Nuclear weapons
- Thread starter Strathos
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They would have to outweigh the harm of a continued fire bombing campaign against Japanese cities and the pending invasion of the Japanese home islands to be the worse option.
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What makes you think I don’t know about any of those things? All bombs have radiation; as far as long term effects, just weeks after the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, US military personal were in the city to inspect the damage the bombs caused and they were not wearing protective suites.
Would clean nuclear bombs with less radiation be acceptable to you? Or do you just have a problem with the blast? If just the blast, how is that different than an equal blast from conventional weapons?
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Actually, the DoD rejected the "neutron bomb" as a useful battlefield weapon. The military problem was that it would still take days or weeks for the enemy forces to actually die--and maybe not at all if they happened to be underground rather than fully exposed or only lightly shielded. And that attack would then likely set off each country's strategic nuclear Major Attack Option without having served sufficient purpose at the tactical level. It was deemed not militarily useful and is not in the arsenal.
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Yes, it does. The difference between the 1,000-plane B-17 raids staged for years over Europe compared to the single B-29 that dropped one bomb over Hiroshima is considerable.
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Considering today's technology that would not use B-29's to deliver the warheads, how is it different?
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All bombs emit heat and light that dissipate within moments. But not ionizing radiation.
The effects of radiation were poorly known at the time. A good many of those troops later died of cancer.
Equivalent conventional destruction, even today, would require a massive military undertaking that would take literally days to weeks to accomplish. A lot of diplomacy can occur in that time.
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o_mlly
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Not according to published reports. The DoD wanted and got 700 such weapons in 1981 under Reagan. However, political blow-back from NATO allies -- "not in our backyard" -- canceled deployment.
Neutron Bomb / Enhanced Radiation Weapons
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan ordered 700 neutron warheads built to oppose Soviet tank forces in Europe. ... But deployment to the North Atlantic alliance was canceled after a storm of antinuclear protests across Europe. President George Bush ordered the stockpile scrapped.
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From your link:
To be sure, the manufacturers lobbied Congress extremely hard for decades to produce the weapon, and the Reagan Administration--as was its nature--signed the contracts. But you'll notice in your link that there is precocious little mention of the uniformed military stating prospective uses for it. Where is the military's argument for it? There is none. But I was there then, in the Pentagon during the Reagan administration, and I heard the Army's arguments against it.
The eventual order of 700 warheads (which is, frankly, a "test" amount) was never completed and it was never deployed. The very next president ordered it scrapped, which would not have happened so quickly if the military actually had a role for it.
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o_mlly
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I think not:
On 24 June, Post readers learned that "The Pentagon is proceeding in great secrecy to produce neutron 'killer' shells for its nuclear artillery forces in Europe." On 25 June, the Post headlined an article: "Pentagon Wanted Secrecy on Neutron Bomb Production." In a follow-up article on 01 July, the Post, following a lead from the Pentagon, now referred to the warhead as an "enhanced radiation weapon" and quoted freely from an Army publication to graphically describe how radiation kills. ...
In effect, there followed a complete halt to the ER warhead development for one year. Regardless of the problems and frustrations this stoppage caused both the Departments of Defense and Energy ... President Carter's three principal foreign- policy advisers — Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski — all urged production. ...
In effect, there followed a complete halt to the ER warhead development for one year. Regardless of the problems and frustrations this stoppage caused both the Departments of Defense and Energy ... President Carter's three principal foreign- policy advisers — Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski — all urged production. ...
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Did you notice I said "uniformed military?" You keep pointing to politicians. Do you have a report of any generals speaking before Congress for the neutron warhead?
This would not at all be the first time weapons that the generals never asked for were foisted on the military for the sake of the manufacturers' profits.
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o_mlly
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I keep pointing to published articles. The publishing of classified documents is illegal. Do you have any reports on generals at the time disagreeing with the use of tactical nukes?
The reports we do have suggests that the generals who testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee tacitly agreed to move forward with the decision to produce:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...s-looms/7438c1a9-a222-4b62-a5dd-16adfccd38ae/
Meanwhile, the Senate Armed Services Committee, hearing of the internal dispute, wrote language in its report on the bill authorizing nuclear weapons production calling for production of the neutron cores along with the low-yield weapons.
The possibility that the decision on neutron core production might be classified was raised at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee Monday where DOE officials were outlining the production options.
Hatfield, a subcommittee member said later such a step would make public debate on the issue impossible. He reportedly has written the president for a clarification of the situation.
In the book, "Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO", the editors note:
As Major General William Burns notes in his introduction to this volume, the history of the Cold War is a nuclear history, centered around each side’s efforts to convince the other of a readiness for a war that neither wanted. Tactical nuclear weapons were crucial to this effort, because they were the link between conventional war in Europe and a central nuclear exchange between the superpowers.
"My experience coincides roughly with the history of NATO. I took my first oath under the Constitution—as an ROTC cadet—when Harry Truman was President and General Dwight Eisenhower was the first Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Now in my 80th year, I can look back over the decades and see the evolution of the Alliance and its strategies. Principal among these strategies was the employment of nuclear weapons in defense of Europe. While strategists at high levels debated the 'should' and 'could' arguments, we at the battery and battalion levels of the U.S. Army and the squadron level of the U.S. Air Force were more interested in 'whether' and 'how.'"
The possibility that the decision on neutron core production might be classified was raised at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee Monday where DOE officials were outlining the production options.
Hatfield, a subcommittee member said later such a step would make public debate on the issue impossible. He reportedly has written the president for a clarification of the situation.
In the book, "Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO", the editors note:
As Major General William Burns notes in his introduction to this volume, the history of the Cold War is a nuclear history, centered around each side’s efforts to convince the other of a readiness for a war that neither wanted. Tactical nuclear weapons were crucial to this effort, because they were the link between conventional war in Europe and a central nuclear exchange between the superpowers.
"My experience coincides roughly with the history of NATO. I took my first oath under the Constitution—as an ROTC cadet—when Harry Truman was President and General Dwight Eisenhower was the first Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Now in my 80th year, I can look back over the decades and see the evolution of the Alliance and its strategies. Principal among these strategies was the employment of nuclear weapons in defense of Europe. While strategists at high levels debated the 'should' and 'could' arguments, we at the battery and battalion levels of the U.S. Army and the squadron level of the U.S. Air Force were more interested in 'whether' and 'how.'"
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Zoii
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Are you honestly telling everyone there you don't see a problem with a nuclear, nor a problem with the tests done in Pacific waters, nor the radiation dispersed flowing US atomic attacks on those civilian cities. That being the case then your attitude and others similar to yours is why the world is under threat from nations such as yours
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When the USA used the MOAB in Afghanistan, that was considered the most powerful conventional bomb blast ever used in war. There are some bigger, but they haven’t been used in war. With a blast yield of 11 tons of TNT it would take around 1000 of them to equal what was dropped on Hiroshima. I doubt it would take days or even weeks for the US military to deliver 1000 bombs, however assuming it does; is this your objection to use of Nuclear weapons over conventional weapons? That it is easier to kill people? Conventional bombs make it easier to kill than guns; guns easier to kill than knives; I guess it all depends on where you draw the line.
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The MOAB was not 11 tons of TNT. The MOAB is an air-burst anti-personnel weapon designed for military forces out in the open or only lightly sheltered. It's considered mostly a weapon of intimidation.
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The 'Mother of All Bombs' (MOAB) has been dropped on Afghanistan. Here's what it does (and doesn't) mean
GBU-43/B MOAB - Wikipedia.
These sources suggest that it is 11 tons of TNT
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Clearly you didn't actually read the entire article if you think it would replace a nuclear weapon.
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No I wasn 't suggesting only that bomb to replace nuclear weapons, I was suggesting they have the technology to build a bunch of bombs with enough firepower to replace a nuclear weapon
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