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US Planned To Drop An Atomic Bomb On Europe During WWII
The Memory Hole ^
| August 10, 2002
Posted on 08/10/2002 3:43:33 PM PDT by Reaganwuzthebest
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To: alloysteel
"And say, wasn't that a MOST satisfying reprisal for the bombing of Pearl Harbor? Now if we could deliver something as equally rewarding for the events of September 11, 2001...."May I suggest Mecca and Medina for starters? Perhaps Tehran, Bagdad, Damascus, for the second course?
To: lavaroise
"A German general said that had we started right from the beginning of targetting their logistics infrastructure, the war would have been won by allies 2 years earlier."Which harkens back to another military truism, "Amatures study tactics, professionals study logistics!"
To: southernnorthcarolina
That's the song that they ended "Blast from the Past" with, isn't it?
Great flick, but saddly shows how badly we as a society have slipped.
To: okie01
SO that is where all the classified documents ended up...in your filing cabinet. So glad you have the straight skinny. Otherwise we would be forced to believe those who were there.
For all of Turkle's faults, I am glad he did this interview while the General is still with us. It won't be long when they will be gone and we will be at the mercy of the liberal revisionists.
To: Paleo Conservative
This is really a complex issue. The B-29s were stripped of the machine guns and armor because of a change in tactics. The B-29 was significantly different from the B-17 in a number of areas. It was designed to attack from a much higher altitude. It was fully pressurized. At these altitudes, the number of fighters capable of intercepting the B-29 was drastically reduced. While these higher altitudes offered significant advantages, it meant that the bombers encountered the jet streams. The jet streams over Japan tossed the bombers about so much (and interferred with the falling bombs) as to render precision bombing techniques ineffective.
Le May solved this problem by attacking at very low altitudes and at night. This combination exploited a hole in the Japanese air defense. The Japanese were incapable of effectively vectoring fighters against large low altitude night time attacks. Since there was no effective defense, there was no need for armor or defensive guns. Le May could then increase the bomb loads by removing the unneeded weight. Of course, we would not be able to conduct precision strikes under those conditions. Le May realized that massive fire bombings would exploit the fact that most Japanese buildings were wood and that the massive number of fires would over-whelm the Japanese fire fighting system. Accuracy was unimportant when firebombing cities. BTW, the Japanese suffered far more casualities in these fire bombing attacks than from atomic attack. Millions versus a few hundred thousand.
Now, the Germans did have jet fighters but even by April 1945, they were not all that effective. The combination of an advancing allied army and raids on their support bases made it very difficult for the Germans to launch a signficant number of 262s. Those who did launch faced the fact that, while in the air, they did have significant advantages over the Mustangs they did have to land. A significant number were lost when jumped by Mustangs while on their approach runs to their bases. The Germans were forced to constanly relocate their fighter bases which disrupted fuel supplies, repair parts, repair operations, etc. These conditions would have only gotten worse by the time the bomb might have been available in the European theater.
Whether the Luftwaffe would have perceived the threat posed by a single bomber becomes somewhat irrelevent under the conditions. In fact, we could have flown multiple flights of two or three bombers (as a fake) forcing the Luftwaffe to react while we blanked their bases with Mustangs awaiting the return of the 262s. We could also have flown larger formations than were used against Japan. Even if the formation was intercepted, the few German fighters (two maybe three or four) would not have known which aircraft was carrying the bomb.
Bottom line, I just don't think that the Luftwaffe would have offered any more of a threat than did the Imperial Air Force.
To: Reaganwuzthebest
I suppose it wouldn't have happened mainly because the atomic bomb's fathers were Europeans refugees.
86
posted on
08/11/2002 5:19:33 AM PDT
by
Jordi
To: southernnorthcarolina
Randy Newman bump.
To: stboz
This begs the question, "Was there ever an unsuccessful test prior to Trinity?" No
To: Reaganwuzthebest
And this shoulda-woulda-if info is relative how?
To: Reaganwuzthebest
The World's First Nuclear Device Was Exploded on July 16, 1945.
May 8, 1945 Dispatch from Gen. Eisenhower, SHAFE HQ, "The mission of this command has been successfully fulfilled."
If we'd had it, we would have used it against the Germans. And after the Battle of Europe, Americans had absolutely no stomache for a protracted "Battle of Japan".
To: lavaroise
The targetting of civilians started too late. A German general said that had we started right from the beginning of targetting their logistics infrastructure, the war would have been won by allies 2 years earlier. Read Albert Speer's "Inside the Third Reich". He agrees. He studied the bottlenecks in German industry and concluded that if the Allies had concentrated their bombing against ballbearing and oil refineries they could bring German war production to a virtual standstill. The funny thing, at the same time that Speer was arguing to disperse German ballbearing production, Bomber Harris was arguing that the Germans must already have dispersed it. In the event, the Allies started targeting ballbearing production only after it had been dispersed, but there was a window of opportunity. OTOH, oil production got about 5% of Allied bombing and caused about half the decline in German war production.
To: SteveH
>> I think the bomb rack itself ended up being hurriedly classified and recalled once its existence became known to the facility restoration crew at that time, and they were asked not to say anything about it (supposedly they didn't, for a while).
The entire 509th Composite Bombardment Group's only mission was to deliver nuclear weapons. They reported directly to Hap Arnold completely cutting out MacAuthur. They had made practice runs against Japan dropping simulated atom bombs several times. Tokyo Rose taunted them "Men of the 509th bombard group, your weapons have had no effect". The Japanese must have been puzzled by B-29's dropping 10-ton dummy bombs on parachutes and turning suddenly 135 degrees. If the Japanese been looking, they would have seen it coming. One German physicist noticed that all reference to fission and nuclear research in English Language physics publications suddenly ceased in 1942. He took it to mean that the Anglo-Saxons had launched on a program of nuclear research and such matters were now considered military secrets.
To: Redleg Duke
"SO that is where all the classified documents ended up...in your filing cabinet. So glad you have the straight skinny. Otherwise we would be forced to believe those who were there." Read a little history. You can learn a lot.
93
posted on
08/11/2002 4:03:56 PM PDT
by
okie01
To: PolishProud
And this shoulda-woulda-if info is relative how? See post #57
To: alloysteel
Nazi Germany was ALWAYS the primary target for first use of the atomic bomb. I am shocked it took 21 posts to get to what I thought was general knowledge. The Manhattan Projects scientists were irate about plans to drop the bomb on Japan.
I guess they thought it was okay to use it to stop the Nazis from killing their families but those people in Korea, China and elsewhere should just go on suffering.
To: Reaganwuzthebest
Look at it this way, eastern europe is now a closer ally to america than western europe will ever be. (excluding the english, of course, and maybe norway)
To: Reaganwuzthebest
Wasn't the british spitfire suposedly superior to our p51?
To: All
Later in the interview, Tibbets reveals another important piece of hidden history--that the US was just about to drop a third atomic bomb on Japan when it surrendered: I thought from watching the history channel that we only had 3 and 1 was detonated before "fat man" as a test.
Is that wrong?
To: edskid
yeah, they ruskies had spirit, but no equipment.
To: Paleo Conservative
I'm reminded of an old story of chuck yeager shooting down a jet with his P51 during the korean war, I think. Maybe it was vietnam.
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