"Nuking Japanese Beaches (WW2) - How close to Reality?" Topic

Interesting…

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Amicalement
Armand

Given how long it took the US to make bombs?

Unlikely we'd have more than 3 available in any given month.

Firebombing and conventional bombing were incredibly destructive, though the Japanese were rapidly building networks of deep shelters strong enough to resist an atomic blast.

Critical shortages of food, fuel and resources would have doomed the Japanese in the long run, but it would have taken months before they could be brought to collapse, if the leadership allowed any surrender.

The Japanese piled up critical mistakes, but they had dogged determination to keep on fighting even when things seemed beyond salvaging.

I have read that US warplanners expected to need to use chemical weapons to defeat Japanese defenders -- flood the tunnels and bunkers with nerve gas and seal them off, while using napalm and chlorine gas to break up other types defenses. Oh, and unrestricted fire bombing of Japanese population centers. Ugly to the point of near genocide as long as the Japanese refused to surrender.

The A-bombings saved more than just American lives.

It gave the Japanese a face saving way to surrender.

@SBminisguy: Considering that the US simply bulldozed cave entrances shut on most of the islands on the way to Japan (like Peleliu), nerve gassing would have been a mercy.

And yes, I know what nerve gas does to a person. Your muscles can't stop contracting, so you can't breathe, though you usually die from your heart stopping before your body contorts into a pretzel.

It's still better than starving to death.

Historically, pumping gas into tunnel complexes didn't seem to work very well.

The only two examples I've heard of on pumping gas into tunnels or sewers was the Germans at Sevastopol and the US Army against tunnels in Vietnam. Neither one worked very well as it was too hard to maintain enough overpressure to get the gas through the tunnel complex because of the many entrances and different levels using fans.

A WP grenade down the hole would help in a small area and may identify other entrances.

I know the US had sent Mustard Gas to Europe as the Germans sunk a Liberty ship in an Italian harbor that was carrying it.

Wolfhag