Nuke Mt. Fuji

[jack_donaghy_is_the_shado]

This is something I'm considering for a lengthy AH. FDR dies as in otl, but Truman nor Wallace, etc. are veep, instead, someone else is. This president is agonizing over whether or not to drop the bomb. When decides to, he at 1st selects a demonstration, in a sparsely populated place but that is within seeing distance of the edge of Tokyo. Most cities and bases in Japan had been razed repeatedly, so I thought about having Fat Man dropped on a volcano.

Mt. Fuji, I believe, is dormant or dead, but would a direct hit by the A-bomb cause the volcano to erupt? Also, what about Mt. Mihara, a volcano that is still active today in Tokyo Bay.

Obviously the 2nd one would deadly, but what of the damage from a nuked Mt. Fuji?

 

[Wolfpaw]

Destroying Mt. Fuji would probably only serve to further infuriate the Japanese as their holy mountain has just been destroyed by their mortal enemies. Even after Japan falls you're going to have millions of Shintoists filled with anti-American hatred.

Nuking Mt. Fuji and its effect on the vast majority of Japanese would be akin to the reaction one would see from the Classical Greeks had Mt. Olympus been destroyed, or Muslim/Jewish/Catholic reactions to the destruction of Mecca/Jerusalem/Rome.

 

[Cuāuhtemōc]

Destroying Mt. Fuji would probably only serve to further infuriate the Japanese as their holy mountain has just been destroyed by their mortal enemies. Even after Japan falls you're going to have millions of Shintoists filled with anti-American hatred.

Nuking Mt. Fuji and its effect on the vast majority of Japanese would be akin to the reaction one would see from the Classical Greeks had Mt. Olympus been destroyed, or Muslim/Jewish/Catholic reactions to the destruction of Mecca/Jerusalem/Rome.

You're going to see millions of Shinto hate the U.S.A for destroying their holy mountain

 

[jack_donaghy_is_the_shado]

I understand that, but what about physical damage?

 

[BlackWave]

I'm not sure an A-bomb strike would do anything than blow a chunk of the peak off--mountains are big things, after all--neither do I think any US president would want to complicate an occupation by desecrating a holy site, as others have said.

 

[Commissar]

I'm not sure an A-bomb strike would do anything than blow a chunk of the peak off--mountains are big things, after all--neither do I think any US president would want to complicate an occupation by desecrating a holy site, as others have said.

It also the reason why Kyoto was off limits to Bombing and the Imperial Palace, though the latter got bombed anyway.

 

[Don Lardo]

Why do we keep seeing threads like this? Aren't most schools back in session by now? Anyway...

A nuclear airburst isn't going to "kick start" a volcano, especially the 15 to 20 kilotons produced by both the US bombs used in the war. Even if you managed to bury such a relatively small device in a volcano, you're not going to "waken" it. Volcanos don't work that way.

As for the "damage" an airbrust would inflict on a 12,000 foot mountain, it wouldn't even be noticed.

 

[HMS Warspite]

Physically you cannot force a volcano, not even an active one, by bombing it from outside it. An internal explossion of serious power however can possibly do so, but no weapon of such size does exist yet, as is is simply beyond human technological power yet to does so. (Any volcanic eruption extends normally more power than the most powerfull atomic bomb can deliver. Only a significantly larger explosion, perhaps with antimatter, can do the job.)

For a volcano to erupt you need a filled magmachamber below it. If this is not pressent in a filled state, there will not be an eruption. If there is a partially filled magmachamber, this can be forced to erupt, if it is filled beyond the crittical point and by a force larger than any known human weapon. You need to put on enough presure on the chamber to make it erupt, meaning you can put force of signifficant size to lower the surface of the Earths crust, near the magmachamber, or you can try to make an underground explossion below the chamber, which is impractical, as it is located normally several miles deep in the Earth.

 

[elkarlo]

Destroying Mt. Fuji would probably only serve to further infuriate the Japanese as their holy mountain has just been destroyed by their mortal enemies. Even after Japan falls you're going to have millions of Shintoists filled with anti-American hatred.

Nuking Mt. Fuji and its effect on the vast majority of Japanese would be akin to the reaction one would see from the Classical Greeks had Mt. Olympus been destroyed, or Muslim/Jewish/Catholic reactions to the destruction of Mecca/Jerusalem/Rome.

I live in Japan now. Let me ask some people and see if I could get a Japanese response. I don't think the Japanese put as much stock into holy sites as other people do. Shinto is also a funny and super hard to understand religion.