


I can't agree that a land invasion of Japan would have had only one outcome. Nobody knows for sure what WOULD have happened. Nobody.
We can make an educated guess.

The thing though, none of the senarios were very good (for us)


Quote:
And why couldn't conventional bombing continue against strategic targets and military command/control centers? I know that the B-29's were even more devastating in terms of deaths than the atomic bombs were. We could have possibly focused those bombings in areas of military leadership.

I think that Japan would have eventually surrendered. Deaths would not necessarily have been as high as millions.

As mentioned..we were running out of money. It would have been a slow and painful attrition for the Japanese. How many cities would have still existed after that? Up to that time we were still trying (although not very hard) to avoid destruction of the civilian population and "concentrate" on military targets. Alreadty at least 1,000, 000 Japanese were killed in this bombing (and millions of casualies). How could many more millions not be killed. Especially we were now using "fire Bombs".

I know you like to argue and so do I. But the facts are pretty clear on what I have said. The disagreers are those that hate the idea of killing 100,000 people with two bombs and instead like the 10,000,000 figure and 500,000 dead allied soldiers. Had that occurred many of us would never have been born.

 

[andyd]

Given the resistance encountered from Saipan onward. And the mass civilian suicides. There was no expectation of surrender. It was a disgrace. Suicide was honorable. Less than 1000 Japanese were ever captured. Eventually, they would surrender. Meantime, the islands were to be burned then blasted until an an invasion in Nov '45

 

[chiefsfan1]

Good read on the Tirpitz.
http://www.bombercommandmuseum.ca/tirpitz.html

 

[emg]

Originally Posted By: Mystic
But the Tirpitz was put out of action by the actions of the midget submarines. Look it up online.


For about eighteen months, until the repairs were complete. But the Navy and RAF kept bombing until it finally capsized after multiple hits from 12,000 pound bombs.

Of course, the first bomb would have been enough to permanently put it out of action if it had been a nuke.

 

[Mamala Bay]

http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/atomic.htm

 

[Vuflanovsky]

I think people have to contextualize it more than some folks do. I think it's less about the hypotheticals of what would've happened and more how they managed the decisions that occurred. The U.S. didn't really have the luxury of listening and mulling over after-the-fact think tank intellectuals giving a prognostication...the world had been at war for almost six years and upwards of 50 million people had already died. Japan wasn't going to surrender without a coercive force and Allies weren't waiting x years for cracks to appear regarding the military regimes overthrow...and, of course, the scenarios involving a ground invasion were not very pretty. Bombing them for another year and a ground invasion with ( insert number of casualties very likely > 100K here ) was certainly less prudent than what was at their disposal...rightly or wrongly...in the context of ending a World War.

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: andrewg


German civilian deaths: 780,000



I believe that number is much higher if you consider the ethnic Germans removed from their long standing homes in the east. Likely millions more. Lots of women raped and bayoneted by the Russians and Ukranians.

As for the Japanese, I'm interested why it was such a concern, even for civil and allied life? Nobody thought twice about invading Europe. What difference would the Japanese population at large have from the Germans and Italians in terms of an invasion? I recall reading that the Japanese realized invasion of the USA was dumb due to the population being armed and willing to fight. Not sure if it was much different in Japan?

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: Vuflanovsky
The U.S. didn't really have the luxury of listening and mulling over after-the-fact think tank intellectuals giving a prognostication...the world had been at war for almost six years and upwards of 50 million people had already died. yada..yada..yada..

You nailed it.

 

[Mamala Bay]

Originally Posted By: Vuflanovsky
I think people have to contextualize it more than some folks do. I think it's less about the hypotheticals of what would've happened and more how they managed the decisions that occurred. The U.S. didn't really have the luxury of listening and mulling over after-the-fact think tank intellectuals giving a prognostication...the world had been at war for almost six years and upwards of 50 million people had already died. Japan wasn't going to surrender without a coercive force and Allies weren't waiting x years for cracks to appear regarding the military regimes overthrow...and, of course, the scenarios involving a ground invasion were not very pretty. Bombing them for another year and a ground invasion with ( insert number of casualties very likely > 100K here ) was certainly less prudent than what was at their disposal...rightly or wrongly...in the context of ending a World War.


WW11 exactly what was the Punic wars about between Carthage and Rome. It was who was to control the economics in the Mediterranean in the ancient world.

Carthage was the economic power(wealth) did you know the trade today is based on the Phoenecians. Aristotle spoke of the military, it's a function BUT it can not be the economics but a role within the economics. In other words the military can not be above the economics....

It still is today man himself...if Aristotle spoke of the truth what if any country to be...the Russian, Chinese, Japanese, German, British, American,Iranian and so forth...each military function is based on their economic function.

 

[andrewg]

Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: andrewg


I can't agree that a land invasion of Japan would have had only one outcome. Nobody knows for sure what WOULD have happened. Nobody.
We can make an educated guess.

The thing though, none of the senarios were very good (for us)


Quote:
And why couldn't conventional bombing continue against strategic targets and military command/control centers? I know that the B-29's were even more devastating in terms of deaths than the atomic bombs were. We could have possibly focused those bombings in areas of military leadership.

I think that Japan would have eventually surrendered. Deaths would not necessarily have been as high as millions.

As mentioned..we were running out of money. It would have been a slow and painful attrition for the Japanese. How many cities would have still existed after that? Up to that time we were still trying (although not very hard) to avoid destruction of the civilian population and "concentrate" on military targets. Alreadty at least 1,000, 000 Japanese were killed in this bombing (and millions of casualies). How could many more millions not be killed. Especially we were now using "fire Bombs".

I know you like to argue and so do I. But the facts are pretty clear on what I have said. The disagreers are those that hate the idea of killing 100,000 people with two bombs and instead like the 10,000,000 figure and 500,000 dead allied soldiers. Had that occurred many of us would never have been born.


Yes...if we decided on a land invasion instead of the atomic bombs, many Americans would have died. On that I agree.

Your facts are pretty cut and dried. I realize that. Hindsight, as I've said, is a luxury for us.
But....I still don't agree that those bombs were unavoidable. I just won't because other options (already mentioned as well as available all over the internet) DID in FACT exist. Were they as expedient? No. Would more American casualties have resulted? Yes, in some of the scenarios...but not all.

A speedy victory, in my opinion, was desired by the use of atomic weapons. Those weapons were used however, for more than a single purpose. I think it naive to think otherwise.

As a side note...if we'd had atomic bombs ready before Germany fell, do you think we would have used them on the German cities as hastily as we did on the Japanese? I do not.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Originally Posted By: emg
Originally Posted By: Mystic
But the Tirpitz was put out of action by the actions of the midget submarines. Look it up online.


For about eighteen months, until the repairs were complete. But the Navy and RAF kept bombing until it finally capsized after multiple hits from 12,000 pound bombs.

Of course, the first bomb would have been enough to permanently put it out of action if it had been a nuke.


Repairs were NEVER completed. When sunk, she capsized in the fjord...the concrete used to fill the hole left by the X-boat mines was clearly visible.

 

[Evanson]

Interesting perspectives on the topic:

http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/10/t...-ambitions.html

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: andrewg


I can't agree that a land invasion of Japan would have had only one outcome.

You are dancing around all the issues. You are for prolonging the way, Costing more American Lives, and ultimately killing more Japanese. Admit it.

BTW would you have stopped the firebombing which could kill 20K+ Japanese each and every day. And could have gone higher. And we were in the process of destroying German cities at the end of the war. Yes we would have nuked Germany. Problem was there were too many American Troops and Russian Troops in the country.

And one American Solder's death was not worth 1,000,000 Japanese. That's the way I feel and that's the way they felt. I am a Student of WWII for at least 15 years..I know. You also may know. Not saying you don't.

 

[Evanson]

Originally Posted By: Al
And one American Solder's death was not worth 1,000,000 Japanese.

 

[Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
Originally Posted By: emg
Originally Posted By: Mystic
But the Tirpitz was put out of action by the actions of the midget submarines. Look it up online.


For about eighteen months, until the repairs were complete. But the Navy and RAF kept bombing until it finally capsized after multiple hits from 12,000 pound bombs.

Of course, the first bomb would have been enough to permanently put it out of action if it had been a nuke.


Repairs were NEVER completed. When sunk, she capsized in the fjord...the concrete used to fill the hole left by the X-boat mines was clearly visible.



That is correct. They would not have been able to repair that battleship unless they had been able to tow it to a port where there was an adequate dry dock.

By the time the British sank that battleship the Germans had actually given up on repairing the ship. They were going to use the ship as part of the western wall to defend against allied invasion.

So for all practical purposes the X-craft midget submarines and their crews put that battleship out of the war.