Lost Freeway
Banned
IOTL, WWII ended with atomic bombs being dropped on Berlin and Hamburg. Your challenge is to find a way to have Japan get hit with the A-bomb instead of Nazi Germany.
Also, the Allied offensive into Germany was going swimmingly, while an attack on Japan would have cost a million US soldiers. If Germany somehow gave itself almost - impenetrable defenses without aerial superiority, a nuke would be viable, but otherwise it would be viewed as a horrendous loss of (white) life. Even if they were stark raving loony.
Ahem, this is a DBWI. We're not asking how to get Germany nuked, we're talking from the perspective of a TL where Germany did get nuked.
Look at your title.
IOTL, WWII ended with atomic bombs being dropped on Berlin and Hamburg. Your challenge is to find a way to have Japan get hit with the A-bomb instead of Nazi Germany.
For the sake of the DBWI:
I know this is ASB, BUT, assume the following:
That the hardcore Nazis running things are so deep into National Socialist la-la land that they decide to publically announce the Final Solution shortly after the Wansee Conference. Just put it all out there, just as the Japanese had done (short of Unit 731, so lets say the human experiments are kept out of public releases). Certainly it never bothered the Imperial Japanese to let the world know that they treated the enemy without mercy. The Russians already knew this (though not to the extreme scale of the death camps).
So...if the world is faced with this, AND the Germans take a more defensive policy of fortifications and back-handed tactical slaps in the East rather than disastrous actions like Case: Blue and Kursk?
If the Allies and Soviets are less advanced in their progress on the Continent, while the Manhatten Project and the "Battle of Kansas" (development of the B-29, especially the Silverplate variant) enjoys multiple breakthroughs earlier on than OTL...?
Then yes, I could easily see at least the Little Boy, or perhaps also the first Fat Man bombs being dropped on Germany.
The problem is, and this has been addressed on many AH.com threads, is Hitler in Berlin (can't hit the capital, you need someone alive to surrender) blowing off any talk of surrender after seeing Munich (birthplace of Nazism) and Nuremberg (heart of Nazism) each getting a case of instant sunshine.
You need to do three things:
1) Get Japan actually INTO THE WAR.
2) Get the Manhattan Project to NOT BE SO OBVIOUSLY FILLED WITH COMMUNIST SPIES that the USA kills the project and a nuclear weapon can be made by 1947 instead of 1962.
3) Somehow persuade the UK to fight out the war CONTINUOUSLY instead of making cease fires to improve their position and fight a series of coalition wars against Germany.
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Let's take a look at this issues.
Getting Japan into the war: Uh, why? Wang Jing-Wei agreed to Japanese "Guidance" over the KMT. Japan is still struggling to "Digest" China to this day, but there's no way that Japan would decide to fight the Coalitions.
Japan did have a lot of ideological similarities to Nazism, including the still somewhat scary belief in cultural superiority. In the time period before the "acculturation" of Korea and Manchuko, the Japanese Army might have made common cause with the Nazis--but the Nazis considered Asians very low in their racial hierarchy.
Hitler was more likely to support the KMT, at least until Wang Jing-Wei threw it to Japan.
OOC: Not sure about this? The Sovs OTL had a Fat Man copied down to the thumbtacks by the time of Trinity, and only lacked the enriched uranium. The spies, the overwhelming majority of them, were not exposed until many years post-Trinity. So too the Cambridge Five. I don't see the drivers for this in a world where it truly was believed in the West that Hitler had his own Manhatten Project in place.---
I don't even know how to make the Manhattan Project not stupid. Once they picked Oppenheimer to lead the project its fate was sealed. The confession of Klaus Fuchs and the apprehension of Julius Rosenberg has made clear that Manhattan was going to be stolen by the Soviets.
The United States is not so retarded as to continue this project. Are we suggesting otherwise?
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OOC: The UK of WWII was not the England of the HYW. Nor the Napoleonic Wars. Against Nappy they never made any serious peace after he made himself emperor. The UK, going back to the end of the Norman Conquest, has always made its foreign policy based on backing the second greatest power on the Continent. With the Fall of France, that's the USSR.The UK tends to make peace deals to improve its position, as it has with Napoleon and a tradition that dates back to the Hundred Years' War. They're not going to let themselves be bombed for a year and a half with no way to strike back.
OOC: I can agree that with these three bozos any degree of incompetence can be assumed. The problem here is Hitler's endless symphony of agreements made that he would betray the moment it suited him to do so. So any British PM that announces any cease fires with Herr Hitler, especially Halifax of all people, would be out the door the next day.Prime Ministers Halifax, Rab Butler and Selwyn Lloyd are intelligent enough and understanding enough NOT to fight a war if their opponent benefits more than they do from fighting it. After the fall of France, Halifax's "truce" allowed him to reinforce North Africa and seek further help from the United States.
IIC: That's always a nice thought to go byStopping WWII by removing the Nazi Government with nuclear ordinance is doable. I don't think PM Lloyd was particularly committed to that plan, however killing Heydrich, Goebbels and Goering in one strike certainly did drop the floor on the Nazists.
OOC/IIC: VERY difficult, by any stretch of the imaginationI have to admit, this is a very difficult scenario. Thank you for suggesting it and let's see if someone else can get this to work.
So, you're starting with the Franklin, Stalin and Win scenario that's been posted up?
I don't think the Gallipoli guy can become PM. He's too obviously a drunkard with foolhardy schemes to wind up on top.
You need to kill Joe Kennedy Sr. Joe Sr's performance in dissuading the USA from helping Britain probably means the US won't intervene.
Finally, are you really assuming that Japan would just go crazy as that TL if they can't instantly win in China?
IOTL, WWII ended with atomic bombs being dropped on Berlin and Hamburg. Your challenge is to find a way to have Japan get hit with the A-bomb instead of Nazi Germany.
OOC: I was actually thinking Hitler had DIED early and that Germany was playing a lot harder and better as a result. I was also trying to make to make the PoDs a bit harder and more divergent.
The Manhattan Project I'd have to rethink
Edits:
OOC: Thinking FDR dies of Polio in the 1920s, Alfred Smith lacks his interventionist touch? Am trying to explore new ground here.
Also, if China resigned itself to some kind of vassalage, would Japan really keep going crazy?
Where would the targets for a Japanese atom bomb attack be? Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima?
IOTL, WWII ended with atomic bombs being dropped on Berlin and Hamburg. Your challenge is to find a way to have Japan get hit with the A-bomb instead of Nazi Germany.