Help with Project Olympic TL

[Lord Dalek]

I'm working on a short story of Project Olympic. Could I have any help, research wise?

[Gridley]

Did you mean Operation Olympic, as in a component of Downfall?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

If so, than sure. If not, could you provide a link or more details?

[Lord Dalek]

Sorry, a bit tired, meant Operation Olympic not Project Olympic.

[Gridley]

Sorry, a bit tired, meant Operation Olympic not Project Olympic.

OK, what info are you looking for? I've got very good data on the USN in that time frame, as well as very good resources for US Army OrBat and TO&E data. My OrBat & TO&E data for the USMC is a bit weaker, but probably just fine for an AH.

I hate MacArthur, so unless he's going to come to a bad end ITTL you probably don't want me researching him or any of his staff.

You'll probably want someone else to help you with the Japanese side (unless you've got that covered yourself of course), though I can pinch-hit for what's left of the IJN (not much).

I also suggest you look here if you haven't already:
http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/D/o/Downfall.htm

[Lord Dalek]

MacArthur before the invasion is hit by a car in America. Nimitz replaces him.

[Gridley]

MacArthur before the invasion is hit by a car in America. Nimitz replaces him.

Excellent. :-)

Nimitz is a logical overall commander - may I suggest Gen. Roy Geiger and/or Gen. Robert Eichelberger as ground commander(s)?

Anyway, let me know what you're looking for and I'll see if I can dig it up.

[Lord Dalek]

Japanese factory locations, available carriers, light carriers, and escort carriers, as well as Japanese troops, tanks, and other stuff.

[CalBear]

MacArthur before the invasion is hit by a car in America. Nimitz replaces him.


In that case, the invasion almost certainly never happens.

By July Nimitiz, Halsey and King were all convinced that the invasion was going to be a bloodbath as more and more hard intel came in on the number of aircraft the Japanese had squirreled away for use against the landing force and as information came in on just how many IJA units had made their way to southern Kyushu. By late July the ONLY person in the Pacific who was chaffing at the bit for the landings was MacArthur. He had enough of a grip on DC, however, that he was going to get his way. If he gets clipped by a Packard that goes away with him.

What you get without MacArthur is either a sea/air blockade and continuation of the firebombing (actually a rather large increase in the bombing since the 8th Air Force was going to go active in the Pacific by late September following full requipment with B-29s).

[Lord Dalek]

Yes, but by the time the invasion is goed, when he is heading to the coast, he is smashed head on by a truck. So, because of the urgency, it is still continued.

[Matt Wiser]

I did my MA Thesis on the planned invasion. If you need more info, let me know by PM.

The planned landing areas were:

I Corps: 25th, 33rd, 41st IDs: Miyazaki

XI Corps: 1st Cav, 43rd ID, Americal Division: Ariake Bay

V Marine Amphibious Corps: 2nd, 3rd, 5th Marine Divisions: Kushikino

IX Corps (landing on X+4) South shore of Satsuma Peninsula.

[Lord Dalek]

Thanks, and also do you know the ship numbers the US had? Plus to make it hell to the Americans, I have the USS Indianapolis sunk by a I-Boat during traveling, causing the uranium to detonate, and I have the C-54 carrying the plutonium core, has it accidently activated blowing it up. Following the rumors, the military kills the entire royal family, except Prince Akihito, who escapes to the Americans.

[Talwar]

Plus to make it hell to the Americans, I have the USS Indianapolis sunk by a I-Boat during traveling, causing the uranium to detonate, and I have the C-54 carrying the plutonium core, has it accidently activated blowing it up. Following the rumors, the military kills the entire royal family, except Prince Akihito, who escapes to the Americans.

Say what now?

[Lord Dalek]

A Jap Sub sinks the Indianapolis, and some idiot accidently puts the detonator on one of the plutionium cores on a C-54. Thus the second atomic bomb will fail to work, because it requires TWO!!! cores to work.

[Talwar]

Setting aside technical issues, like whether nukes go off when their conveyance is torpedoed: If you want to tell a story about Downfall, great, but it's going to be plenty grim on its own right without contriving to have both atomic bombs lost in catastrophic accidents.

As for the Japanese royal family, why would the military kill them?

[CalBear]

Thanks, and also do you know the ship numbers the US had? Plus to make it hell to the Americans, I have the USS Indianapolis sunk by a I-Boat during traveling, causing the uranium to detonate, and I have the C-54 carrying the plutonium core, has it accidently activated blowing it up. Following the rumors, the military kills the entire royal family, except Prince Akihito, who escapes to the Americans.

UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE.

I mean ASB level of impossible. The cores were shipped in such a way that there was literally no way for them to detonate.

The plutonium core has to be imploded, with all of the chemical explosive generated shock wave striking it at the same time. The timing is so critical that the weapon had be constructed o each cable connecting to a plastic explosive facet had to be EXACTLY the same length because the difference in timing for the electrical charge (moving at close to lightspeed) would be screwed up by the charge moving through an extra inch of copper cable.

The U-238 core would only work if the two pieces were slammed together is a specific way (to the point that the larger piece had to hit the smaller one, not the other way around).

As far as the Royal Family, do you have any idea of how large it was? Hundreds of individuals, HUNDREDS.

[CalBear]

Yes, but by the time the invasion is goed, when he is heading to the coast, he is smashed head on by a truck. So, because of the urgency, it is still continued.

Remarkably doubtful.

The U.S. had learned an exceptionally costly lesson regarding going ahead just because the schedule was set at Peleliu.

BTW: You do know about the Typhoon?

[Lord Dalek]

Note to self: Work on plans before writing. Also ever heard of these two books? The Two Ocean War and The Big E both published in 1961/1963. They are very good for naval stuff.

[Kome]

Note to self: Work on plans before writing. Also ever heard of these two books? The Two Ocean War and The Big E both published in 1961/1963. They are very good for naval stuff.
Sorry, this is so off topic, but that post makes you look like a time traveler! :D

[mrmandias]

This. In spades.

UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE.

I mean ASB level of impossible. The cores were shipped in such a way that there was literally no way for them to detonate.

The plutonium core has to be imploded, with all of the chemical explosive generated shock wave striking it at the same time. The timing is so critical that the weapon had be constructed o each cable connecting to a plastic explosive facet had to be EXACTLY the same length because the difference in timing for the electrical charge (moving at close to lightspeed) would be screwed up by the charge moving through an extra inch of copper cable.

The U-238 core would only work if the two pieces were slammed together is a specific way (to the point that the larger piece had to hit the smaller one, not the other way around).

As far as the Royal Family, do you have any idea of how large it was? Hundreds of individuals, HUNDREDS.

[Gridley]

UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE.

I mean ASB level of impossible. The cores were shipped in such a way that there was literally no way for them to detonate.


CalBear is quite correct.

I'd be happy to pull ship numbers for any date you care to choose, but you need a better PoD.

[kgbudge]

Reinforcing what others have said:

The first nukes were physicist's gadgets, not mass production munitions, and they were shipped unassembled. In fact, the last piece didn't go in until the delivery aircraft of each was airborne. (Navy ordinance officer Parsons flew on Enola Gay for the purpose of arming Little Boy.) No chance of either going off accidentally other than in the air on the way to Japan (which might make for an interesting scenario in itself.)

MacArthur was determined to lead an invasion of Japan. But intelligence on what he was up against was so unpromising that Marshall and the Joint Chiefs might well have pulled the plug on the invasion. If so, the next step of the strategic bombing campaign was destruction of Japan's rail system (the coastal shipping had already been put out of action by aerial mines.) Estimates are that destruction of the rail system would have so dislocated rice distribution that ten million Japanese would be dead of starvation by the end of 1946. It is very unlikely the war would have gone on that long.

The only way the war was likely to go past 1945, in fact, would be if the Emperor was successfully kidnapped and taken into a mountain redoubt "for his own safety", as some Army officers were apparently contemplating. I am dubious they could have pulled it off.

One very unlikely but not completely impossible scenario: Enola Gay suffers an engine failure on takeoff, a not uncommon occurrence with the B-29. Tibbets has orders to ditch in the water rather than risk crashing on Tinian and does so successfully (he was a brilliant pilot), but the aircraft and its precious cargo sink in deep water. As a result of this reversal of fortune (a half-billion-dollar gun bomb lost as an operational casualty), the implosion bomb is held in reserve.

MacArthur succeeds in getting the invasion to go forward, in part by pointing at the Iron Curtain already going down over Europe and convincing the JCS, over their better judgement, that we have to beat the Russians into Japan. Perhaps there's intelligence from some unexpected source (Venona? Hey, that would be cool ...) showing Russian preparations and a real possibility of a Russian force landing in weakly-defended Hokkaido.

MacArthur is watching the invasion force approach the landing beaches from Bataan, his personal B-17. This is rammed by a suicide aircraft, killing all on board. Nimitz, as next senior commander in the Pacific, takes over but it really is too late to call off the invasion -- the political consequences of turning around when the invasion fleet has already been sighted by the Japanese are unthinkable. It takes some time for Nimitz to get a grip on the situation, which is rapidly deteriorating since the defenses are just as awful as Intelligence predicted (which is much worse than MacArthur allowed himself or his planners to believe.) A big scandal is already brewing over MacArthur's grossly optimistic preinvasion estimates...

Heck, I'm not going to write this whole thing for you. You take it from there. (Will be happy to provide my technical $0.02.)

[DuQuense]

MacArthur succeeds in getting the invasion to go forward, in part by pointing at the Iron Curtain already going down over Europe and convincing the JCS, over their better judgment, that we have to beat the Russians into Japan. Perhaps there's intelligence from some unexpected source (Venona? Hey, that would be cool ...) showing Russian preparations and a real possibility of a Russian force landing in weakly-defended Hokkaido. No JCS in 1945.

[informationfan]

sorry,

the us of a shipped parts of the bombs in, these parts could not be activated....

so you can sink the indi, can loose a important plane
But - to solve the problem:
make the first bombing attack a failure... say, the bomber explode by an accident, the second run is a dud - destroyed but doesn´t fire up
if you like the bad luck you even could make a minor mistake with trinity... so the power is only for 1kt... the biggest failure in mankind... or such a thing.

the rest sound interesting - only the imperial family, why do you need to kill em all?

[kgbudge]

No JCS in 1945.

Beg to differ. The JCS dates to 20 July 1942 (caveat lector Wiki) and is mentioned in many documents of the period.

Granted, it was an ad hoc organization until the National Security Act of 1947. But it did exist.

[phil5775]

Excellent. :-)

Nimitz is a logical overall commander - may I suggest Gen. Roy Geiger and/or Gen. Robert Eichelberger as ground commander(s)?

Anyway, let me know what you're looking for and I'll see if I can dig it up.


Both excellent choices, but no way does George Marshall let a Marine command his soldiers. Eichelberger, on the other hand, was held in high regard by Marshall, so it would have come down to either him, or possibly Joe Stilwell, who would have been in command of the 10th Army by then.

[kgbudge]

Both excellent choices, but no way does George Marshall let a Marine command his soldiers. Eichelberger, on the other hand, was held in high regard by Marshall, so it would have come down to either him, or possibly Joe Stilwell, who would have been in command of the 10th Army by then.

Agree about Geiger. Stilwell was already dying of stomach cancer at this point; the turmoil of having him in command in such health, with his other personality quirks, would make for an interesting story ...