WI no atomic bombing of Japan

[chornedsnorkack]

It is very unlikely they surrender over a mere Soviet attack on Manchuria alone. That by itself is no threat to the main islands. It would take the Soviets months to invade, it had no navy to speak of.

Um. Soviet Navy DID land in Kuriles AND North Korea from 18th of August. And had plans to land on Hokkaido as well.

Suppose Japan had kept fighting. USA was not planning to land on Southern Kyushu till beginning of November 1945. And Soviets would have been on Hokkaido ever since August. Where would Soviets have been by November?

 

[usertron2020]

At Hiroshima I believe that a seventh of those who died were Korean slave laborers. (1) Did any of those at Hiroshima survive to be freed? (2) Is there any chance they would even survive the month without the end of the war? (3) And on a more butterflying note, what of all those from the nuked city who got shunned for fear of being tainted? (4) Might people from those cities have ended up making great strides in one way or another by being from some of the only cities not burned to the ground? (5)

1) One seventh? 17,000 Koreans out of a total of (approx.) 105,000 deaths? The population of the city was 330,000. There were 55-60,000 Koreans in the city?

2) Why not?

3) Why not?

4)

5) Was this the case with Kyoto, Japan's one remaining pristine city?

Um. Soviet Navy DID land in Kuriles AND North Korea from 18th of August. And had plans to land on Hokkaido as well.

Suppose Japan had kept fighting. USA was not planning to land on Southern Kyushu till beginning of November 1945. And Soviets would have been on Hokkaido ever since August. Where would Soviets have been by November?

It seems to be the consensus on AH.com that the Soviets could have picked daisies all but unmolested clear up to the Tokyo city limits. I know I'm in the minority here, maybe even an out-and-out heretic for saying this, but it strikes me that on AH.com the Myth of the Ten Foot Tall Ivan Ivanovich is very deeply ingrained. Once Ivan (post-Barbarossa) is properly armed and equipped, that is.

The response I usually get on this is "OF COURSE NOT!" But usually people are not willing to give even a rough approximation at where the Soviets might even be slowed down (other than jumping from Hokkaido to Honshu), while being more than happy enough to give the most exhaustive studies over why the Allies cannot do anything to move up their own timetables and show why the Japanese can do nothing-nothing-nothing to readjust their defenses around towards the Soviets by one whit.

 

[John Farson]

I remember a late 1980s graphic novel mini-series where through a series of multiple assassinations (taken place over a period of a year) a military coup took place led by junior officers of the US Army. They declared that following the blowing up of the White House (by the coup plotters, and for the 2nd or 3rd time in the series IIRC) they were "forced" to declare a state of national emergency (under whose authority!?) until "the situation could be stabilized".

Whereupon the coup leader was told by his minions that New England had just seceded from the Union to form its own country. As the coup leader (a colonel!) is watching the electronic display map of the USA, as he quickly watches the South secede and re-form the Confederacy (NOT THAT Confederacy), the NW USA secedes and applies to Canada for protection, California secedes into a Anglo-Hispanic nation state, as does Texas, and New York City declares itself an independent City-State.

The beautiful part of the story is one of the face of the colonel, a career intelligence agent and assassin, desperately trying to think "Now, who can I assassinate to fix all this!?" Moral of the Story? Don't break something you can't fix. I can well imagine things going the same way had the Japanese coup-plotters "succeeded". Rover caught the car. NOW WHAT!?

Hey, I think I know what graphic novel you're talking about: Give Me Liberty, by Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons. In the story, the colonel in question is named Stanford Moretti, and he rises to the position of National Security Advisor after becoming a war hero in the Amazon War (due to him stealing the credit for all the missions Martha Washington, the heroine, performed there). From there he plots his takeover, manipulating the alcoholic POTUS into ordering an orbital attack on the Apache Nation, a rebel group of Indians, which results in the genocide of the Apaches. Then he murders the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and stages it to look like a suicide, with the dead Chairman holding the President's order to attack the Apaches, with the POTUS' signature. The resulting outcry leads to the masses attacking the White House while Congress launches Impeachment proceedings against the President, but before that can happen Moretti and the President's entire cabinet assassinate him, Julius Caesar-style. Then Moretti blows up the White House, along with his fellow conspirators (Rewarded As A Traitor Deserves) and then declares a state of emergency and announces that he's "temporarily assuming executive control" or something like that until "new elections can be held." Which is then promptly followed by the US breaking apart:

Texas is the Lone Star Republic (of course) and Florida is about to be annexed by Cuba... for some reason. And Frank Miller seems to have forgotten Alaska and Hawaii, since they're not mentioned at all.

The scene with Moretti's face is indeed gold, but another that I like just as much is this senior African-American general in the same scene refusing to comply with Moretti's orders, telling him "You're no President, son. And just between you and me... you'll never even make general." To which Moretti promptly responds by punching the general in the face, cuz he can't think of any other response.

Herein ends the derailment.