Posted on 04/13/2005 6:24:31 PM PDT by Yasotay
LOL.....Yep 26 years of PT and 6 mile jogs everyday makes hunting a bit easier for me in my old age. Albeit the mileage ain't bad the sudden stops keep me within reason.....high altitude elk and sheep hunts are still for the pups.
Good times......Stay safe !
Where did you hear about Manchuria? I didn't know about that incident. I understand that the last real battle of WWII occurred two months after the Japanese surrender. That battle was for a Japanese North Korean city between the Japanese and the Soviets. Many reports say it was a Japanese Heavy Water Production Facility. That is one reason that I think the Soviets got allot of help from the Japanese Atomic program.
60 years ago this week, Bob Dole was injured in Italy, too.
Had to suck getting WIAed that late in the war.
And his recovery and rehab kept him in the hospital for 39 months. By the time he was out and functional, most of the other GI's were in or had been through college, had bought houses, and had kids.
In many references concerning Soviet long-range aircraft available during WWII, you will find notice of a "show aircraft" Stalin sent on various long range trips for the purpose of propaganda.
Up until a decade or so ago the "official" position taken by Janes and others was that the particular aircraft never existed and was certainly never observed in the United States.
It landed at Bolling AFB in Washington DC in 1944 and was seen by thousands of people. All the "official" position folks finally agreed it really did exist so it's OK to talk about it. At the same time no one knows how many of that model the Soviets actually had.
The only four-engined bomber the USSR had in WWII that was produced in any numbers (about 150) was the Pe-8. The "mysterious" aircraft you mentioned above WAS a Soviet PE-8 which was used to transport the Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov to both Britain and the United States in 1942. There were no other super-secret Russian four-engined bombers in WWII, they never existed. Once the decision to duplicate the B-29 was made, all other post-war strategic bomber programs were halted.
"Obviously they didn't engage in strategic bombing (since the US wasn't sending them any bombs among other reasons), but they didn't need to. The US and UK did the job for them."
"That doesn't mean they weren't capable of doing it."
They were not capable of conducting strategic bombing, their resources were tied up in the Red Army and its supporting tactical air force. They had neither the strategic bombers, nor the long-ranged fighter aircraft necessary to conduct such operations. While the Soviets were fairly well put for basic oil stocks and refining, they did not have the ability to refine sufficient quantities of high-octane AVGAS required for high-altitude operations without being supplied by US Army lend-lease POL logistics operating in Iran during WWII.
"Now, back to the issue of how many atom bombs the US had ~ there was no major production line set up in 1945 to produce large quantities of atom bombs. That said, we note that the Russians didn't have a major production line set up until 1947 to produce large quantities of the TU-4."
Of course there WAS a production line set up to generate plutonium cores for the "Fat Man" model of the US nuclear stockpile! Did you think that the US had invested 2 billion (1943) dollars just to make five atomic bombs in 1945? The "Little Boy" uranium gun-type atomic weapon first dropped on Hiroshima was a one-off model, never produced again. All of the other US atomic weapons were of the plutonium-implosion "Fat Man" model. So the first bomb was tested in the US during July 1945. Two more atomic weapons were dropped on Japan in August 1945. One more atomic bomb was being readied for Tokyo for late August 1945; it was never delivered. At the end of calendar year 1945 the US had two "Fat Man" type nuclear weapons in its inventory out of the five produced in 1945, however if Japan had not surrendered the nuclear 'production line' that you insist did not exist was designed to produce 7 plutonium cored nuclear weapons per month.
"A third bomb was being shipped from New Mexico, target Tokyo, when the war ended. Production was geared to seven per month with an expectation that 50 bombs would be required to assure that an invasion would not be required. Release of radiation from the untested Hiroshima bomb, designed as the original gun-type and made of uranium, was a surprise. The radiation range was expected to be within the blast radius, that is, a lethal dose of radiation would only kill those already dead from concussion. The Alamogordo bomb test and later production were of the more complicated plutonium, yet cleaner, implosion device."
Source: WW2 Pacific: Little Known Facts: Atomic Bomb -- Allies
dvwjr
This is true. US support wasn't fully ramped up until early '43. The Soviets did receive assistance prior to 1943, though. You can find all sorts of photos of burning US and British made tanks that were taken in 1942. They also received quite a few aircraft early on; before the Soviet aircraft industry came into its own. US made trucks made up a bulk of the Soviets transport force through out the entire war.
The Soviets were within a hairs breadth of defeat in 1941 and then again in 1942; although to nearly as close as 1941. Every little bit helped them.
To say that Patton does not stand up aginst a commie general-Zhokov - is one of the dumbest statements I have seen in a long while. I think you need to go back to the post office.
You are not worth debating as your posts are consistantly the most insipid and inane posts on this thread.
The Soviets were our "Allies" in name only. General Patton knew their true colors and wanted us to go into Prague and help those people but wasn't allowed to. Eisenhower and Bradley used Patton and then threw him away. By this time, we had won the war but the bottom line was that one dictator (Hitler) was replaced by another (Stalin). Look at Poland-those poor people went through two hells and it wasn't until R. Reagan, John Paul II, M. Thatcher and others, did they gain their freedom.
You got that right. My grandfather served under Patton (got both chewed out and praised by him) and always realized what a great leader he was and that he had the foresite to see that the commie's were as bad as the Nazis..
I still carry a P-38 and have half a dozen more in the tool box.
That not accurate.
The impact was not so much on the death itself as was his not stepping down from the Presidency in the last year or year and a half of his life, where he was essentially not fit to command. His staff and cabinet kept him well hidden from public life. He met with Churchill and Stalin in the middle east and essentially didn't have the strength or presence of mind to say no to any of Stalin's demands. Churchill was beside himself.
I used to work with a former Hitler Youth. He was still angry about losing...
I thought that was common knowledge!
We didn't know we had a real need to build more of them until the Russians set one off!
Notice that to build one nuke it costs an immense amount of money. To build two of them it costs quite a bit of money, but not much more than just to build one. And so forth. On the other hand, to build dozens, hundreds, and then thousands of them you have to mine the heck out of sources of uranium.
You might try to find out how many tons of processed yellow-cake we had on hand at the end of August 1945.
By all accounts he was more a military man than anything else.
One of the worst things you can do is let ideology blind you. Just be thankful Zhukof was on "our side" and not Hitler's.
You might well ask why it was Patton was not selected as Supreme Allied Commander. That will give you some answers to why any rational analysis has to place Zhukov head and shoulders over Patton.
Why don't you go back to DU or Bartcop where your people will understand you.
"Notice that to build one nuke it costs an immense amount of money. To build two of them it costs quite a bit of money, but not much more than just to build one. And so forth. On the other hand, to build dozens, hundreds, and then thousands of them you have to mine the heck out of sources of uranium."
"You might try to find out how many tons of processed yellow-cake we had on hand at the end of August 1945."
Yes, the marginal cost to build successive *anyhings* is always lower, that's basic ECON 101. This United States is blessed with plenty of uranium, thank you. The amount of 'yellow-cake' on hand was irrelevant, since the plutonium production for the "FAT MAN" model Mark III was in full swing because the pipeline was full.
"Regarding the nukes, I don't think we invested $5 billion just to build a handful of nukes ~ of course that's something we only know in hindsight!"
"We didn't know we had a real need to build more of them until the Russians set one off!"
The United States did feel the need to build more nuclear weapons in the immediate aftermath of WWII, since the demobilization of the 12.34 million Armed Forces of WWII had made the post-war US nuclear monopoly the first-line of defense for the United States and its interests. No "hindsight" was necessary, since the expense of the $2 Billion Manhattan Project was amortized over the following production of US nuclear weapons from 1945 onwards.
There was no need for the US to wait to build more atomic weapons until the USSR detonated their first atomic bomb in August of 1949, as by 1949 the United States had around 235 atomic weapons in its nuclear arsenal. Winston Churchill gave his famous "Iron Curtain" speach at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri on March 5, 1946 - the official 'start' of the Cold War, three years before the USSR tested its first atomic bomb. Note the ramp-up in production in 1946...
Source: Power Point Presentation USC Berkeley - History - 105, Dr. McCray "Early Nuclear Strategy" Slide #9.
Source: Complete List of All U.S. Nuclear Weapons The NuclearWeaponsArchive.org
dvwjr
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