Author Topic: Hiroshima Aniversary....  (Read 13795 times)

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You certainly don't live up to your name there Charismatic. That was an incredibly ignorant thing to say. It's that kind of thinking that causes racism, discrimination, and hate. IceFire has already said most of the things I would've said, so I'll just add this...

This more of a day of observation and remembrance than celebration now. The same goes for December 7, D-Day, and most wartime historical events. Have you been to Pearl Harbor? I suggest you visit if you ever have the opportunity. It's quite an experience, even though you'd only getting one side of the story. History is taught so that we learn from the mistakes of our ancestors and not repeat them. It's over, get over it. The same will be said of the events that happen in our time in the future.

 

Offline Kosh

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You certainly don't live up to your name there Charismatic. That was an incredibly ignorant thing to say. It's that kind of thinking that causes racism, discrimination, and hate.


Couldn't have said it better myself.

I am not going to say anything more about that. I will not flame him for it.

As tempting as that is......

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History is taught so that we learn from the mistakes of our ancestors and not repeat them.


Unfortunatly, that isn't entirely true. History is taught from a very one sided perspective. For example, in the south, after their defeat in the Civil War, The north was always villified for a long time (maybe it still is, don't know about that part, but it certainly explains why they are still pissed about it). In the north, it is taught that they were doing the right thing, and freeing the slaves, etc. The point is, history is often distorted towards one side or another, depending on who is retelling it.

People rarely listen to history, and as such history repeats itself over and over again.
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Offline aldo_14

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Originally posted by Charismatic
[pointlessuncareingstatement] yay celebrate the blowing up into bits, of those jap punks (except the good ones like nientendo who create the Legend of Zelda series games)[/pointlessuncareingstatement]

EDIT:
[angry]I think we should have blown over their whole country, nation, with atomic bombs. Massive slaughter. They killed our men and ships at peral harbor, they deserved to die. [/angry]

i dont like our military or our nation or goverment myself, but il stick with them on this. For some reason im now kind of angry at the japs for peral harbor. bastards..


I can't believe you actually edited in something even more offensive..... from a military standpoint IMO Hiroshima made sense, but like all war it was a horrible, ****ty thing, a punishment inflicted upon innocents for the acts of others.  War is not something you should ever celebrate, but something you mourn.

 

Offline TrashMan

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It's not the issue of weather the use o A-bombs was warranted or not (It's a terrible weapon that I personally would never choose to use) - it's the question of a target.

If they dropped it on aone of the pcific islands where the japs were dug in deep or a ISOLATED naval/air/ base I wouldn't say a thing. But they dropped it on a CITY, on CIVILIANS!
That's unforgivable.

the ends doesn't justify the means, remember? And to think some even now think Japanese FORCED the americans to drop the bombs on their cities! Utter crap. You can't FORCE someone into something like that. that's called guild projection - trying to make the other guy look guilty for your actions. It doesn't work by smart people.

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A fanatical, imperial (wannabe) nation which still held 100,000 prisoners of war and over 600,000 people in concentration camps (not to mention millions of Chinese)? One that'd commited numerous war One whose soldiers had chosen suicide over surrender in numerous occasions, and as a tactic of war?

I'd say it'd be dangerous to let that sort of nation retire and rebuild.


For my point of view America is more dangerous than Japan ever was... Should we nuke it?
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Offline aldo_14

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Originally posted by TrashMan
It's not the issue of weather the use o A-bombs was warranted or not (It's a terrible weapon that I personally would never choose to use) - it's the question of a target.

If they dropped it on aone of the pcific islands where the japs were dug in deep or a ISOLATED naval/air/ base I wouldn't say a thing. But they dropped it on a CITY, on CIVILIANS!
That's unforgivable.

the ends doesn't justify the means, remember? And to think some even now think Japanese FORCED the americans to drop the bombs on their cities! Utter crap. You can't FORCE someone into something like that. that's called guild projection - trying to make the other guy look guilty for your actions. It doesn't work by smart people.


What are you on about?  No-ones suggested the US were 'forced' into dropping the bombs, just whether it was the most sensible military action to take within the context of the ongoing war.

I'd point out that both Hiroshima and Nagasaki did have military significance; Hiroshima included the HQ for the 5th field division and the 2nd general army HQ, was a communications and logistics centre, an assmebly point for troops, and had thousands of conscripted women, children and Koreans working in military offices and factories, as well as the women and children training as resistance fighters in the event of US invasion.

Nagasaki was one of the largest sea ports in Japan and had a large number of factories building munitions, war equipment, etc, such as the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works.

Remember WW2 was fought in an era of total war - every side mobilized their entire society to fight or support the war effort, and as such it was accepted tactics to attack civillian populations to degrade the war-fighting ability of that society as whole.  Just look at the Blitz, Dresden, the V-attacks, the firebombing of Japan, etc.  Within that context the use of a nuclear weapon is scarcely exceptional or odd; it's just a bigger bang.  If you wish to condemn attacking civillians then be fair and condemn pretty much every large scale Allied and Axis bombing raid launched.

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Originally posted by TrashMan
For my point of view America is more dangerous than Japan ever was... Should we nuke it?


Incorrect analogy;

Firstly the US is not attacking 'us' in a direct sense, regardless of the negative effect of US foreign policy it's not a case of vis-a-vis military action (except in the event of Iraq), any attack would be an escalation of any current hostility into actual war.  In the event of said war, the military tactics used would have to be 'best effect'; it's highly unlikely a nuclear attack would fit in that category (i.e. see below).

Also, the position has changed in that a nuclear attack would pre-empt a similarly scaled retaliation; a nuke is no longer a war-ender as seen in WW2, but is more of a war starter.  In WW2 it was clearly used as method to force Japanese surrender.

Finally, targeting precision has improved in the modern era to the extent carpet bombing is no longer essential in targeting key infrastructure; it can be done using (for example) laser or satellite guided cruise missiles, thus requiring less munitions to ensure a hit.

 

Offline TrashMan

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Originally posted by aldo_14


What are you on about?  No-ones suggested the US were 'forced' into dropping the bombs, just whether it was the most sensible military action to take within the context of the ongoing war.

I'd point out that both Hiroshima and Nagasaki did have military significance; Hiroshima included the HQ for the 5th field division and the 2nd general army HQ, was a communications and logistics centre, an assmebly point for troops, and had thousands of conscripted women, children and Koreans working in military offices and factories, as well as the women and children training as resistance fighters in the event of US invasion.

Nagasaki was one of the largest sea ports in Japan and had a large number of factories building munitions, war equipment, etc, such as the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works.

Remember WW2 was fought in an era of total war - every side mobilized their entire society to fight or support the war effort, and as such it was accepted tactics to attack civillian populations to degrade the war-fighting ability of that society as whole.  Just look at the Blitz, Dresden, the V-attacks, the firebombing of Japan, etc.  Within that context the use of a nuclear weapon is scarcely exceptional or odd; it's just a bigger bang.  If you wish to condemn attacking civillians then be fair and condemn pretty much every large scale Allied and Axis bombing raid launched.


What part of "ends doesn't justify the means" don't you undersand?

Teh children were conscripted and were working on the rice fields to feed teh army. or in the assembly lines. So therefore, it's OK to burn them to a crisp?
There wasa HQ in the centre of the city? Fine, why didn't you use a block buster to take ONLY IT out, and not all the men, women and CHILDREN in a 3km radius?

By your logic, a suicide bomber can justify it's actions by saing: "Hey look. I was targeting a solder that stood in the middle of those 100 people when I detonated the bomb. The civilians were not my target, so it's OK?"

And yes, I'm condoning EVERY attak on civilian populace in any fropm whatsoever!
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Offline karajorma

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Originally posted by TrashMan
There wasa HQ in the centre of the city? Fine, why didn't you use a block buster to take ONLY IT out, and not all the men, women and CHILDREN in a 3km radius?


Perhaps cause no such weapon existed at the time? :rolleyes:
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Offline Bobboau

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what part of "condemn pretty much every large scale Allied and Axis bombing raid launched" don't you understand, the bombings that ended the war were just like every other bombing in that war exept they only used one bomb a peice.

here, you want to feel sorry for the Japaneese, here let's put it into context, this is what the japaneese thought of civilian centers







yes, it was a war.
have you seen what happened to Germany? why doesn't anyone ***** about that, it was the same level of damage, similar levels of indecriminant killing, but because we took longer to do it, for some reason that was fine but nukeing Japan, oh, no that was 'just another example of American imperinalism'. it was a war, a war of survival, and you don't stop, you don't let up at all in a war like that untill your enemy had been beaten, totaly, or you die.
try to think about the situation, try to forget your sheltered little safe life for one second, and try to visualise the world 50 years ago, we didn't have 50 billion nukes then so our survival wasn't assured, it was quite posable that some army could come rolling over the country side at any moment. it was well within posability that any nation could fall and be enslaved by another, we were trying to win the WAR so we (and by we I mean me and you(and by you I mean anyone reading this, unless your german, italian or japaneese)) wouldn't _DIE_.
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Offline aldo_14

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Originally posted by TrashMan


What part of "ends doesn't justify the means" don't you undersand?

Teh children were conscripted and were working on the rice fields to feed teh army. or in the assembly lines. So therefore, it's OK to burn them to a crisp?
There wasa HQ in the centre of the city? Fine, why didn't you use a block buster to take ONLY IT out, and not all the men, women and CHILDREN in a 3km radius?


As kara pointed out - and as I pointed out in that post - no such weapons existed.  In fact, I think I said 3 or 4 times that the conditions of bombing campaigns have changed with new technology and particularly accuracy.

All bombs were dropped using more or less visual only indicators.  The alternative to a nuclear bomb - as used in Tokyo and Dresden, for example - was firebombing or carpet bombing.

(In fact, the firebombing campaign carried out against Japan killed more people than the blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki; estimates for those killed at Dresden range up to 300,000).

You also fail to understand the concept of 'total war'.  Put simply, it means that every part of a country becomes a viable target as the civillian infrastructure is an essential part of fuelling a war effort.  In WW2, that meant carpet bombing cities.

It doesn't matter whether or not these people were conscripts or volunteers - that distinction isn't made on the battlefield when shooting enemy soldiers, and it can't be made when targeting an infrastructure.  Nowadays surgical strikes are possible - but not 60 years ago.

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Originally posted by TrashMan

By your logic, a suicide bomber can justify it's actions by saing: "Hey look. I was targeting a solder that stood in the middle of those 100 people when I detonated the bomb. The civilians were not my target, so it's OK?"

And yes, I'm condoning EVERY attak on civilian populace in any fropm whatsoever!


Again, you miss the fundemental principle of total warfare in 1945; every part of a country that supports the war effort is considered a valid, military target.  Even in modern day warfare, when we can use precision strikes against key targets with relatively little (to WW2) collateral damage, the people working in those logistical targets are still in 'the line of fire'.

War is ****.  We already know this.

But that's not the issue.  The issue is, and always has been, within the context of World War 2 and the viable alternatives, was the dropping of the bombs the most effective (in terms of lives) way of ending the war?  I would say the evidence supports that it was.

And the difference between a suicide bomber and this sort of campaign is that the individual civillians were involved within a war effort, whereas the civillians tackled by a terrorist act are almost certainly not and are proxies for political attacks.  A terrorist act is probably more akin to bombing a neutral country to place pressure on another government.

 

Offline IceFire

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Originally posted by TrashMan


What part of "ends doesn't justify the means" don't you undersand?

Teh children were conscripted and were working on the rice fields to feed teh army. or in the assembly lines. So therefore, it's OK to burn them to a crisp?
There wasa HQ in the centre of the city? Fine, why didn't you use a block buster to take ONLY IT out, and not all the men, women and CHILDREN in a 3km radius?

By your logic, a suicide bomber can justify it's actions by saing: "Hey look. I was targeting a solder that stood in the middle of those 100 people when I detonated the bomb. The civilians were not my target, so it's OK?"

And yes, I'm condoning EVERY attak on civilian populace in any fropm whatsoever!

They didn't have block busters.  There were almost no guided weapons of any kind (the Germans experimented with ship killing guided rockets but that was another story).  The accepted and conventional method of attacking enemy industry was to bomb the city they were in with intention of hitting the industry but with no guarantee that it would actually happen.

This is true of all airforces on all sides.  Everyone did it.  Nobodys hands are clean.  As aldo mentions, this was the age of total war where all elements of society were mobilized to fight the war and all elements of society were also subjected to the harsh realities of it.

The decision to drop the atomic bomb is questionable and definately objectional due to the massive loss of life - but lets remember that the bombing of London, Dresden, Tokyo, Berlin, various Chinese cities, Stalingrad, Leningrad and a host of others were just as costly in human lives.

And lets remember what the sort of technology was involved.  You had incendiary and general purpose dumb bombs (as we now call them).  You fly 100 or 200 or 300 (200-300 if your the 8th AF) multiengine bombers over the target at 25 or 30,000 feet, you have a bombadier in a lead plane that spots the target, estimates all the variables (indicated airspeed, ground speed, altitude, wind drift, etc.), makes a calculation and signals the other bombers to drop their loads.  All the while being shot at by indescriminate flak bursts.  The margin of error was significant.  Its not like today where you can desginate a building and destroy it from 100km away.

As to the dropping of the weapon...all other things aside...the choice is between continuing to fight (i.e. engaging in Operation Olympic - the invasion of Japan) or ending the war quickly.  Had the war gone into 1946 and the invasion was started....there quite possibly would have been even more casualties (more civilians too as they were instructed to form a human wall when the Americans landed on the beaches).  So its a really really difficult thing to go back and say that what happened was the wrong thing to do.  There appears to be no easy decision and no right way to go about things.  Thousands and millions of civilians were going to die either way.

This is why war is a terrible thing and we need to study our past mistakes in order to understand them and hope that we never have to make the same decisions again.  Too few remember or understand their history lessons.
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Offline TrashMan

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Originally posted by aldo_14

And the difference between a suicide bomber and this sort of campaign is that the individual civillians were involved within a war effort, whereas the civillians tackled by a terrorist act are almost certainly not and are proxies for political attacks.  A terrorist act is probably more akin to bombing a neutral country to place pressure on another government.


Yes, I see. Childern playing in the park are part of hte war effort. Kil lthem..

Oh wait! I just rememebr what Osama said. Any American citizen pay taxes that in turn pay for tha ameriacn army that they are at war with! there you go - civilians involved in the war effort, therefore a viable target!

You see? a human being can allways find a way to rationalize and justify their action no matter what those actions are. So don't give me none of that crap.

X doing Y doesn't give you the universal right to bomb cities and civilains. And maby they didn't have blockbusters but they had big bombs -* lot's of them. How many you need to take out a HQ anyway?

And like I said before - It's not the question of droping hte A-bonmb, iot's where they dropped it. They could have chosen other target to demonstrate the new and terrible weapon. Heck, they could have bombed a mountain!
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Offline karajorma

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Originally posted by TrashMan
And maby they didn't have blockbusters but they had big bombs -* lot's of them. How many you need to take out a HQ anyway?


Weren't you paying attention? The only way to be certain of destroying the HQ would have been to carpet bomb the city. That would have probably caused as many casualties as the A-bomb anyway.

Quote
Originally posted by TrashMan
And like I said before - It's not the question of droping hte A-bonmb, iot's where they dropped it. They could have chosen other target to demonstrate the new and terrible weapon. Heck, they could have bombed a mountain!


Remember that America only had 2 atomic bombs in the first place. The use of the atomic bomb and Truman's threat that followed were something of a bluff. Had the Japanese decided not to surrender after the 2nd bomb was used the Americans would have had to wait till later that month for the 3rd to be completed and even longer for the 4th.

Who's to say that dropping an A-bomb on a mountain would have achieved anything? Hell it might have even convinced the Japanese leadership that the Americans lacked the will to drop the A-Bomb.
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Offline aldo_14

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Originally posted by TrashMan


Yes, I see. Childern playing in the park are part of hte war effort. Kil lthem..

Oh wait! I just rememebr what Osama said. Any American citizen pay taxes that in turn pay for tha ameriacn army that they are at war with! there you go - civilians involved in the war effort, therefore a viable target!


You don't get it, do you?  

Hiroshima was geared up as a war city; it was devoted to manufacturing arms, munitions, assembling troops and logistics.  It had been undergoing a systemic evacuation, with troops and workers being shipped in; some of those children who were in the city were being trained to fight the expected invasion.

It wasn't picked as A Random City, it was picked as a key enemy tactical position.  The only reason it hadn't been bombed into the ground already was because they planned to use the nuclear bomb on it, and because - being next to a river - firebombing would not be as effective.

This was mid-20th century Total Warfare.  All society was geared up for war on both sides; if you want to condemn Hiroshima and Nagasaki as targets then you need to go ahead and condemn every other city bombing raid by the allies, because World War 2 was not fought by militaries but by nations.

(Incidentally, the original target for the second bomb was Kokura arsenal, Japans largest.  Nagasaki was bombed due to cloud cover over Kokura on the day).

EDIT; yes, it's ****ing horrible that civillians were killed.  But this is the nature of war, and certainly was the nature of WW2.  It's not exactly an uncommon thing in that conflict, y'know.  You want to argue war is horrible - fine, I agree.  But this is about a single tactical action within context, not the inherent ****tiness of any war.

Quote
Originally posted by TrashMan

You see? a human being can allways find a way to rationalize and justify their action no matter what those actions are. So don't give me none of that crap.

X doing Y doesn't give you the universal right to bomb cities and civilains. And maby they didn't have blockbusters but they had big bombs -* lot's of them. How many you need to take out a HQ anyway?


It's not the size of the bomb, it's aiming it.  This has been said  multiple times by plenty of people.

To quote directly from the Target Committee that selected Hiroshima for the bombing;
A. It was agreed that for the initial use of the weapon any small and strictly military objective should be located in a much larger area subject to blast damage in order to avoid undue risks of the weapon being lost due to bad placing of the bomb.

Which illustrates the difficulties of precise bombing raids.

EDIT; and what the **** is a nuke except a 'big bomb'?  Are you saying unlimited civvie casualities are ok from conventional bombing runs (I mention again every other raid in WW2)

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Originally posted by TrashMan
And like I said before - It's not the question of droping hte A-bonmb, iot's where they dropped it. They could have chosen other target to demonstrate the new and terrible weapon. Heck, they could have bombed a mountain!


There's no strategic military value in bombing a mountain.  The military only had, what, 2 of these weapons and no guarantee it would lead to surrender - so why would they piss one away on a 'demonstration' when they were still fighting a war?

In fact, that's the exact reason they rejected a symbolic attack on the Emperors Palace; The Emperor's palace in Tokyo has a greater fame than any other target but is of least strategic value.
« Last Edit: August 09, 2005, 06:39:05 pm by 181 »

 

Offline karajorma

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It's also worth pointing out that the US avoided bombing Kyoto because of it's cultural importance.
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Offline Sigma957

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Well atleast with conventional bombing there is no such thing as radiation fallout,while it would have taken more to flatten the city, many more people would not have suffered for months slowely dieing and could have escaped.
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Offline Bobboau

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it wasn't as well known about then, and if it was they didn't care, you see we were involved in this thing called a war with them.
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Offline Mefustae

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So as to avoid the wrath of Aldo pointing out things, i shall simply educate the occular senses:

This is an excellent video of Atomic Testing in 1946 at the Bikini Atoll:
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0508/feature6/multimedia.html

And if you enjoyed that, here's some stunning footage of the Largest Nuclear Detonation ever conducted, care of the famous Tsar Bomba (As seen below):



And a samply of the collossal explosion:



You can find the Video here; http://rapidshare.de/files/3100388/Tsar_Bomba.avi.html

And a rather informative Wiki article here;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

Enjoy! :D

 

Offline TrashMan

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Originally posted by karajorma
Weren't you paying attention? The only way to be certain of destroying the HQ would have been to carpet bomb the city. That would have probably caused as many casualties as the A-bomb anyway.


This is rich! I got to write it down! Destroying a single (or a couple) of structues by conventional bombs would be as devastating as an atom bomb! Oh, is my friend at work gonna get a kick out of this! :D


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You don't get it, do you?

Hiroshima was geared up as a war city; it was devoted to manufacturing arms, munitions, assembling troops and logistics. It had been undergoing a systemic evacuation, with troops and workers being shipped in; some of those children who were in the city were being trained to fight the expected invasion.


Oh, I get it, but apparently you don't.

As soon as you start making excaption and approving bombing of civlilains you are practicly inviting the other side to do the same.
Bombing civlians is a NO. NEVER.

As far as the invasion and Japanese surrender go - tehy were defeated and they knew it. The didn't have enough oil left to sustain their war effort. Their biggest battleship Yamato was sunk at the entrace to a harbor to be used as a static defense becouse of that. they had to srape every last drop of oil from miles around just to assemble a smal lorce. Thier plane industry was slow and they lost allmsot all of their planes - half of their tanks were without gas.
By the end of the war, the US has built a massive fleet and fitted thier ships with tons of AA guns. They even had specilized ships covered in AA guns who's only purpose was to tag fighters. Jap air attacks became allmost useless.
Half hte world decalred war on theim - they lost nrealy all pacific islands, the US fleet was knicing at the door and the russians were aproaching from the back.
All the US needed to do was park their fleet outside Jap harbors and wait. They would have surendered before the russians arrived. The A-bomb wasn't needed at all.
Why they dropped it on a city? I don't think it has nothing to do with precision - it was more of a test, as they didn't realyl know exactly how powerfull the weapon is or how devastating hte radiation would be.

And spare me "the normal bombs were inprecise speech". My hobby is warfare and military technology. The bombing targeting mechanisms were rather perfected by hte end of a war andon a clear day and with a good gunner, you could have scored a direct hit. and guess what - it was a clear day.
Even if normal bombs were uber-inprecise, carpet bombing a single structure is a better solution than a A-bomb.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who supports the droping of that bomb deserves to be placed in Hiroshima a few seconds before th bomb blows. And not close to the center either. No quick death - a slow, agonizing one. I wonder how supporting they would be then.

I condemn totaly ANY killing of ANY civilians(especialyl childeren)
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Offline Mefustae

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Quote
Originally posted by TrashMan
This is rich! I got to write it down! Destroying a single (or a couple) of structues by conventional bombs would be as devastating as an atom bomb! Oh, is my friend at work gonna get a kick out of this! :D


Actually, that's not entirely accurate, by which i mean Conventional Bombings COULD and WERE about as effective as the Atom Bomb; I'm speaking, of course, of the insane technique of Firebombing that the Allies had used in Europe, and the US had conducted in Japan towards the closure of the War.

Now, before you flame me, i realise that a Firebombing may not be completely conventional, but this technique of unbridled destruction was used many times during the war, and was a hell of a lot more conventional than your friend and mine, Mr Atom Bomb.

Now, as you've stated that Warfare and Military Technology is your hobby, i won't bore you with the details, but just remember that - in an extremely short time - the Firebombing of Tokyo killed more than 80,000 people (some sources cite over 100,000, but that's not the point) which is approximately how many perished at Hiroshima. Now, i must concede that many more Civilians were indeed killed in the dastardly bombing of Hiroshima, one must consider ALL the facts when flaming someone :p

And for the record; personally, I don't really loath American leadership at the time for allowing the Atomic Blasts, but for actually embracing it. I recall hearing a broadcast of one of Truman's speechs, in which he effectively states; "We will continue to use the Bomb on their cities until they concede and surrender!" While i agree that the bombs were quite unwarrented, it was the attitude towards their use, this idea that Truman was prepared to launch an all out Atomic Assault against Japan (although considering they only had two at the time leaves this open to consideration), not to mention the fact that there are many here who support this notion, really makes me sick...

 

Offline aldo_14

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Originally posted by TrashMan


This is rich! I got to write it down! Destroying a single (or a couple) of structues by conventional bombs would be as devastating as an atom bomb! Oh, is my friend at work gonna get a kick out of this! :D


More than a couple.  Think more along the lines of the entire industrial section of the city.

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Originally posted by TrashMan

Oh, I get it, but apparently you don't.

As soon as you start making excaption and approving bombing of civlilains you are practicly inviting the other side to do the same.
Bombing civlians is a NO. NEVER.


What the **** do you think the axis were spending their time doing?
you're not seriously painting Japan of all nations in that war as being the epitome of avoiding civillian casualties?  Ever heard of Chongqing?  Or Nanking?

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Originally posted by TrashMan

As far as the invasion and Japanese surrender go - tehy were defeated and they knew it. The didn't have enough oil left to sustain their war effort. Their biggest battleship Yamato was sunk at the entrace to a harbor to be used as a static defense becouse of that. they had to srape every last drop of oil from miles around just to assemble a smal lorce. Thier plane industry was slow and they lost allmsot all of their planes - half of their tanks were without gas.
By the end of the war, the US has built a massive fleet and fitted thier ships with tons of AA guns. They even had specilized ships covered in AA guns who's only purpose was to tag fighters. Jap air attacks became allmost useless.
Half hte world decalred war on theim - they lost nrealy all pacific islands, the US fleet was knicing at the door and the russians were aproaching from the back.
All the US needed to do was park their fleet outside Jap harbors and wait. They would have surendered before the russians arrived. The A-bomb wasn't needed at all.
Why they dropped it on a city? I don't think it has nothing to do with precision - it was more of a test, as they didn't realyl know exactly how powerfull the weapon is or how devastating hte radiation would be.


They dropped it on a tactical target, simple as that.

If the Japanese were so eager to surrender, why did they wait for the second bomb in Nagasaki?

Why did Hisatsune Sakomizu, the chief Cabinet secretary in 1945, call the bombing "a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war"?

Why did Koichi Kido, one of emperor Hirohito's closest advisors, state that "We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war"?

Where is any evidence that the military of Japan wanted to surrender, given that Major General Masakazu Amanu, chief of the operations section at Japanese Imperial Headquarters,was absolutely convinced his defensive perparations (started in 1944) could repeal any invasion?  And bearing in mind as a constitutional monarchy the cabinet had to unanimously (including the militarists dominating it) agree to any offer of surrender.

The Japanese would have considered surrender, yes - but only after repulsing an invasion, in order to broker better terms.

(oh, and the US was blockading Japanese ports with submarines and mines under Operation Starvation, which was due to have been followed up by attacks on railway stations.  It has been estimated that, had the war continued into 1946 as expected under invasion, around 7 million would have starved to death)

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And spare me "the normal bombs were inprecise speech". My hobby is warfare and military technology. The bombing targeting mechanisms were rather perfected by hte end of a war andon a clear day and with a good gunner, you could have scored a direct hit. and guess what - it was a clear day.
Even if normal bombs were uber-inprecise, carpet bombing a single structure is a better solution than a A-bomb.


Then why did the B-29 raids on Tokyo using conventional weapons feel the necessity to destroy 16 square miles and kill 100,000 people? (flying at 7,000 feet due to the inability to aim at previous 28,000ft limits because of crosswind - a height usually prohibited due to the AAAf at that level*).

*the raid succeeded because the AAAf simply was equipped and aiming for a high-altitude raid

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As far as I'm concerned, anyone who supports the droping of that bomb deserves to be placed in Hiroshima a few seconds before th bomb blows. And not close to the center either. No quick death - a slow, agonizing one. I wonder how supporting they would be then.

I condemn totaly ANY killing of ANY civilians(especialyl childeren)


What is your alternative then?  Invasion of Japan?

You're in command, what would you do?

 On the one hand you can invade and extend the war well into 1946, with estimations of as much as 1 million casualties on your side alone (excluding the 100,000 Allied POWs ordered to be executed in the event of an invasion).  Against a fanatical enemy training schoolgirls to fight with sharpened bamboo sticks, form a human shield on the landing zones and who is training medical orderlies to strap explosives onto themselves and jump under tanks.

In a situation where offensives across asia - excluding those of the Russians - were killing an estimated 20,000 civillians per month.

On the other you have a bomb that could, if used in the correct way, convince the Japanese they had no choice but to surrender and end the war in one fell swoop.