“It turns out there was another one ready to drop on the 19th, two more in September, and probably three in October. They were expecting to crank one out about every ten days.”
Maybe we should have been gearing our European bombers up for trips to Mother Russia?
That aside - Think about what these scientists and engineers accomplished. To weaponize these devices and have both work perfectly using different technologies with only one prior tower test on one design. That was American can do at its finest. We can’t even rebuild a freaking skyscraper now (WTC site) or a Memorial (United 93) or a new refinery.
I am praying that our defense dollars are cooking up some special weapons for when we go to war with a major power like China or Russia. If not we are going to be filling lots of bodybags again.
Yes, I’ve always been somewhat awed by the fact that they dropped the Hiroshima bomb without testing one first. But the scientists were convinced by their calculations that it would work. And they were right.
The gun-assembly design was actually an insurance policy against the risk that they would not be able to make the more difficult, yet more elegant and efficient, implosion design work in time to matter. I’m pretty sure the Hiroshima bomb is the only gun-assembly device ever exploded, at least by the US, its allies, or Russia. Thus, since no example has been tested with proper monitoring equipment in place, there is some uncertainty as to the exact characteristics of its detonation.