DBWI nuclear weapons used in World War 2

OK, I've seen websites that claim the US government was working on building a few, but the war ended before they were ready to be used or something. But I don't want this to become another conspiracy theory discussion, so please restrain yourself.

What if the USA really was working on nuclear weapons, and they actually were ready before the war ended? You can extend the war to get this result. How would they be used? How would they change the course of the war, and also the future use of nuclear weapons in warfare?
 

Deleted member 92121

If they used it on Germany, the target wou've been Berlin. If they used it on Japan, probably Tokio or Kyoto. I imagine the U.S. would be demonized after this, dropping a Nuclear Bomb on a city, that's just crazy. Truman would probably have been seen as a monster for sure. Forget losing to Dewey in 1948, the guy would probably have been impeached. But it could have ended the War earlier. Stopped the Invasion of Japan perhaps. Maybe the war ended in early 1946.
 
For starters, Japan would probably still be a single nation as even after the USSR reformed and the Cold War ended, the Workers and Peasants Democracy of Japan (North Japan) is still a bastion of hardline communism and hostile towards the Kingdom of Japan (South Japan).
 

Deleted member 92121

For starters, Japan would probably still be a single nation as even after the USSR reformed and the Cold War ended, the Workers and Peasants Democracy of Japan (North Japan) is still a bastion of hardline communism and hostile towards the Kingdom of Japan (South Japan).

But that's assuming the U.S. used the bomb by September 1945, when the Soviets invaded Hokkaido. And come on, Nuclear bombs in 1945? That's almost ASB.
 
If they used it on Germany, the target wou've been Berlin. If they used it on Japan, probably Tokio or Kyoto. I imagine the U.S. would be demonized after this, dropping a Nuclear Bomb on a city, that's just crazy. Truman would probably have been seen as a monster for sure. Forget losing to Dewey in 1948, the guy would probably have been impeached. But it could have ended the War earlier. Stopped the Invasion of Japan perhaps. Maybe the war ended in early 1946.

We were working on an atomic bomb. We actually had a list of potential targets in each country. Interestingly, Secretary of War Stimson ordered Kyoto to be removed from the list because he and his wife went there for their honeymoon. I think they declassified some of that information in the 1990s.

The atomic bomb was never successfully invented because it's just too hard to make it work. You need rare elements like uranium, and you have to make the hemispheres just right or you end up with a regular bomb that throws some uranium over a small area.

Those things sound nasty, although there's some debate over what the effects would look like. Some say it's just a really big bomb, but the majority opinion is that it would have much worse human effects that the equivalent amount of conventional ordnance. I hope we never find out.
 
Another side-effect would probably be less usage of chemical weapons as well as the Israelis broke out gas during the Yom Kippur War (sources differ on whether the Israeli High Command authorized said gas attack or it was an ad hoc action by local commanders) and India and Pakistan infamously used chemical weapons on one another during the Kargil War.

OOC: No nukes probably means that chemical weapons are more common ITTL.
 

Deleted member 92121

I think about how bad events like the Sino-Soviet war and the French Indochina war would've been if there were nuclear weapons around. I mean, if the U.S. did develop one and used it by WW2, then the Soviets would make one soon after. And probably other powers like Britain and France. That would mean no Chinese forces in Mongolia and later Siberia in the 1970's. No Saigon Revolution. THe powers with nuclear bombs would threaten the one without and there probably would've been some pretty common use of nukes.

Thinking about the effects of nuclear meltdowns, i only imagine what the radiation of bombs would do.
 
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