Japan doesn't surrender what happens on the mainland
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Once the emperor said "surrender" the vast, overwhelming majority of Japanese forces laid down their arms and cooperated fully. Until that happens, you can expect the Japanese forces where ever to fight to the last man, destroying infrastructure and taking as many "enemy" with them as possible. This means a whole lot more damage and a lot more deaths.
Either more nukes, or if they aren't developed fast enough, Operation Downfall takes place and Japan is partitioned. A longer war with Japan benefits the Chinese Communist Party against the Nationalists/Kuomintang. When the USSR liberated Manchuria/North China, they reverted control to the CCP rather than the KMT. If the Soviets are able to expand further than OTL, the CCP probably controls more land by the time the Chinese Civil War resumes.
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The Japanese people still have to face the Chinese military not to mention the Soviet military in China. The Japanese ship the vast majority of their supplies, artillery and automatic weapons back to Japan to defend against invasion.
The Japanese Army on mainland Asia is in a bad situation they will probably collapse before resistance in Japan does.
The Japanese Army on mainland Asia is in a bad situation they will probably collapse before resistance in Japan does.
Could the Japanese send any siginificant number of soldiers and/or equipment back to Japan? The Allies had almost complete air supremacy; allied submarines wreaked havoc among Japanese merchant fleet and troop ships; when the Soviets take whole Korea (and they most probably will), there will be no connection between Japan and Japanese army in mainland Asia.
The Japanese forces in China will be sandwiched between Chinese and Soviet armies. They will fight to the last, but Soviet technological and tactical superiority and Chinese numbers will be decisive factors.
Meanwhile the Allies will bomb Japan back to the stone age or even to jurassic period with nukes, incendiary bombs etc. After that they will launch Operation Downfall and finish the job. It will be bloody (especially for the Japanese) but the Allies will do it. If necessary they can easily equip and train a few Chinese divisions and use them on Japanese soil - although I doubt they will do it because they will fear that their soldiers will have problems with telling apart the Chinese and the Japanese. And the Japanese might be able to infiltrate allied lines by pretending to be Chinese.
The Soviets might try to occupy Hokkaido, although it is still debatable whether they would be able to do it. They might convince western allies to grant them know-how and some equipment for sea landing and transport and they would almost certainly start their attack after operation Downfall. The situation in mainland Asia will heavily influence Soviet ability to do so.
Not sure if the US had a 3rd (or 4th...) nuke to drop, any time soon. But either that or more conventional bombing, combined with the USN/RN blockade, would throw Japan into the middle ages and would starve the survivors within a few months.
If I recall right, the U.S. initially expected to be able to field about three nukes per month from August onward, starting with the two that were used, obviously.
Historically Japan took the decision to surrender "prematurely" enough that one military faction tried to seize power in a coup in order to continue the fight, so I don't think it's crazy to think they delay the surrender for a brief period of time. However, it seems impossible that the regime could continue in the face of multiple further nuclear strikes. Downfall wasn't going to go ahead until November at the latest, so that's, what, about 10 nuclear strikes. I have to think it would be over by then, but maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part.
Next one was already on it's way to Tintian and was likely to have been used in late August - 19th-23rd.
12 more were in the pipeline for September and October, with production expected to be around one a week.
I stand corrected.
In any event, whether it's three a month or six a month, I just can't see the war continuing very long.
Yes, I have to think that once the power of nuclear weapons becomes obvious, the U.S. government would be tempted to just keep using them until Japan surrenders, burning one city after another after another, rather than lose potentially hundreds of thousands or even millions of Allied casualties in pursuit of a done deal. Meanwhile the Japanese presence in Asia will simply be caved in.
This is a very gruesome scenario for the last few months of 1945 but again is why I just cannot see Japan refusing to surrender for long.
Once Japan is invaded supplies & resources become very scarce on mainland Asia. The military strolling Japan will have to make a choice, support the army in China or support their forces in Japan.
Seeing as how the lives of the Japanese high command depend on supporting the troops in Japan the choice are rather obvious one.
Seeing as how the lives of the Japanese high command depend on supporting the troops in Japan the choice are rather obvious one.
The USN/RN had a near complete lockdown around Japan. There's no way any supplies or reinforcements would arrive anywhere. Not that Japan had anything to send, by this poing...
Is it really true? I mean it’s one thing not to surrender overseas when you still have your home islands to go back and most of its population safe (minus some few millions who got firebombed, still a minority ), but when the American regularly use herbicides on your rice field, when every men and boys above 14 gets drafted, when dozen of millions are homeless and starving and each night you are never sure to wake up without having been nuked in your sleep, all of this surely would take its toll on many of the conscripted forces, even if some of the more fanatical one would stay.
What were some of exemples of isolated Japanese surrender in Summer 45 before the surrender?
Don't need atomic weapons for a ghastly result. No Downfall simply means the US sits back and waits for Japan to starve. Downfall carried out as planned (including widespread use of chemical warefare) would have been far worse and more gruesome - I could easily see a 50% civilian fatality rate...
Yep.
Indeed. There were already signs of resistance among the civilian population in summer of 1945. The myth of the mindlessly fanatical Japan that was willing to die to the last man is pretty damned racist...
Granted but the point is, while it would not surprise me if the regime decided to see if it could weather the storm after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I still do not see that the Japanese regime can hold out far long after that. With no capacity for striking back, how long can even an extremely fascist regime simply watch helplessly while the enemy kills its people before an end comes, one way or another?
Ah, that's my area. To summarise, yes they did.
The historical production rates were (and I refer to the Hull-Seaman memorandum of AUG1945 with some amendments from the Groves memorandum of 30JUL1945)
- one MK3 (the Gadget) for the Trinity test in July.
- one MK1 ('Little Boy') ready by the end of July (this contained ~64kg of HEU)
- a second MK 3 ('Fat Man') by 19AUG1945
- a third MK 3 by 01SEP1945 (this would be the bomb based on 'Demon Core' that caused two radiological accidents post-war and wasn't actually used in a bomb detonation)
- three more MK 3 bombs (mix of MOD0 and MOD1[2] configurations) by 30SEP1945
- three or four additional MK 3 weapons in OCT1945
- an additional MK 3 every ten days for the remainder of the year
- an additional MK 1 available before the end of 1945
- More advanced MK3 MODs are developed, with better electronics, lens assemblies and higher yield.
- The fissile uranium stockpile is reprocessed into implosion cores, either pure HEU or composite
- Assembly line production of atomic weapons
- The development of an equivalent to the historical MK4 design
[1] "We could, if it were wise, change our plans and develop the combination bomb."
[2] Groves was unenthusiastic about switching to the MOD1 design, despite the increased explosive yield
Dates are off from what actually happened, obviously with Fat Man having been used on the 9th and the so called demon core supposed to be ready by the 19th.
Nuclear Secrecy, as usual, has the good stuff on it:
http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/08/16/the-third-cores-revenge/
(The notation on the Los Alamos document that the Trinity and Fat Man cores were "non-usable", having been detonated, is kind of amusing.)
Might be interesting to see a TL in which Japan's surrender was delayed - say Hatanaka was more sucessful and managed to actually take and hold on to the palace for a few days - and the demon core was employed on the 19th as intended. Especially if the demon core malfunctions in some fashion...
I would suggest reading Decisive Darkness by @The Red for a good account of what might have happened.