WI: Japan surrenders due to blockade, when do nukes get used first?

LHB

LHB

One of the existing plans pitched for forcing Japan's surrender in WWII, instead of the atomic bomb or land invasion, was put forward by the Navy. They argued the best outcome would've been an extended blockade to force Japan into submission with minimal risk to Allied lives.

For the sake of argument let's say Truman opts for the Navy plan, Japan ends up surrendering to the US due to the oncoming risk of massive starvation (which happened OTL due to disruptions of the rice harvest) around a couple of months later than OTL and nuclear weapons are not fired in anger.

When & how are they used first? Will the lack of singular strikes in WWII deter their mass employment against multiple targets at once? Does the nuclear taboo develop?
 
SsgtC

SsgtC

Banned
The only way nukes are not getting used against Japan is if Japan surrenders before they are ready (assuming Germany surrenders at the same time as IOTL). Once the bomb is ready, it's being dropped.

However, in your timeline, if the US doesn't use them against Japan, one of two things will happen. Either they will probably never be used, or the true horrors of a nuclear bomb aren't realized and they are used distressingly often in conflicts large and small around the world.
 
LHB

LHB

SsgtC said:
The only way nukes are not getting used against Japan is if Japan surrenders before they are ready (assuming Germany surrenders at the same time as IOTL). Once the bomb is ready, it's being dropped.

However, in your timeline, if the US doesn't use them against Japan, one of two things will happen. Either they will probably never be used, or the true horrors of a nuclear bomb aren't realized and they are used distressingly often in conflicts large and small around the world.
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Or they get used once, massively with enormous shock, horror and devastation all around.
 

sloreck

Absent the demonstration of what nukes can do and the resulting reaction against them, they will be simply visualized as a bigger boom. If things go otherwise as OTL it is very likely when MacArthur wants to use some in Korea Truman agrees. The next possibility is that when the French ask for one In Vietnam Ike might agree. Now there were all sorts of political reasons not to use them then over and above not wanting to reopen Pandora's Box, but those are the two circumstances most likely. Less likely is use to try and keep the Chinese communists at bay - either to maintain a mainland enclave and/or to keep Hainan for the Nationalists.
 

FillyofDelphi

Banned
LHB said:
Or they get used once, massively with enormous shock, horror and devastation all around.
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Except, without a demonstration of their power as a deterrence weapon and their high cost of production and limited utility compared to conventional ordinance, why on earth would the military want a stockpile of that size?
 
GDIS Pathe

GDIS Pathe

FillyofDelphi said:
Except, without a demonstration of their power as a deterrence weapon and their high cost of production and limited utility compared to conventional ordinance, why on earth would the military want a stockpile of that size?
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except tests in Neveda have proved that they are powerful and testing and production will continue
 

Apollo 20

I've always believed that Truman would have been impeached if he failed to use the bomb when it was ready. You can even argue that he had an obligation under his oath to use it. The fact of the matter is that in August 1945 nobody quite knew how horrific nuclear weapons were and therefore, Truman really had no effective argument that the bomb should not be used.

Japan was in bad shape, but it still could have held out for several months. The effects on the Japanese people would have been ghastly and Allied personnel would still have been losing their lives in any blockade. So, let's say that Japan holds out until December 1945 with massive civilian deaths and a not-inconsequential Allied death toll. Truman is impeached for failing to do everything to win the war and President Sam Rayburn takes office. Between 1945 and 1952 there were any number of crises that came along that could tempt a President not to repeat Truman's mistake. Berlin in 1948 is one, China in 1949 another, Korea in 1950 yet another and God knows how many others would have existed without Truman in office between 1945 and 1953. Nuclear weapons are horrible, but in the context of the times and the information he had, Truman made the right call for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is that while Hiroshima and Nagasaki were truly awful events, what would likely have transpired otherwise down the road in a few years would have been MUCH worse. And remember, the architecture that eventually won the Cold War was Truman's doing, kept in place by a bipartisan consensus that lasted for 45 years. Imagine a world without that.
 

sloreck

I agree if the bomb was ready as OTL it would have been used, when I answered I assumed that the bomb was delayed which was why not used. Literally tens of thousands of people civilians and military died on the Allied side every day the war went on in late 1945 to say nothing of the Japanese. Ending the war as quickly as possible was the only thing to do.
 
SsgtC

SsgtC

Banned
Thinking about it, as horrible as Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, I believe they served a purpose beyond just ending the war. I think they prevented the use of nuclear weapons in the future. This is why.

Everyone knew that nukes were tremendously powerful. The destructive power of a thousand plane raid delivered by a single aircraft. They also "knew" that there were some pretty bad side effects from the bomb. But they didn't truly understand them. Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed, in vivid, excruciating detail, just what and how bad those effects were and that they were long lasting. Take that away, and I think countries, the US in particular, are far more willing to use them in say Korea than they were otherwise. That likely saved countless lives.
 

Apollo 20

SsgtC said:
Thinking about it, as horrible as Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, I believe they served a purpose beyond just ending the war. I think they prevented the use of nuclear weapons in the future. This is why.

Everyone knew that nukes were tremendously powerful. The destructive power of a thousand plane raid delivered by a single aircraft. They also "knew" that there were some pretty bad side effects from the bomb. But they didn't truly understand them. Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed, in vivid, excruciating detail, just what and how bad those effects were and that they were long lasting. Take that away, and I think countries, the US in particular, are far more willing to use them in say Korea than they were otherwise. That likely saved countless lives.
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I think you're right and part of that was that the shock and horror of the German concentration camps being discovered had happened just a few months before, making people more open to contemplate the horrors of nuclear weapons. I know from my grandparents that people were genuinely shaken up by what was found when Europe was liberated. Hiroshima and Nagasaki was another blow and made people wonder what kind of world had been created.
 
Cook

Cook

Banned
FillyofDelphi said:
Except, without a demonstration of their power as a deterrence weapon and their high cost of production and limited utility compared to conventional ordinance, why on earth would the military want a stockpile of that size?
Click to expand...

Their cost of production is in fact quite low after the initial production facilities have been built, and even factoring in the enormous initial development costs, an atomic bomb comes out ahead of conventional ordinance in the 'cost for bang' equation:

'By early 1942 Beria was getting so much information about American, British, French and German research on nuclear weapons that he could not ignore it. In March he signed a report to Stalin, summarizing what the NKVD had learned about foreign research. They knew about British and American plans to cooperate, but, in contrast to the first NKVD report, considerably underestimated the significance of the developments. British estimates of the cost of enriching uranium-235 led Beria, in bean counting mode, to calculate that one nuclear bomb would cost £236,000 compared to 1,500 tons of TNT, to which other British reports suggested it would be equivalent at a cost of £326,000. It was, therefore, a worthwhile investment. However, Beria had underestimated the power of the first atomic bombs by a factor of ten.'

From Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War by Chris Bellamy.
 
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