What if thread #1: What if the US had used the Bomb in Europe during WW2?

[chequita guevara]

For the same reason that the Japanese seem to care more about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagsaki rather than the firebombings of Tokyo, Yokihama, etc. There's something about the atomic bomb that makes people irrational.

[molly bloom]

You might want to try this book:

Downing, David. The Moscow Option: An Alternative Second World War.
Divergence: 1941 CE
What if: An August 1941 plane crash left Hitler lying in a coma and Göring in charge of the Third Reich for six months.
Synopsis: Left to its own devices the Wehrmacht took Moscow in October 1941. Also, details on Pearl Harbor, Malta, Cairo, Midway, Panama and Jerusalem.

Published: New English Library 1979 (0450039463); St. Martin's 1980 (0312548915); and rev. Greenhill 2001 (185367463X).
Bookstore: Listed by Amazon.com in hardback

As far as I can recall, Stuttgart and Nurnberg get a-bombed, and there is an S.S./Wehrmacht civil war in the last throes of the conflict.

Courtesy this excellent site:

http://www.uchronia.net/

[JohnT]

Thanks, molly bloom. Uchronia is an excellent site and I have referenced it in a number of the science fiction threads.

Sava, GePap, come up with your own scenarios that would come up with the possibility of Dresden getting bombed after the two Japanese cities if you find mine lacking... I don't care. Just answer the bleedin' question.

[Q Classic]

oh, we're forgetting one big thing.

if dresden was nuked, we'd never have been able to read any of kurt vonnegut's books...

no sirens of titan, no slaughterhouse five, no timequake, no cat's cradle...

[JohnT]

I suspect that one of the long-term changes is that Europe would be much more solidly Green.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
oh, we're forgetting one big thing.

if dresden was nuked, we'd never have been able to read any of kurt vonnegut's books...

no sirens of titan, no slaughterhouse five, no timequake, no cat's cradle...

See? Not all the changes would be negative!

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'm not sure much would be different. I suspect Europe would be MUCH more skeptical of nuclear power, and France wouldn't be basically run on nuclear power today. I believe this might make environmental movements may be stronger in Europe, but their main issue would be preventing the spread of nuclear power plants instead of fossil fuel emissions (thought that'd still be strong).

[DAVOUT]

Japan was not dissuaded by two bombs to start a program of civil nuclear electricity.

[Atahualpa]

From the usage of the words "us we them you" I guess you are taking these matters much too personal

It wasnt you who dropped the bomb, actually. It wasnt your people. It was a commander of the united states army, not you or they or we.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, but Japan is different . I could imagine that the Green movement, that is already big in Europe, could be much, much bigger. They've already taken out nuclear power in Germany.

[:) Smiley]

If not just one nation but two had been nuked, then nuclear weapons may have become used more often later on.

The fact that the Allies beat Germany without the Bomb showed that it could be done without the Bomb. That they used the Bomb on Japan suggested that without the Bomb things would have been difficult.

Had both fronts been won with the Bomb though, it is likely that any post WWII war would have involved it as well.

[Proteus_MST]

Dunno, Smiley.

After all you would have more Pictures of burned, suffering People and Pictures of a City, destroyed by a Nuclear Bomb.
And this time it would not be just a bunch of strange small yellow coloured people with slitted eyes, but people who look much like the ordinary american and which many americans problably could have familial ties to one of those victims.

So I´d think Public Opinion would also in America shift against the use of Nuclear Weapons. And I think Public Opinion doesn seem to play a certain role in warfare (thinking of Vietnam, where AFAIK Public Opinion seemed to be involved in the US Troops retreating from Vietnam).

[CerberusIV]

A few comments first.

Some of the uranium oxide reprocessed for the US A-bombs came from a surrendered U-boat that was on its way to Japan. Without that, there would have been a delay of several months in producing a second, let alone a third, operational bomb.

The A-bombs were not needed to militarily defeat Germany or Japan. They were used against Japan partly to avoid the casualties of an invasion and partly to send a message to the Soviets about who was going to run the world after the end of WWII.

The division of Germany was agreed at the Yalta conference. US and British troops could have crossed the Elbe and possibly even beaten the Soviets to Berlin but the political decision not to was already taken. It probably wasn't in US/UK interests to make it easier for the Soviets to finish off German resistance.

As for the actual question, the likely answer IMO is that europeans are a stubborn and awkward bunch and, once the USSR also had the bomb and MAD was born, limiting further use, resentment against US use of such a weapon in Europe would have significantly strengthened communist sympathies in several european countries and could possibly have led to communist led governments in Italy and France.

Forward basing of US nuclear weapons in Europe, an essential part of the US cold war strategy would also have been even more politically contentious in Europe than it has been. It could have led to the fall of several governments in Germany and the UK that supported US basing of conventional and nuclear forces.

[Panag]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Yeah, but Japan is different . I could imagine that the Green movement, that is already big in Europe, could be much, much bigger. They've already taken out nuclear power in Germany.

hi ,

and in the next elections they shall reuse them , ....

there is huge browncoal plant ( the biggest in w europe ) on the road from liege to cologne , .... man , you should see that pollution , .....

park your car 5 miles away and you can write your name in the dust after 10 minutes , ..... *cough*

*cough*

have a nice day