Need Atom bomb input…

[baron Münchhausen]

@Yavid:

@Baron:

It was a diplomatic poker game threat. (There was no more atomic bomb in the hands of the US player.)

ssshhh… don’t say that to loud they might hear you.

Doh!!!   :-D

[CWO Marc]

It’s no more correct to say that the Soviet invasion of Machuria was the single factor that caused Japan to surrender (whereas other factors did not) than to argue that the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the the single factor that caused Japan to surrender (whereas other factors did not).  Japan’s capitulation was brought on by a combination of factors, so it’s simplistic to declare one to be decisive and to discount the others.  The American submarine campaign against the Japanese shipping routes had the effect, over several years, of starving Japan of oil and other vital supplies.  The American advance in the South-West Pacific and in the Central Pacific dealt Japan a succession of military defeats, thus eroding the twin myths 1) that Japanese troops and sailors and airmen were invincible, and 2) that the decadent, undisciplined, un-militaristic and soft-living Americans did not have any convictions for which they were willing to fight and die.  The American advance ultimately enabled the US, once it had seized the Marianas, to reach Japan from their air with large-scale strategic bombing missions, and in the following months they gradually burned most of Japan’s major cities to the ground.  The American capture of Okinawa, right on Japan’s doorstep, demonstrated that the US had the means and the will to mount a full-scale invasion of the Japanese home islands.

So: by the time of the summer of 1945, Japan was economically and militarily close to collapse.  It could still have managed to stay in the war a while longer by scraping the bottom of the barrel – much as Germany managed to stay in the war until its tropps were practically fighting back to back down the middle of a devastated Germany – but its situation was hopeless and its only two options were to either give up or to fight to the proverbial last man (including, as was envisioned by some Japanese leaders, starving civilians armed with bamboo spears) in an act of national suicide.  Japan’s leadership dithered between these two options, unable to reach a consensus.  By hesitating, they allowed the Allies to administer three massive additional blows in quick succession: Hiroshima, Manchuria and Nagasaki.  To use the trite analogy about the straws that broke the camel’s back, these blows – which were as much psychological as physical in their impact – finally gave the logjammed Japanese leadership the excuse it needed to let the Emperor make the decision for them, and gave Hirohito the excuse he needed to surrender without admitting anything more precise than the fact that “the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage” – arguably the most massive understatement in recorded history.

[ossel]

@CWO:

It’s no more correct to say that the Soviet invasion of Machuria was the single factor that caused Japan to surrender (whereas other factors did not) than to argue that the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the the single factor that caused Japan to surrender (whereas other factors did not).  Japan’s capitulation was brought on by a combination of factors, so it’s simplistic to declare one to be decisive and to discount the others.  The American submarine campaign against the Japanese shipping routes had the effect, over several years, of starving Japan of oil and other vital supplies.  The American advance in the South-West Pacific and in the Central Pacific dealt Japan a succession of military defeats, thus eroding the twin myths 1) that Japanese troops and sailors and airmen were invincible, and 2) that the decadent, undisciplined, un-militaristic and soft-living Americans did not have any convictions for which they were willing to fight and die.  The American advance ultimately enabled the US, once it had seized the Marianas, to reach Japan from their air with large-scale strategic bombing missions, and in the following months they gradually burned most of Japan’s major cities to the ground.  The American capture of Okinawa, right on Japan’s doorstep, demonstrated that the US had the means and the will to mount a full-scale invasion of the Japanese home islands.

So: by the time of the summer of 1945, Japan was economically and militarily close to collapse.  It could still have managed to stay in the war a while longer by scraping the bottom of the barrel – much as Germany managed to stay in the war until its tropps were practically fighting back to back down the middle of a devastated Germany – but its situation was hopeless and its only two options were to either give up or to fight to the proverbial last man (including, as was envisioned by some Japanese leaders, starving civilians armed with bamboo spears) in an act of national suicide.  Japan’s leadership dithered between these two options, unable to reach a consensus.  By hesitating, they allowed the Allies to administer three massive additional blows in quick succession: Hiroshima, Manchuria and Nagasaki.  To use the trite analogy about the straws that broke the camel’s back, these blows – which were as much psychological as physical in their impact – finally gave the logjammed Japanese leadership the excuse it needed to let the Emperor make the decision for them, and gave Hirohito the excuse he needed to surrender without admitting anything more precise than the fact that “the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage” – arguably the most massive understatement in recorded history.

Well spoken, sir.

[Alfalfa29]

very true.

As A&A makes no rule for collapsed defenses,  an atomic bomb drop, under any other conditions, against an enemy of any potency, would still suffer teh same flak and interceptor attacks as any other strategic bombing.