Star Wars Memes

Oh... I see. I thought it was referencing something actually...well...new.

The shock factor played into the logic of choosing whether or not to use the atomic bombs ... but that would have been roughly the same if they had been detonated in nearly any city, or hell, on a relatively uninhabited area the Japanese could easily have seen, purely as a demonstration.

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Indeed, the initial list of proposed targets included Tokyo Bay, which would have caused far less destruction and death than say, the center of Hiroshima, but would arguably have functioned far, far more effectively as a pure terror inducing demonstration.

(Tokyo itself had already been substantially destroyed by many other bombing raids)

They ended up picking Hiroshima as a first target because the size and surrounding terrain of the city would basically be the maximally efficient use of the destructive power of the bomb...

...and the city was a center of industrial production, and also had an army depot and port... and Hiroshima would be less effectively damaged by the ongoing firebombing strategy the US was using on other Japanese cities...

...and because Hiroshima was deemed a 'good radar target', meaning that the primitive radar tech of the time could reliably actually get the bomber to the target, which was not the case withbmany other Japanese cities...

...and finally: Hiroshima had yet to be touched by any US bombing actions up to that point.

A later target assesment and rationale document

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Nagasaki was not actually the primary intended target of the second bomb.

The primary intended target was Kokura, which housed a huge arsenal of ammunition dumps, and was also a major industrial center.

The bomber aircraft with the second bomb was having some difficulty with its auxilliary fuel supply... and made 3 attempts at targetting Kokura, but these all failed due in large part to the Yamaha Steel Works burning massive amounts of coal tar to create as much thick black obscuring smoke/clouds as possible.

After then 3rd run on Kokura failed to postively identify the drop location in the city, the bomber diverted to Nagasaki, which had much clearer weather and less anti aircraft defenses.

Nagasaki also had an arsenal of ammo and weapons, and a Mitsubishi Arms Plant and Steel Factory, and the Nagasaki drop site was specified to do maximum damage to those... which the bomb did.

The bomber then barely made it back to a US controlled airfield in Okinawa, having only enough fuel for a single landing approach pass.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki ...

tl;dr: Shock and terror were absolutely very important considerations in the rationale of deciding where to drop the bombs, but maximizing damage to military and industrial targets, and other more practical operational factors played significant roles as well.

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Additionally... if Japan did not surrender... the actual plan was to basically re cycle all of the troops from the European theatre into the Japanese theatre... into a total ground invasion of Japan, which was projected to last into 1947...

... and cost more than a quarter million dead Allied soldiers, more than half a million wounded Allied soldiers...

... and estimates ranging from 3 to 10 million dead or wounded Japanese civillians and military.

Those numbers come from the increasing conscription of essentially all abled bodied Japanese either formally or informally into some kind of armed resistsnce against the invasion, as well as projected losses of remaining noncombatants.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

It is also worth noting that after the second Atomic bomb was dropped, the Emperor was almost couped after he decided to surrender.

A group of very high ranking Japanese officers attempted a coup with the goal of continuing the war, never surrendering.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident

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EDIT: A perhaps more interesting counterfactual... or idea for a HOI4 mod... would imo be something like...

What if all or some of the original US nukes... failed to detonate? Were duds? Their bombers got shot down or crashed? Accidentally got released wildly off target?

What if the US ... decided against using them?

What if the Emperor did not decide to surrender, or the coup was successful...

And Operation Downfall actually went into motion?

The US only had a few atomic bombs, and could not churn them out rapidly, there were no stockpiles of hundreds or thousands as we are used to in the modern day or basically from the mid 50s ish onward.

How many people would have died then?

... Does maybe Stalin backstab the Allies as Hitler backstabbed him years before, and attack Western Europe after the bulk of US and Commonwealth forces moved over to Japan, with the Soviets just making a show of doing very minor attacks on Manchuko?

WTF happens to China in that scenario, with the Cold War basically having been skipped, and Kai Shek and Mao still yet to decisively win or lose?

Same 'wtf would happen' to Korea, in this scenario.

You could make a decent alt hist out of some timeline where Operation Downfall ends up happening and/or the US nukes either not being used, failing to work, being sabotaged, etc.

There may have been another city other than Berlin as you want the leaders to survive so you can get a proper surrender. That's why they didnt nuke Tokyo and why the Brits decided to stop all attempts to kill Hitler. I get the sense that dresdin would be high up the list

Terror. The word you're looking for is immediate, world-spanning, abject terror. Humankind was agog (nevermind the slathering psychos getting off on the thrill) and was forever changed after that horrific demonstration of US vs them. 😐🥲

True, but that factor would have been bigger as well at other places, because Munich wasn't that important in the past. But admittedly, neither were Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

Just skimmed through the Wikipedia article regarding the WW2 bombing of Munich and found the following sentence:

Munich was considered a special target of allied bombings also for propaganda purposes, in that it was the "movement's capital city", the Nazi Party's birthplace.

So yeah, then I understand why they probably would have nuked it.