WI Japan got the Bomb?

CalBear

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OTL Japan was busy trying to bulid a death-ray.(no joke)But if Japan threw all it's resources into making A-Bomb. From about 1939 onwards, they could have a A-bomb by...oh about 1948.So the manhattan project,woud need to be butterflied away in order for a Japanise A-bomb to make any difference. And Japan would need to hold the US navy at bay.

The death ray actually had promise. All they needed as an unlimited source of electrical power and they...

Oh Yea, we still haven't figured that part out today.

Oh Well.

Guess it was as ASB as them having a NUCLEAR WEAPON.
 
They were in the planning stages then. The head of the program was a Japanese physics professor. The reason the claims of working bomb can't be
substantiated is because the program's records were destroyed in the American firebombing of Tokyo.

Ok--now I'm confused.

Is this thread just a rehash of what Japan can or can't have have had in its A-bomb program or a WI about Japan somehow managing to get their hands on one?

Re: the first--I believe that question has already been answered by many people on this thread.

Re: the second --OK--assume through ASB intervention or unbelievably lucky breaks by the Japanese they manage to get a nuke in the last few weeks of the war (bear in mind that the US spent nearly 2 billion in 1945 dollars, were NOT having their cities bombed on a regular basis, employed over 150,000 people and were only able to produce 5 bombs by Aug 1945). So what? They have ONE very primitive nuke and no way to deliver it. About the only thing it's good for is as a very large and expensive landmine when the Americans invade the mainland or as a large and expensive improvised torpedo if a bunch of Allied ships show up off the coast.

Result? The Allies go 'WTF' and decide that Japan REALLY needs to be destroyed and drop a few extra nukes on Japan just on general principles.
 

CalBear

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I know that. Take the cotton out of your ears and listen. The Japanese CLAIMED TO HAVE DEVELOPED A NUCLEAR DEVICE, as I said before, it's unsubstantiated. The Japanese CLAIMED TO HAVE DEVELOPED FISSILE MATERIAL, that claim is unsubstantiated. The JAPANESE CLAIMED to have built the conventional portion of the bomb, that claim, which is the same claim, was unsubstantiated. The Japanese CLAIMED TO HAVE EXPLODED the
nuclear bomb. As I said before, the claim is unsubstantiated. A German U-boat was transporting two Japanese officers and a cargo of uranium oxide to
Japan. Three days out, the U-boat was depth charged to the surface by the
Coast Guard. The German crew was captured. The Japanese officers committed suicide and the uranium oxide was captured and used in Little Boy. It's a fact. Scientists in Germany and at Kyoto University were working on it together. Go to Wikipedia if you don't believe me.


No, the HISTORY CHANNEL, in one of it's many, many, many half assed conjecture programs pretending to be documentries threw the idea at a wall, seeing how much, if any, would stick.

The claim isn't unsubstantiated, it's total BS. Only someone with ZERO understanding the effort, materials and resources required to create a nuclear device AND with ZERO knowlege of the Japanese situation regarding supply beginning in mid-1944 would give it the slightest consideration.

The Japanese, Germans, Italians, Soviets (and for all I know Brazilians) had a program in addition the the Canadian/UK/US Manhattan effort. Except for the Soviet program, which succeeded thanks to some excellent NKVD/GRU agent penetrations of Manhattan, ever bore fruit. The Japanese program was actually better off than the German program, which had made a basic error and was chasing the wrong rabbit, but it was so far from success that, even had Japan not been defeated in summer of '45, it would not have produced a working weapon until the USN had Polaris SSBM.

Next?
 

CalBear

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Ok--now I'm confused.

Is this thread just a rehash of what Japan can or can't have have had in its A-bomb program or a WI about Japan somehow managing to get their hands on one?

Re: the first--I believe that question has already been answered by many people on this thread.

Re: the second --OK--assume through ASB intervention or unbelievably lucky breaks by the Japanese they manage to get a nuke in the last few weeks of the war (bear in mind that the US spent nearly 2 billion in 1945 dollars, were NOT having their cities bombed on a regular basis, employed over 150,000 people and were only able to produce 5 bombs by Aug 1945). So what? They have ONE very primitive nuke and no way to deliver it. About the only thing it's good for is as a very large and expensive landmine when the Americans invade the mainland or as a large and expensive improvised torpedo if a bunch of Allied ships show up off the coast.

Result? The Allies go 'WTF' and decide that Japan REALLY needs to be destroyed and drop a few extra nukes on Japan just on general principles.

Or back off and simply starve the entire poulation to death with blockade and round the clock firebombings.
 

bard32

Banned
The death ray actually had promise. All they needed as an unlimited source of electrical power and they...

Oh Yea, we still haven't figured that part out today.

Oh Well.

Guess it was as ASB as them having a NUCLEAR WEAPON.

First of all, I never said Japan had NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it CLAIMED TO
HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I also said that the claim was unproven because of the American firebombing of Tokyo. Once again, JAPAN CLAIMED TO HAVE EXPLODED A NUCLEAR BOMB ON AN ISLAND OFF THE COAST OF NORTH KOREA. THAT CLAIM WAS, AND STILL IS, UNSUBSTANTIATED. I never said that Japan HAD a nuclear weapon. I said Japan CLAIMED IT HAD A NUCLEAR WEAPON. The uranium oxide was on German U-boat that was captured off
the coast of New Hampshire by the Coast Guard. The German crew was captured. The two Japanese officers on board committed suicide. The uranium oxide was captured and sent to Los Alamos.
 
First of all, I never said Japan had NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it CLAIMED TO
HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I also said that the claim was unproven because of the American firebombing of Tokyo. Once again, JAPAN CLAIMED TO HAVE EXPLODED A NUCLEAR BOMB ON AN ISLAND OFF THE COAST OF NORTH KOREA. THAT CLAIM WAS, AND STILL IS, UNSUBSTANTIATED. I never said that Japan HAD a nuclear weapon. I said Japan CLAIMED IT HAD A NUCLEAR WEAPON. The uranium oxide was on German U-boat that was captured off
the coast of New Hampshire by the Coast Guard. The German crew was captured. The two Japanese officers on board committed suicide. The uranium oxide was captured and sent to Los Alamos.

What are you trying to prove then? People have said that it's pretty much ASB for Japan to actually get a bomb before the end of the war, and if they did, they can't really use it.
 
Bard--I say again--WHAT exactly are you asking from us?

WI Japan got the bomb?

Ok--here's the answer:

A) Virtually ASB for Japan to get the bomb
B) Even if they DID get the bomb, they have no way to deliver it.
C) At BEST--the bomb is used as a glorified mine and takes out a few tens of thousand allied sailors/soldiers
D) In that scenario--one of two things happen.
i) US drops FOUR nukes on Japan instead of two; and/or
ii) US backs off and starves the country to death with more blockades and firebombing
 
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