The A-Bomb the determining factor?

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bobbysocks

Chief Master Sergeant
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Feb 28, 2010
Pennsylvania
in the other threads we have been throwing back and forth the likely outcomes if the alles had no P 51s or any other long range escort that could contend with the LW. i am not going to extend that debate to this thread but pose the scenario. the allies have halted all daylight bombing that is beyond the reach of the current fighter escorts. northern france, north east germany are still within strinking distance from england but beyond that only bombed during the night time hours. now some resources are freed up and are able to be shipped to the eastern front to bolster the retreating units....the LW and especially the 262 units unmolested and able to repair and rearm in relative peace is actually able to grow in strength and experience. the war would have taken on a different complexion. would the outcome have been the same? what we do know is that the US had nuclear capability to bomb japan on aug 6, 1945. so here's my question. if the war in europe had stalled out or gains ground to slow achievments on both fronts and the US now had the "bomb" and 2 adversaries....how would it best be deployed and against whom? what would be the criteria and drawbacks?
 
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The bomb would probably not have to be deployed against more than one foe. After it was dropped on one foe, the threat of being bombed with a nuclear device would probably have been enough to disuade the "other" countries from continuing the war.

If not, we would have used it agianst more than one country. The end objective was to end the war.

Prosecuite until you win or are defeated or until you foresee irrecoverable damage to your country. Then return to the negotiating table by diplomacy or by surrender.
 
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I'm not sure that it would have been used in the ETO. Different dynamics involved. Public and political attitude towards the Japanese were different than the attitude towards Europeans. Far too many Americans had close ties to their "homeland" in Europe to even accept dropping the A bomb on the population.
 
We need to consider German ability to retaliate during August 1945. They've got nerve gas plus V1s, V2s and jet bombers. That might be enough to deter atomic bomb use in Europe.

Using atomic bombs against Japan doesn't carry the same risk as Japan cannot hit the USA or Britain with weapons of mass destruction.
 
Germany and her allies will capitulate if they are offered something better then national destruction followed by Soviet occupation. Otherwise they will fight as long as they have weapons and ammunition. Atomic bombs don't change that equation.
 
davebender said:
Germany and her allies will capitulate if they are offered something better then national destruction followed by Soviet occupation. Otherwise they will fight as long as they have weapons and ammunition. Atomic bombs don't change that equation.
Click to expand...
By spring of 1945, what allies did Germany have ? And that situation would not of been any better by August.
 
There were factions in Germany who wanted to capitulate long before the the actual surrender. My bet is that the threat of a nuclear bomb after what happened in Japan would have made most of the die hards in Germany ready to give up and if Hitler had stood in the way they would have disposed of him. To think that the leaders in Germany were any more fanatical than those in Japan is IMO incorrect.
 
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Austria and Sudatenland (if you want to consider them seperate nations).
Slovakia.
Hungary.
Croatia.
Kurland (not a nation but definately rooting for a communist defeat).
Northern Italy.

In this scenario they may have a few more such as Romania and Finland. It depends on where Germany has established a solid eastern front defensive line.
 
Try again dave, in the real world those "countries" had already surrendered or were looking for somebody to surrender to, usually anybody but the Russians that is.
Rumania had switched sides in Aug. of 44, Budapest fell in Feb. 45, And all Finland was ever interested in was recovering what it lost in the Winter War.
 
Sorry guys, you are thinking like modern people. In WWII, almost nobody knew what a Atomic Bomb was or how much damage it would do.

So you really think Harry Trumman would have hesitated to drop an A-bomb on Germany if he had it sooner?

They knew so little about it at time that they were fliming a movie downwind from the first A-bomb blast in New Mexico at the Trinity site. Most of the people in that movie, including John Wayne, eventually died of cancer later, probably due to radiation fallout from the blast. I'm pretty sure Harry Trumman didn't realize the long-term effects of an A-bomb in 1945. He would have used it if he thought it would shorten the war.
 
Germany having the bomb is the only real 'game changer' I can see that alters the outcome of the war.
Well that and the unpredictable human element I guess.

Even with a halt to the daylight bombing as described Germany is still a place where movement of heavy materials and equipment is becoming increasingly problematic as transport infrastructure is destroyed over and over again, a place of desperate shortages in strategic materials and dwindling manpower.

As with so many of these 'tactical' changes none of them alter the strategic situation, a medium sized European country with limited access to the sea simply can not end up at war with most of the rest of the developed world and expect to do anything but lose dreadfully.
Which is exactly what happened.
Germany wasn't just defeated but smashed completely.
 

I was thinking along those same lines when I posted what I did.
 

Hitler felt that if the german people were not able to defeat their enemies, Germany itself did not deserve to survive. To that extend he issued 'scorched earth' orders. Nothing was to be left to the enemy. Atomic bombs to him would be just another means to accomplish that. In the final days of the war several high ranked Nazi's tried to negotiate a sort of truce but there was no such thing as an organized uprising against the Fuhrer.
 
It was pretty organized when they tried to kill him with a bomb. A number of people were in on the plot. If the top commanders left at the end had decided Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not for them they could have stopped the war. Take another look at the pictures of those cities. The biggest question in my mind would be; how long does it take for the US to manufacture more Abombs?
 
I'm pretty sure I've read that there was no such thing as a stock of A-bombs for many years after WW2.
There may have been materials for another one or two, maybe even three at a push but AFAIK there was nothing like a production line going and they remained few in number for some time.
 
According to Col. Tibbets himself, he was back on the west coast to pick up the 3rd A-bomb, when Japan surrendered. I'm not going to suggest he was lying.
There was no stock of A-bombs, but they were assembling them as plutonium was made.

It's been awhile since i've read on it but they could have made as many as 4 or 5 by the years end, had it been necessary.
 
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