"Was Littleboy a Tallboy?" Topic

​Here's the thesis:

B17s could carry 20,000lbs. The British had 20,000lb Tallboy variants called Grand Slams. Could they deploy them as air-burst? British airburst 15,000lbers with incendiaries produced destruction with very similar effects to Hiroshima, including the mushroom cloud and the instant heat-radiation flash which left stone buildings standing but incinerated people. Incidentally, post-bomb-drop analysis at Hiroshima by Farrell and Morrison found little evidence of atomic radiation beyond the ground-norm. Then the record goes cold when the British were still experimenting, due to still-in-place secrecy ordinances, just before the Manhattan Project (where teams were highly compartmentalised) gets close to fruition. The main Hiroshima heat-wave destruction covered 2-miles, equivalent to 15,000lbs of TNT. B17s could carry the 20,000lb British bombs. The British perfected airburst with incendiaries and heat-waves.

There's little doubt that to get the effects at Hiroshima, Truman could have used a conventional bomb. But would the morale effect on Hirohito of TNT and petrol have been the same as making him fear the limitless potential of Oppenheimer's mysterious and futuristic "Destroyer of Worlds"?

Pretence would do it.

What about all the people who later died of radiation poisoning?

John the OFM
"What about all the people who later died of radiation poisoning?"

"Radiation poisoning" wasn't a general medical condition used in Japan until Americans in Japan defined it as such. The actual effects were skin lesions, hair loss (epilation), diarrhea, fever, bleeding gums, and hemorrhaging beneath the skin. The lung damage on its own would have long-term effects. All these symptoms are consistent with being caught in a heat-blast.

You have to remember, heat-waves are "radiation". Have a look at Farrell and Morrison's data.

There were increased levels of cancer in subsequent years and some increase in genetic malformations, Psychiatric effects (PTSD etc)- I have seen the data in the official publication 'the medical effects of nuclear war' BMA 1983, its well worth a read.

I'm always a bit cautious about medical data with claims of "increases in cases." Medicine is constantly expanding in technology and scientific understanding, especially in the 20th century. "Cancer" was still poorly understood, and the medical knowledge and capability of physicians varied widely around the world.
Thus an "increase" in the number of cases of cancer could be exactly that— or it could reflect greater testing, greater reporting to doctors by patients, better understanding of what was and wasn't cancer, greater technological ability to discover and diagnose cancer, and so forth. Thus, the "increase in cases" could be due to the after-effects of the bomb (and it's entirely reasonable to think that), or could be due to other factors not considered or simply due to "we're looking for it more, so we find more."

However, I seriously doubt that Littleboy was anything other than what it was reported to be— a true atomic bomb. At this point, subterfuge about that seems unnecessary.

What a fascinating suggestion, that I have never seen suggested before. Let us concentrate on blast and the fireball from an early A bomb. Radiation short term, let alone long term, consequences were truly not recognised in 1945. Clinicians had learnt that X ray exposure would destroy your hands, radium dial painters on watches lost their jaws to ORN, but that was all in its infancy.

Can incendiaries airburst? How many Lancasters actually carried that incredible bomb weight? B17s I think is a typo error, very first line above…B29s yes. The B17 bomb load was very poor for the unfortunates who had to fly to Schweinfurt unescorted in broad daylight, even with a Norden sight

I believe the novel was titled The Jesus Factor. Yes it was. Edwin Corley, 1970.

I'm claiming full bragging rights. I never read that one, but skimmed it when it was new in mass market paper back in Nixon't first term. And yes, Corley has a good reason why you'd fake an A-bomb. Don't let me spoil it.