Were The A-Bombs Justified?

[Washington Resistance Army]

No, they weren't justified, but I understand the logistics behind the bombing. Both sides wanted the war to end, and a show of force was necessary to get the terms of peace that the US wanted. I just don't think the a-bombs were necessary. We didn't understand the full consequences, long term, of using such weapons.

I mean I doubt any other realistic option on the table would have been any less destructive really.

The other options were more destructive tbh

[Valrifell]

I mean I doubt any other realistic option on the table would have been any less destructive really.

The other options were more destructive tbh

Ground-invasion by the Soviets and United States coupled with an intensification of bombing (and firebombing) raids across the country?

Yeah, probably.

[Sovaal]

The other options were more destructive tbh

Ground-invasion by the Soviets and United States coupled with an intensification of bombing (and firebombing) raids across the country?

Yeah, probably.

I still doubt that the Soviets could have pulled off an invasion tbh.

But even an entirely Western allied invasion would have been quite deadly.

[Saiwania]

I still doubt that the Soviets could have pulled off an invasion tbh.

The Red Army had amphibious landing capabilities, that is plain to see if the Soviet Union managed to seize all of the Kurile Islands and the rest of Sakhalin. At the very least, Hokkaido was within their reach.

[Washington Resistance Army]

I still doubt that the Soviets could have pulled off an invasion tbh.

The Red Army had amphibious landing capabilities, that is plain to see if the Soviet Union managed to seize all of the Kurile Islands and the rest of Sakhalin. At the very least, Hokkaido was within their reach.

The Soviets struggled heavily just to take the Kurils and they were barely defended. I'm actually pretty sure the Soviets took larger casualties than the Japanese did there lol.

[Sovaal]

I still doubt that the Soviets could have pulled off an invasion tbh.

The Red Army had amphibious landing capabilities, that is plain to see if the Soviet Union managed to seize all of the Kurile Islands and the rest of Sakhalin. At the very least, Hokkaido was within their reach.

Yah and they had far smaller naval force than the West did, which is important if your fighting and supplying an island campaign. Russia has always been a land based power, naval power rarely turned out for them, with their warm water ports either being trapped behind choke points or their coastline severely underpopulated.

[Sovaal]

The Red Army had amphibious landing capabilities, that is plain to see if the Soviet Union managed to seize all of the Kurile Islands and the rest of Sakhalin. At the very least, Hokkaido was within their reach.

The Soviets struggled heavily just to take the Kurils and they were barely defended. I'm actually pretty sure the Soviets took larger casualties than the Japanese did there lol.

iirc they still took fairly extensive casualties.

[Flippica]

There's a case to be made that the Hiroshima bombing was justified. I'm unsure whether I agree that there was no better option.

But there's no justification for Nagasaki. That was monstrous. The point had been made the first time.

[Sovaal]

There's a case to be made that the Hiroshima bombing was justified. I'm unsure whether I agree that there was no better option.

But there's no justification for Nagasaki. That was monstrous. The point had been made the first time.

The Japanese tried to commit a coup to keep the war going.

[Oil exporting People]

I still doubt that the Soviets could have pulled off an invasion tbh.

The Red Army had amphibious landing capabilities, that is plain to see if the Soviet Union managed to seize all of the Kurile Islands and the rest of Sakhalin. At the very least, Hokkaido was within their reach.

The U.S. Navy had to loan them 30 LCIs to conduct the Kuriles Operation, which took them nearly three months to complete and they lost half of the LCIs in the process despite formal resistance lasting barely a week. They had exactly no ability to land and successfully occupy anywhere on the mainland; the areas they had planned for on Hokkaido were near two veteran Japanese divisions emplaced there to counter such an operation.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

No, they weren't justified, but I understand the logistics behind the bombing. Both sides wanted the war to end, and a show of force was necessary to get the terms of peace that the US wanted. I just don't think the a-bombs were necessary. We didn't understand the full consequences, long term, of using such weapons.

I mean I doubt any other realistic option on the table would have been any less destructive really.

I don't know, tbqh. I think one of the main issues was that Japanese soldiers were very fervent and would fight until death. Thus, maybe, prolonging the war had other means were employed. The atom bombs were still over the top, IMO, but I don't know if there was anything else they could've done.

[Oil exporting People]

What's hard for me to grasp is that you quoted "muh hobby wargamer" and you're lividly demanding that I accept "muh hobby wargamer" as the truth and the light. I find this to be rather hilarious. It's also why I can no longer take you seriously. The other point that I am repeatedly making, is that the article doesn't repudiate the point that the Soviets advanced quite a bit, prior to the surrender, while losing less than one percent of the armed forces. There's nothing stating that said pace of advance couldn't continue, had there been no surrender.

The only person that's brought up "wargamer" is you, namely because you have to characterize it as such to hide the fight the author in question has a PhD from King's College in London and the article in question was peer reviewed by a team of historians, also with PhDs, for publishing in the Royal Swedish Academy of War Science Proceedings and Journal. Now, we've already established you don't understand what peer review is, but to be clear that means people who actually have qualifications to know what they are talking about as opposed to you. It's also clear you don't understand what the "Wargammer" bit is, which you somewhat laughably believe is somehow related to boardgames. Allow me to correct your ignornance on the matter via this article from the RAND corporation.

It's also extremely telling to everyone who has read this debate so far has been the fact that you've attacked the author, not the source. Accept the fact you're wrong because people who actually have the intellectual abilities here are saying so; to do otherwise is to make a fool of yourself.

Never said I read the entire article. The claim was, and I quote for your reading comprehension needs:

"I read parts of it"

That's not the equivalent of reading the entire thing. And the parts I read was about a guy bragging about "muh hobby wargaming" in a military article. Sometimes reading a part of it is enough.

I posted the article at 4:21, you responded to someone else at 4:23, and then to my post at 4:29. You had absolute zero time to read any major parts of it, and you passed judgement based on that; quite frankly, you pulled that in college classroom you'd be laughed out of the room. It's also very fucking telling the story has changed from you claiming you responded at 4:55 to imply you had read lots of it to now going back and saying you just read parts of it.

You've lied repeatedly on this point, and we both damn well know it.

I understand how rounding works. I also understand that 1.43 doesn't round to 2. Do you understand how rounding works? Because let's see here, you take 770, divide that by 540, and you get 1.43, which doesn't round to 2. Rounding. It's a math skill. Learn it.

770/450 = 1.7
770/399 = 1.92
770/375 = 2.05
770/500 = 1.54

Reading comprehension is your friend.

You do realize that if the main reason that the armed forces aren't advancing is because they ran out of gas, means that once they get gas, the advance will continue, and if the only thing that stopped their advance is the lack of gas, then the original plan for advance was successful. You're praising a source that the Red Army bungled the advance based on "muh hobby wargamer" but then admitting that the advance was more successful than expected, because the stop occurred because they ran out of fuel.

Uh, no and this shows how utterly lacking in military knowledge you are. They bungled the logistics so bad they ran out of gas, and how to use surrendered Japanese trains weeks later to secure their objectives; that the operation was that badly supplied and planned reveals it was horribly managed and absolute bungled. They also had yet to score any major victories on the Japanese and were on the hinterlands of Manchuria, which is major because Manchuria is the size of Western Europe.

If I was to plan a long trip, and you claimed that my car was in bad shape, and the only reason I stopped was because it ran out of fuel, all I have to do is to wait for AAA to fill up the tank. That doesn't actually mean that the car is in bad shape. Only that I was speeding, and not paying attention to the gas tank. If the armed forces stop an advance for lack of fuel, they wait for fuel to arrive, and continue. This really isn't hard to grasp for those of us who get History from Historians, not "muh hobby wargamers" no matter how Slavic the publican journal was.

It's extremely telling you failed to cite a single city the Soviets took after I dared you to point it out such to me. Here, I'll restate the claim and also extend another opening: name me one, just one, major encirclement the Soviets achieved prior to the surrender. Major herein meaning at the divisional level, preferably two or more divisions.

[Vespertania]

That depends on who you ask, there's no telling how much resistance US soldiers would really face and how many lives would have been lost attempting to establish a beachhead on the Japanese mainland.

I will leave you with this link to read at your leisure. http://www.ushistory.org/us/51g.asp

Were the A-bombs justified? Yes. Whether it was the correct decision is another matter.

[Auze]

...Uhhh, the USSR could have defeated Japan in East Asia easily. They'd of conquered the whole of Korea as well.

Oh boy, wait 'till you hear what they did in Eastern Europe...

Let me get this straight.

In real life, after rebuilding from the losses of the war, with the aid of Eastern European resources, for five years, the Soviets were unable to conquer just Korea, with Chinese help.

But, in 1945, with no recovery time from the war, they could have conquered Korea, China, and a still-militarized Japan "easily"?

Yeah, no.

The soviets overran Manchuria and North Korea in 11 days. You also forget that Japan, unlike South Korea, did not have the USA's help. Otherwise, North Korea would have won.

[Oil exporting People]

Let me get this straight.

In real life, after rebuilding from the losses of the war, with the aid of Eastern European resources, for five years, the Soviets were unable to conquer just Korea, with Chinese help.

But, in 1945, with no recovery time from the war, they could have conquered Korea, China, and a still-militarized Japan "easily"?

Yeah, no.

The soviets overran Manchuria and North Korea in 11 days. You also forget that Japan, unlike South Korea, did not have the USA's help. Otherwise, North Korea would have won.

No, they did not overrun Manchuria or North Korea in 11 days; they didn't even get major forces into Korea until October and didn't occupy Port Arthur until the end of August.

[Frostnia]

They were justified. Far more lives would have been lost and far more destruction would have been wrought if they weren't dropped.

[Yoylum]

The Americans were doing this as well even in post-war era in Korea and Vietnam.

Classic "And you are lynching negroes" from the tankie.

Where’s the evidence for all these bold accusations?

[Prusenreich]

Yes otherwise a large number of Americans would have died in a land invasion of japan

[Frostnia]

Yes otherwise a large number of Americans would have died in a land invasion of japan

Not to mention the Japanese citizens

[Hurtful Thoughts]

I didn't know liberate meant stabbing babies in their cradles and raping women and girls of all ages.

The Americans were doing this as well even in post-war era in Korea and Vietnam.

[Feel free to interject with quotes from Starship Troopers as needed]

To be fair, the American sentiment came largely from their experiance dealing with Japan.

Particularily since the unit that wrote the proceedures for counter-insurgency was a NAt'l Gaurd unit that fought from begining to end in the pacific (they had a tank company deployed to the Philipeans in November 1941).

Interestingly enough, that unit was never sent to fight in southeast Asia, and was instead re-geared to fight the soviets... and was the first resservist unit to be issued tactical nuclear weapons.

[Sovaal]

I mean I doubt any other realistic option on the table would have been any less destructive really.

I don't know, tbqh. I think one of the main issues was that Japanese soldiers were very fervent and would fight until death. Thus, maybe, prolonging the war had other means were employed. The atom bombs were still over the top, IMO, but I don't know if there was anything else they could've done.

That's really my point. Well save for the bombs being over the top, we basically leveled Tokyo.

[Sovaal]

I didn't know liberate meant stabbing babies in their cradles and raping women and girls of all ages.

The Americans were doing this as well even in post-war era in Korea and Vietnam.

>Completely ignoring the rapes committed by the Red Army.

[Wysten]

So in other words, you admit your original claim was false.

I said most likely as I have no evidence. But considering that the US was a racist shithole back in the days. With Jim Crow laws and segregation it is not plausible to assume the Americans dropped the a-bomb for racist reasons.

Yes because saving millions if not tens of millions of lives is now racist. Besides if we nuked Germany we would get German Anime.

[Hurtful Thoughts]

I don't know, tbqh. I think one of the main issues was that Japanese soldiers were very fervent and would fight until death. Thus, maybe, prolonging the war had other means were employed. The atom bombs were still over the top, IMO, but I don't know if there was anything else they could've done.

That's really my point. Well save for the bombs being over the top, we basically leveled Tokyo.

And 23 other major cities.

Plus the submarine-fleet had already starved the island to a food intake 60% of the Americans by 1940, and things only got worse as surface-combatants and minefields became involved.

And to the Japanese, Okinawa was part of the Japanese mainland already.

Before the bombs, not a single Japanese military unit had surrendered. (all captures were because the soldiers were incapacitated in some manner on the individual level). Many wished to continue fighting even after the Emperor's formal surrender (and some did).

[Kanadorika]

I said most likely as I have no evidence. But considering that the US was a racist shithole back in the days. With Jim Crow laws and segregation it is not plausible to assume the Americans dropped the a-bomb for racist reasons.

Yes because saving millions if not tens of millions of lives is now racist. Besides if we nuked Germany we would get German Anime.

mfw the bombs were destined for Germany if they didn't surrender before the project's completion.