[Colonol Dekker]

What about helicopters

 

[headdie]

see we have this little thing called mutually assured destruction. you nuke us we nuke you and we have so many of them the world will end. i credit it for preventing WW3. unfortunately it had the side effect of making people not want to fire their warheads. in terms of war casualties the nuke is dwarfed heavily by the ak-47. and the weapon that racked up the greatest number of american kills ever was probably the rifled muskets used in the civil war. sad really.

there are three notable differences between nukes and conventional weapons.

1 is time

2 is target

3 is aftermath

time is time taken to kill x number of people, a nuke MIRV equipped ICBM can kill in one go today what it has taken decades for weapons like the AK47.

target the same nuke MIRV equipped ICBM is good for only one thing, hitting large areas which means you are going to hit a lot of civilians especially if you aim at political targets like seats of government (which was in both NATO and Warsaw Pact target lists).  Yes a rifle can and have been aimed at civilians but it is not unavoidable.

Aftermath, you fire a rifle there is a loud bang, a few fumes are released, some one dies (if aimed propperly) and that's it, you detonate a nuke and you smother a large area with dangerous levels of radiation which takes anywhere from months (for a really little tactical weapon) to years or decades to dissipate to safe levels.  anyone unable to leave this area is doomed to near guaranteed cancer, radiation sickness, infertility and other radiation related/affected illnesses

[Mobius]

I am just going to point out that in war you fight to win. If people die, they die.  That is what war is.  Civilians are the perfect target.

Are you (indirectly or not) putting Coventry, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the same level? If so, I think you completely missed the point.

The former (Coventry and Dresden) were almost completely useless for the war effort. Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended a war and, despite being two horrible episodes of human history, prevented many other Japanese people from losing their lives. Not to mention the Americans and, who knows, even the Russians who may have lost their lives during the invasion of Japan.

[Redstreblo]

To whom it may concern
Topic: New poll options

Whoever is adding the poll options *cough* Nuke *cough* take this: 



EDIT: ok, maybe this is a little extreme, but this was a serious topic... all poll edits finished now? All sillyness stays in the replys area? thanks! 

[NGTM-1R]

Anyone who has ever studied the Japanese and American plans surrounding Olympic and Coronet cannot doubt the wisdom of the decision to annihilate Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In most basic terms, the nuclear weapons were a nearly pointless exercise. The Air Force nighttime incendary bombing campaign against Japan caused many times the casualities and destruction. I am fully of the belief that LeMay should have been tried for war crimes for these acts. He doesn't even have the marginal defense RAF Bomber Command did. By the time the incendary raids were launched, the war was essentially over, with only how much it was going to cost both sides yet to be assigned.

However despite its relative damage to the Japanese nation and people being very small, the bomb represented a paradigm shift radical enough to bring home the hopelessness of the war to the Emperor. Before the nuclear weapons, but after the firebombing campaign, it was very clear Japan intended to fight to the end. It would ultimately be for naught by default, but it would have cost the United States heavily and resulted in effective racial suicide for Japan. By preventing both these things the bomb saved countless lives and ensured the continuation of the Japanese culture and Japanese state.

The real horror is when one considers what was intended for the nuclear weapons if they were not used the way they were. They would have been used in tactical support of the landings in Coronet. This would have resulted in huge casualities on both sides; the Japanese directly, the Americans due to radiation exposure.

time is time taken to kill x number of people, a nuke MIRV equipped ICBM can kill in one go today what it has taken decades for weapons like the AK47.

I'm fairly sure you can make an excellent argument that more people die alochol-related deaths every day world-wide then you could kill by setting off a nuclear device every day. Where's your moral outrage for that?

[Bobboau]

[edit]I started writing this when there were no replies, I hit submit, "there are 24 new replies" this should be understood in the context of addressing the OP and no one else.[/edit]

well, seance you brought up one bad thing that happened in WW2, let's put it into perspective of the other things that had happened. WW2 is a classical example of what is known as Total War, a class of warfare defined by one or both sides of the conflict putting the entirety of there resources into destroying the fighting capacity of the other. in this form of war industrial targets are considered valuable because they are were ammunition and weapons are manufactured, workers are considered valid targets cause they build the weapons, ammunition or in some other way contribute to the economy that is fueling the war effort trying to kill you. for similar reasons wearing down the productivity of workers via any means, including psychological trauma is also considered helpful.
Now, because everyone already hates Nazis I won't bother mentioning much from Europe, but stratigic bombing did happen in the European theater, many cites were reduced to almost complete rubble. also your question is in a vacuum because if we hadn't developed the bomb it does not mean other nations would not have, the Nazis were working on it too.

But the main interest here is US vs Japan.
obviously the first thing to mention is that they started it, with an extremely effective first strike that crippled the US pacific fleet. following this raid Japan had domination over all of asia india and the vast majority of the pacific.
"Over this vast expanse of waters Japan was supreme and we everywhere were weak and naked" - Winston Churchill
Japan made good use of it's monopoly on power and the US's decision to focus on Europe. Japan managed to get ahold of, Korea a good sized chunk of China and after the pearl harbor attack they gained control of the Philippines. in the countries Japan occupied they did many many nasty things, they enslaved, raped, and slaughtered everyone they defeated. to this day China and Korea _HATE_ Japan for the **** they did in the first half of the 20th century. but this is about the US bombing Japan. well for my money I'd put the fire bombing campaigns on a higher plane than the nuking. under similar campaigns cities like Toyama, Tokushima, and Fukuyama were pretty much completely destroyed. even after all this devastation, the Japanese would not surrender, which in spite of all the nastiness they did, I must give them some props for. however, this meant that it was going to take a land invasion of japan in order to win the war. that was going to result in a vast death toll, a literal ocean of blood, for both sides. there was no question at this point if the US was going to win or not, the only question was how much blood was it going to cost. personally I think what happened was the best resolution to the situation, the death toll was a quarter of a million IIRC, a full scale land invasion would have easily killed 16 times as many people, and I'm not even including the US deaths here.

[zookeeper]

Some say that if the war had gone on more and more lives would be lost and fewer people actually died from the bombs than would have died with an invasion.

In a moral sense that's a false dichotomy though; without the nukes, no one would have needed to kill any invaders and no one would have needed to invade anyone in the first place. You can't know what the other guy would decide to do if you don't nuke them first, therefore speculation on what they might do if you don't nuke them first is no moral justification for nuking them first.

[Mobius]

I like your comment, Bobboau.

In most basic terms, the nuclear weapons were a nearly pointless exercise. The Air Force nighttime incendary bombing campaign against Japan caused many times the casualities and destruction. I am fully of the belief that LeMay should have been tried for war crimes for these acts. He doesn't even have the marginal defense RAF Bomber Command did. By the time the incendary raids were launched, the war was essentially over, with only how much it was going to cost both sides yet to be assigned.

RAF Bomber Command. Three words which can get me angry very quickly.

[Snail]

What I don't like even more than the acts themselves is the fact that these mass-murderers are glorified.

[Bobboau]

It was the singular symbol of the US winning WW2, obviously its going to be glorified.

however I can't think of any situation where the nukeings them selves were shown as great things, unless it was done out of sarcasm.

[headdie]

time is time taken to kill x number of people, a nuke MIRV equipped ICBM can kill in one go today what it has taken decades for weapons like the AK47.

I'm fairly sure you can make an excellent argument that more people die alochol-related deaths every day world-wide then you could kill by setting off a nuclear device every day. Where's your moral outrage for that?

the difference is in who inflicts that death.  where the death is self inflicted then I am of the belief that though tragic it's that person own stupid fault. where the death is caused by another then there is plenty of outrage here as that is the result of someone else has taken action to end that persons life.

[newman]

I don't care what the rationalization is, you don't nuke cities full of civilians. Ever. For no reason. Also, Snuffleupagus.

[Flipside]

Horse. Fire. Barn Door.

[Dilmah G]

The alternative would've been exponential losses on both sides, and I daresay that civilians would've again copped the brunt of it as they always do in urban combat.

I don't perhaps agree with nuking a city full of civilians, but I can't think of many other ways that would've driven the point home to Hirohito. Fighting a war on Japanese soil would've been a brutal, bloody exercise, and I don't think the decision to deploy nuclear weapons was one taken lightly by the US.

And besides, why didn't Japan surrender after Hiroshima? If you want to take a bit of a cold look at it, that contributed to Nagasaki. If Hirohito had given up the "CALL MEEH GOD" crap after hearing about Hiroshima, Nagasaki didn't have to happen, and wouldn't have happened.

The Japanese weren't squeaky clean either... As most Chinese people may remember.

[Snail]

I think the distinction here is the nuking wasn't "the right choice". It wasn't even the lesser of two evils. It was just another way to kill a lot of innocent people that happened to have the side-effect of ending the war.

[Kosh]

See? With the existence of nuclear weapons lots of people are talking about using them as a first strike weapon. Lets solve our problems by nuking China or Korea. This is exactly why nuclear weapons are bad, they promote killing lots of innocent civilians to try to get a war done and over with quickly. I don't think people realize all the consequences involved with nuking another country. Not only do you pose the risk of the country using its own nuclear arsenal against you, but there is also nuclear fallout to consider. With nuclear weapons, just like with war, there are no winners. Only losers.

During that time China didn't have any nuclear weapons.

[Dilmah G]

I think the distinction here is the nuking wasn't "the right choice". It wasn't even the lesser of two evils. It was just another way to kill a lot of innocent people that happened to have the side-effect of ending the war.

The intention wasn't to kill a whole lot of people just to kill a whole lot of people, it was always to end the war. I thought it was a matter of "Nuke it or invade"?

[Snail]

I think the distinction here is the nuking wasn't "the right choice". It wasn't even the lesser of two evils. It was just another way to kill a lot of innocent people that happened to have the side-effect of ending the war.

The intention wasn't to kill a whole lot of people just to kill a whole lot of people, it was always to end the war. I thought it was a matter of "Nuke it or invade"?

The purpose of detonating of a nuclear bomb is to kill people.

The side-effect of this is that the war ends.


The detonation of the nuclear bomb itself didn't end the war.

[Redstreblo]

See? With the existence of nuclear weapons lots of people are talking about using them as a first strike weapon. Lets solve our problems by nuking China or Korea. This is exactly why nuclear weapons are bad, they promote killing lots of innocent civilians to try to get a war done and over with quickly. I don't think people realize all the consequences involved with nuking another country. Not only do you pose the risk of the country using its own nuclear arsenal against you, but there is also nuclear fallout to consider. With nuclear weapons, just like with war, there are no winners. Only losers.

During that time China didn't have any nuclear weapons.

I wasn't talking about WWII era here, I was responding to the replys above it, which were about using the nukes to defeat china or Korea.

[NGTM-1R]

The purpose of detonating of a nuclear bomb is to kill people.

"It's a device, not a bomb, and it initiates, not explodes."

Even when nuclear weapons were being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, people understood that your assertion is absolutely untrue. Parallels can also be found in Bomber Command's area campaign and the US firebombing of Japan. These actions killed many, many people, but that was not their purpose. They were efforts to end or shorten the war by triggering a civilian morale collapse. This was of course bungled badly, but that does not distract from the salient point: they were designed and executed for a strategic goal, the altering of the course of the war on a grand scale, rather than a mere tactical one such as killing people.

Nuclear weapons, no matter what anyone tells you, are not tactical and hence not really for killing specific targets. They are very good at that, but this does not make them suited for the role. Nuclear weapons will always be strategic. The reasons for this are manifold and mostly political, in that very few men wish to stare long at what lies beyond the edge of the nuclear release order abyss. Because they destroy on such a grand scale, a nuclear weapon is always going to kill people, but it's rarely pointed at people for the mere sake of killing them for that same reason. There are easier, less dangerous, more sound methods of merely killing.