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.
DBWI-Japan nuked instead of Germany
- Thread starter Lost Freeway
- Start date
Um... eliminate whatever POD is in the TL.
Note: To make things happen that happened in real life, make it real life.
Note: To make things happen that happened in real life, make it real life.
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.
Hard but not impossible.
First you're going to need to have the American Leadership put Germany as the primary enemy rather than Japan, thus keeping Japan in the war longer and taking Germany out of it sooner. Maybe having more U-boat incidents in the Atlantic and delay the attack on Pearl harbor a few months might achieve this.
additionally you are going to need to avoid or lessen the difficulties that the Allies faced during the Invasion of Europe. Maybe if the Soviets had a more smashing victory at Kiev than they did and the Spanish didn't enter the war in 43' you might have Germany fall apart much faster.
First you're going to need to have the American Leadership put Germany as the primary enemy rather than Japan, thus keeping Japan in the war longer and taking Germany out of it sooner. Maybe having more U-boat incidents in the Atlantic and delay the attack on Pearl harbor a few months might achieve this.
additionally you are going to need to avoid or lessen the difficulties that the Allies faced during the Invasion of Europe. Maybe if the Soviets had a more smashing victory at Kiev than they did and the Spanish didn't enter the war in 43' you might have Germany fall apart much faster.
Lost Freeway
Banned
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.
usertron2020
Donor
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.
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.
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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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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.
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.
Stopping 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.
Still, aiming a nuclear bomb at Japan in 1962 would be pointless. Why?
I 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.
usertron2020
Donor
Assuming the above, IIC (correct letters?):
Maybe had the bombs been reserved for Japan, the Downfall operation wouldn't have left Hokkaido Island being for all intents and purposes annexed by the USSR, and the Japanese Boat People Crisis wouldn't have been such a tragedy.
So too we wouldn't be suffering the sight of so many present day Germans believing that Germany didn't have to apologize for the Holocaust, because they had "already paid enough". Then there's all that nonsense in Germany's school history textbooks, softening Nazi Germany's role in WWII, beyond admitting that they "had something to do with starting it".
At least the Japanese People have shown considerable war guilt for their actions in WWII, from the invasion of China (study on the Rape of Nanking has always been mandatory since V-J Day), the butcheries carried out in the Pacific and Southeast Asia, and particularly what went on in Unit 731. Though I wonder how much losing Karafuto, the Kuriles, and most especially Hokkaido may have influenced that. The nature of Cold War politics was truly bloody, truly deep on the Japanese psyche until the fall of the Wall, or in Japan's case, the Japanese Reunion.
I originally thought when the remaining Hokkaidoans were able to be a part of Japan again that it might represent a strong political shift away from the West, and a return to Japan's old insularity. Instead, and I was most happy to be wrong, the culturally starved Hokkaidoans have led Japan to a renaissance. OTOH, its meant that they continue to keep stealin' jobs frum 'Merikans!
EDIT: Apologies to Blue Max Looks like our posts passed each other in cyberspace
):Maybe had the bombs been reserved for Japan, the Downfall operation wouldn't have left Hokkaido Island being for all intents and purposes annexed by the USSR, and the Japanese Boat People Crisis wouldn't have been such a tragedy.
So too we wouldn't be suffering the sight of so many present day Germans believing that Germany didn't have to apologize for the Holocaust, because they had "already paid enough". Then there's all that nonsense in Germany's school history textbooks, softening Nazi Germany's role in WWII, beyond admitting that they "had something to do with starting it".
At least the Japanese People have shown considerable war guilt for their actions in WWII, from the invasion of China (study on the Rape of Nanking has always been mandatory since V-J Day), the butcheries carried out in the Pacific and Southeast Asia, and particularly what went on in Unit 731.
Though I wonder how much losing Karafuto, the Kuriles, and most especially Hokkaido may have influenced that. The nature of Cold War politics was truly bloody, truly deep on the Japanese psyche until the fall of the Wall, or in Japan's case, the Japanese Reunion.I originally thought when the remaining Hokkaidoans were able to be a part of Japan again that it might represent a strong political shift away from the West, and a return to Japan's old insularity. Instead, and I was most happy to be wrong, the culturally starved Hokkaidoans have led Japan to a renaissance.
OTOH, its meant that they continue to keep stealin' jobs frum 'Merikans!EDIT: Apologies to Blue Max Looks like our posts passed each other in cyberspace
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.
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?
usertron2020
Donor
OOC: Hard to read between the lines here, but can I assume an Isolationist POTUS is running the USA in the 30s and 40s, and is strong enough to ignore the China Lobby?
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.The greatest secret the Sovs ever learned about the Bomb was That It Could Be Done. Once Stalin realized that, the Sovs would be off to the races themselves. And 1962 is far too late a year, unless Stalin dies in WWII and is replaced by a Presidium of dozens of Kruschevs and Gorbachevs. Détente in 1945?
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.
And Bomber Command would like a word with you.
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. In ANY world, even with a stream of idiot PMs, you can't expect the Backbenchers to just sit there and do nothing.
Oh, and any "cease fires", or "truces", would mean an instant and permanent termination of ALL Lend Lease. FDR was using every last ounce of political muscle he had to force through L-L with Winston Churchill, the supreme hawk and British Anti-Nazi, at the helm. With Halifax in London, they'd be lucky to get anything beyond those first 50 ancient destroyers.
IIC: That's always a nice thought to go by
OOC/IIC: VERY difficult, by any stretch of the imagination
usertron2020
Donor
Yeah, too many doubts about him, mostly unfair. His opponents tended to forget that he went right into the trenches after that disaster. Too bad he couldn't get people to listen to him, considering his Cassandra status on Hitler. Had the UK a republican system, he'd have been elected President in a landslide.
I really think that you are over-estimating the political effects of a diplomat with no elective experience but plenty being a mobbed up bootlegger.
Kennedy was wildly popular in Europe, but there were very grave doubts about him back home, other than among the America Firsters. And we all know what happened to them.OOC: (But who do you see as POTUS ITTL?)
OOC: Not sure of your meaning here?
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?
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?
You must've been a fan of Turtledove's "Two Fireballs over Honshu", I see. In any case, it may be possible that the Nazis' defenses in the Western Front might collapse a lot sooner than they did had the Battle of the Bulge gone a little better for the Allies. Furthermore, had the Vistula-Oder defensive failed, the Soviets would probably have been in Berlin no later than May; instead, the Germans were able to hold out until 11 September, when the atom bomb on Berlin was dropped-the destruction of Hamburg two days later finally got the Nazis to surrender.
What's really interesting is that the destructions of Berlin and Hamburg were *the* primary inspiration for the Japanese to surrender on November 2nd. Perhaps if they themselves had been nuked, the Japanese might surrender even sooner?
OOC: Umm.....WWII lasting and no atomic bomb until 1962? Sorry, Blue Max, but this doesn't seem terribly plausible, TBH.
usertron2020
Donor
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?
No Hitler means a lot of unpopular Second Bananas in charge if you're going to get that same Nazi Backstabber On Steroids version of international diplomacy that helped to set up WWII.
Yes, they would keep going crazy. It was a bunch of Japanese peasant soldiers with 0 experience with the real world who were coming out of military academies and "patriotic societies" drunk with nationalist fervor. Anyone of a sane, reasoning intellect could be counted on being assassinated if the Hotheads ever thought that they were not always pushing for the harshest most militaristic policy possible, and beyond possible (the IJA's invasion of the USSR in the late 1930s is pretty solid proof of that).
Even IF the Japanese "government" ordered the troops to pull in their claws, the soldiers in the field would not obey (OTL the Japanese warlords feared post-Nagasaki that the troops in the field wouldn't obey their orders to surrender, and in many cases, they were right). The whole damn "China Incident" started because a bunch of blood thirsty majors and lieutenant colonels went haring off on their own, with no one above them up the chain of command able to stop them. Either because they risked assassination, or they sympathized/approved.
FDR's polio death is a great POD. Puts the lie to the enemies of the Great Man Theory. IDK if Alfred Smith would be an Interventionist. The Irish had a tendency to Isolationism, as did sadly Catholics in general.
BTW, China CAN'T resign itself to vassalage. Anymore than the Soviets could surrender to Nazi Germany. If Chaing tried to turn traitor (not that that's impossible, if an American POTUS is blowing off the China Lobby, which was the AARP or NRA of its day), other warlords would simply arrest and shoot him. One of his most successful generals told Chaing that to his face.
Mind, individual warlords could and did turn traitor, but ultimately they were the Asian equivalent of Vichyites/Vlassovites, the kind of "soldiers" who couldn't be counted on to fight their way out of a den of inequity.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot: Mao
CCP/PLA + Soviet Support = Japan's Hundred Year War
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usertron2020
Donor
All good targets, but any POTUS and/or SecWar would fire any USAAC general who handed them a target list with Kyoto on it. Would be like targeting Rome!
You probably wouldn't have seen Nagasaki on it either. Its the most Westernized city in Japan. Almost as Western as Hong Kong.Hiroshima would have been a brutal body blow to Japan's history and culture, and economically Osaka would be most effective, though unless Japan and the USA went to war in the late 40s/early 50s, a long US/Japanese war in the early to mid-40s would most likely not have left much of Japan worth attacking with the Bomb. They just didn't have the industrial resources Germany did to bounce back from conventional bombing.
OTOH, a B-36 (our late 40s-mid-50s SAC mainstay) could probably range wherever they wanted and could strike Japan at will.
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What if the scientists from the Manhattan Project, many of which were German exiles would 1) threaten to go on strike if their bombs would be used against German civilians but 2) convince the high command that their ex-colleagues, now working on the Nazi atomic research project, could be convinced to work for them after the war and that therefore you'd better not nuke them out of history. Imagine how many bombs we could have had in 1947, even 1946 if just half of the know-how the Germans allegedly had developed would have been saved and available to the US